Formula 1: The GOAT

“With that, ladies and gentlemen, the KF part of practice today comes to an end with a very interesting overall time table,” Martina said as the Group C karts drove back to the pit lane, having completed their third and final free practice of the day. This gave all of the drivers a total of forty-five minutes on the track in stints of ten, fifteen, and twenty minutes.

It was designed specifically to allow for those who had their first drive in free practice to have a gradual acclimation to the track. Should they make mistakes in their first session, they wouldn’t lose too much time and be at a disadvantage in the following sessions. Although it was a competition for these kids, it was still a learning phase, and the competition needed to allow for mistakes to happen and the opportunity to recover from them, retaining the spirit of karting.

“Although the overall top ten kept constantly changing between each session, a few drivers were constants in the list, and a few have shown consistent improvement in rising to the top across sessions.

The biggest surprise of them all is Fatih, who, despite others constantly improving, has managed to maintain a top-four position in all three sessions, a slight fall from the co-lead he had in the first session. He seemed to have stagnated, peaking at the times he drove in the first session, but you have to keep in mind that this is his first international stint. The other surprise is Lando Norris, who has risen to put in a lap that put him in P5, just behind his teammate Fatih, with Enaam peaking at P9. Through this, they have shown that they are the team with the best average drivers for the day, and I can’t help but look forward to the performance they are going to show us tomorrow.

Then there is the Russian, Alexander Vartanyan, who kept delivering top performances. It seems like Fatih matching his lap time in the first free practice lit a fire under him, as he improved by more than five-tenths between the next two sessions.

As for our Italian, Tommaso Mosca, he too has shown an impressive drive, constantly challenging and vying for the top position. Depending on his performance tomorrow, a pole position from him will not be too much of a surprise. But even if that doesn’t happen, there are going to be four heats for each driver, and then there will be a pre-final. If he improves during them, he could start from pole position, but from the look of it, a front-row seat doesn’t look outrageous to expect,” Gianni said, giving a summary of the session and what he expected for tomorrow.

“But from the weather forecast, it looks like Saturday is going to start with rain, but Sunday is expected to be dry. Considering their karts will be in parc fermé conditions the moment they enter the track for qualifying, it poses a very important question: do you set up your kart for a wet qualifying and good performance in the heats, or do you set it for a dry setup to benefit from its pace on Sunday? You will have to suffer tomorrow, and in the worst-case scenario, you might even be eliminated and made ineligible to participate in the final and pre-final races if you fail to keep it on the track in the wet with a dry setup. But if you survived Saturday in that setup, on Sunday you are going to have blistering pace compared to those who went with a wet setup, but in return, they will have the grid position,” Martina said, verbalizing what was now in the minds of many teams as the drivers returned to the pit lane.

It was a dilemma of whether to have grid position or blistering pace in the final race. Depending on how the teams and drivers saw which of the two was more important, it was a very interesting dilemma for the neutral viewers and scouts as it placed the drivers in a very challenging position where their capabilities had a better chance of shining depending on how they performed.

…….

“I want to go with the dry setup we fine-tuned during the unofficial sessions,” Fatih said with a look that showed he was not going to budge from that decision, despite knowing the difficulty he would be facing. They had just finished debriefing and had started the discussion for tomorrow.

“Doing that will put you more than a second off pace compared to those who go with a full wet setup. That’s why we are suggesting a medium setup, so you don’t lose too much time in the wet and dry conditions. We expect a majority of them to have a medium setup,” Ricky said, looking at Fatih and trying to give him advice on the best setup.

“But that is why I will have an advantage when it comes to the final race, and that will give me a chance to go for the win. Based on the forecast, the rain will only be in the morning, which is when qualifying will be. By the later heats, the track would have already dried from the karts from different categories driving on it, so the medium setup will be out of contention. From there, I can use that to claw back the advantage I lost during the qualifying session and the first two heats, and have it continue all the way to the pre-final and the finals,” Fatih argued back, knowing the pace he was going to have if he went with a full dry setup that he had practiced for more than four hundred hours was going to be scary to anyone else on the track.

“But to benefit from that pace, you need to be in the top positions. In order to be there, you need to perform well in the qualifying and the first two heats, which will be difficult for you if you are on full dry conditions. And what’s to say the rain doesn’t persist for the whole day? You might find yourself having to enter repechage races if the situation becomes worse or if you have bad luck on the track during the heats. Plus, you don’t have any experience driving that setup on a wet surface, so you will be experiencing it for the first time during the qualifying session,” Ricky said, disagreeing with Fatih’s stubborn decision.

He understood that as a child, knowing that he had an option to win if he retained his fastest setup, controlling it on a wet track was going to be a nightmare since he didn’t have an opportunity to try it.

“I believe in myself to be able to control it. Plus, it is my first European session. If I’m going to start being conservative from the start, what benefit is there for me in participating in these races when I could have spent more time practicing for next year’s competition? These are races where I’m allowed to make mistakes, so even if I fail to qualify for the final races, it will be a lesson for me.

But if we go conservative from the start of my career, how will I know the limits of what I can do in situations like these?” Fatih argued, wanting to take the chance that gave him the opportunity to go for the win, not just a podium. Having already known about the possibility of rain, he had already started practicing on a wet track with his fastest setup for a week, and he was confident he wouldn’t lose too much ground in the qualifiers and the first two heats. The pace advantage in the remaining two heats, pre-finals, and finals was going to be enough for him to claw all of that back and gain even more.

As the back-and-forth disagreement between the two of them continued, Lando, Enaam, Max, the other young drivers, their coaches, and the technicians and mechanics just watched it happen. Both sides gave very good, convincing arguments. One wanted to take a gamble which, should it pan out well, could see Fatih go for the win, but if it failed, he would have a horrible international debut. The other wanted to take a more conservative route and go with a medium setup so that the lap times he would have in both wet and dry sessions would be about the same, allowing him to be competitive in all of them if others also went with the same neutral setup.

The surprise on their faces was a result of watching a ten-year-old give very compelling arguments for his position and not showing any intention of backing down unless his way was agreed to. It was not from arrogance but from his belief that was backed by reasoning. Yes, it was a gamble, but it was one that would give very good results if it worked, but it was a gamble nonetheless.

“Fine,” Ricky said after five minutes of back-and-forth with Fatih, giving up. But he added, “However, if it doesn’t work and you don’t finish in the top ten by the end of the final race, you are going to listen to our suggestions in the remaining two races. We are going to listen to your suggestions, but if it doesn’t match ours and we can’t reconcile the two, you will go with our suggestions then. Are we in agreement?”

“Yes,” Fatih said, looking Ricky straight in the face. Just as Ricky was about to move on, Fatih added, “But if I finish on the podium, my suggestions will take precedence unless a very good argument against it is provided.”

Ricky looked at Fatih for a moment, not with a face of anger but disbelief, before he said, “Fine, a podium and we will do that.” He then turned to the rest of the people on the table and said, “Anyone else want to take the same gamble?”

But no one went with that, as they all agreed that a medium setup was the best for the race weekend and had already decided to go with it.

Burak, who had been silent during this time, just patted Fatih on the back. As someone who had seen Fatih make what might sometimes be considered reckless decisions, like in his first season, remaining on slick tires when it started raining when everyone else pitted for wet tires, he knew Fatih always made it work within his capacity. As long as no one crashed into him, like what had happened in that race, the expected outcome of the gamble was always delivered, and sometimes with a bonus on top. Knowing that this week’s results would determine if his ideas took precedence, he decided to let Fatih be the one to bring up and argue about them to make sure that they considered Fatih’s words, not his, when it came to these ideas.