There’s a restaurant in Santa Monica that I have to pass in order to reach a bike shop I use. I can hardly bring myself to look at that restaurant. I don’t like to think of the last time I was in there.

It was January 2014 and I was in that restaurant having lunch: me, my physio Mikey Collier, Chrissy Buncombe, and a Japanese friend of ours, Yu. We were hanging out, enjoying each other’s company, oblivious to what lay just around the corner.

Mikey’s phone rang, he took the call and it was impossible not to notice the change that came over him. His face fell from relaxed and companionable to grave in the space of a second. Other conversation died and I leaned towards him, looking at him, like, What? What’s wrong?

“JB,” Mikey said, “it’s Richard on the phone. We need to talk outside. He has something to tell you.”

Mikey and I stepped out to the sidewalk where I leaned against a windowsill and he handed me the phone. “Jenson, I’m so sorry,” said Richard. “It’s about your dad.”

Richard and Dad had been out for dinner the night before. After their meal they stopped in for a nightcap at La Rascasse, a bar the mechanics love to visit during Grand Prix weekend.