Formula 1: The GOAT

“Why do you look like someone who has just come from the market?” Steve asked when Fatih and Burak returned to the tent after leaving the pit lane.

“Why?” Fatih asked as he picked up a water bottle from under the table.

“I mean, it is your first win on the international scene, so I thought you would at least be celebrating the win.”

“This is just one of the long recovery rounds I need to perform well in, and celebrating now would mean I believe this is the best I will be doing for the rest of the week. It risks setting the wrong mentality for the following sessions. I will celebrate once everything is complete,” he said before starting to drink water, as if what he had just said was something a child his age should have in his mind.

“…” Steve just looked at Fatih before turning to John, wanting to see if he had anything to counter that way of thinking.

“Though I agree, not celebrating small victories while in pursuit of a larger one might lead to you forgetting that you only won the large victory through the accumulation of small victories. So, celebrating them is something you shouldn’t hold yourself back from,” John said, having had enough time to think of a counterpoint.

Due to the maturity Fatih showed, the two engineers quite enjoyed the weird situation that arose when Fatih conversed with them about matters that someone his age shouldn’t have an interest in, nor the knowledge capacity to hold such conversations.

“I agree with what he said,” Steve said once John was done.

“It is true, but the amount of celebration should be tame enough not to result in a deviation from the goal.”

“So you agree that a celebration is in order, right?” Steve said, widening his hands as if to show the scale of his excitement, matching the argument they had just demonstrated.

“Yes,” Fatih said, not arguing against it at all, before flashing a mischievous smile as he said, “What makes you think that I haven’t celebrated yet?” immediately deflating all the momentum Steve and John had.

“But who said we can’t have two little celebrations, eh?” Fatih said in a teasing tone before carefully placing down his bottle and jumping at Steve, who caught him, having been caught off guard, before he started laughing, realizing that Fatih had been teasing them.

After a short celebration, which included the three of them jumping in a circle while holding hands, they returned to the table to start the post-heat debrief. They needed to gather information to be provided to the drivers who would be participating in the next heats, so that they would enter their heats with at least a semblance of expectation of how the track would behave. The difference between knowing the way it would feel and not was gaining or losing a few positions in the first few laps, as the drivers with a slight level of expectation would have the confidence to be bold, while those who didn’t would have to learn as they went.

…

“And Lando Norris brings it back, making it a double win for the RFM team, who have now won both of the first two heats, with Alexander Vartanyan, our pole position winner from the qualifying session, coming in as the second finisher…” Gianni commented with excitement while the drivers returned to the pit lane.

There would be a fifteen-minute break before Group A would have to return to the track to race against Group C. After that, they would take a break to allow for other categories to have a run until the evening for the final three heats.

With no time to rest or enjoy themselves from Group A, the drivers headed to the track, ready for the next heat, with Fatih once again being relegated all the way down to P13, a position lower than his previous heat.

……

A smile, invisible to everyone, blossomed under his helmet when he felt the track had dried more than in the previous heat he had participated in, as he went around the track in a formation lap. This meant he could squeeze out additional pace, more than he could in the previous heat.

But the smile didn’t last long, as his focus returned to the track as they were going through the shortcut and were just a single corner away from the rolling start of the heat. This was the only place where multiple overtakes could be accomplished if executed perfectly, like he had done in the previous heat.

As the heat leaders entered the final corner, the checkered and green flags were waved, and the heat had officially started.

Fatih, with his full focus now on the race, reacted the fastest of the rest, as the group leaders were the ones who had control of when to start. That reaction allowed him to be faster than the drivers in front of him, moving to the middle as they went through the start-finish straight, completing a double overtake before he moved back to the right side to avoid a driver in front of him who slid and collected the driver on the left as they went off the track, gaining him two additional positions.

He was now in a three-way, side-by-side drive as they headed into the first corner, which was taken flat out, with Fatih managing to remain side-by-side as one of the remaining two drivers bailed out, gaining him another position. They headed into turn two, and his outside line turned into an inside line, which he used fully by going wide on the exit, forcing the driver on the outside to brake more than usual, gaining himself another position as he now started chasing the groups ahead, fully focused, having already risen all the way to P7.

During this time in free air, as he reduced the distance to those ahead of him, he focused fully on following the most optimum line, gaining a few tenths through every braking zone by braking over a shorter distance, with his brakes always being on the limit of lockup if he increased his braking force just a little bit more.

In just two laps, he managed to catch up to the driver who was in P7, attempting an overtake in the turn four heavy braking zone. But just as he was about to attempt a switcheroo, the driver on the inside line locked up, forcing him to straighten his steering input, go wide, and brake more before he could complete the overtake as the P7 driver went wide and dabbed onto the grass.

Having lost more than three seconds in that corner, he continued his chase, trying to reduce the distance to the driver ahead of him. Thanks to that driver’s mistake, he was now down to eight seconds behind the driver ahead of him in P6. But after reducing the distance down to four seconds in three laps, gaining more than a second in each lap, he was forced to reduce his speed as a yellow flag was raised. A kart had gone off-road on the inside of the second hairpin in sector three, and by the time he returned to a full chase, he was back down to seven seconds, losing all of his hard work.

…….

“With all the hard work and good performance he had shown, sometimes things don’t go your way. With only a few tenths separating him from Lando Norris, who had fallen to P6 from a mistake at his race start, a checkered flag ends the chase as Fatih Yıldırım comes in and finishes the second heat race in P7, having gained six positions in the whole heat. Despite a yellow flag killing his attempt at chasing his teammate, he still managed to gain more than a second a lap for the more than ten laps he had spent chasing him, showing that had it not been for that, we would have seen a battle between teammates. But unfortunately, fate has decided that we are yet to see this battle between the two,” Martina said, sounding excited as she rained praise on the drivers who finished in the top ten positions.

“I can’t wait to see how they are going to perform in the evening heats, but now it is time for them to have the rest they deserve, and let’s hope the weather is fair to them all.”

……

They say God has a very good sense of humor, but at the moment, Fatih felt as if he was the butt of the joke, not finding it amusing at all as he looked at the rain that had been drowning the track since ten minutes ago, just twenty minutes before the evening heats were to start.

But knowing that all of this suffering was worth the performance he was going to get tomorrow if the weather didn’t change its mind and rain again, he didn’t complain. Complaining when the cause of the problem was something he couldn’t control wasn’t something he was into, as he knew it was better to spend the time he would be complaining coming up with ways to reduce the amount the situation was going to affect him.

“Alexander Vartanyan shows a superb drive, defending against Lando Norris and keeping his position as he comes to collect the checkered flag for the second round of the Group A & C heat, with Lando Norris coming in second… and in P8, after a difficult drive in the wet due to a setup mismatch, comes Fatih Yıldırım, who showed a very superb defense and still managed to gain five positions when everyone around him had a better setup than him,” Martina commentated as the fourth round of the heats came to an end.

“Once again, Fatih Yıldırım finished the race in P8, showing us that his defensive driving is as good as the offensive driving he had shown us in the first two heats. These last two heats had been all about reducing the amount of damage he was going to experience from the rain, and I can say with confidence that he has reduced it as much as possible. I can’t help but look forward to tomorrow’s pre-final and final, where his setup is finally allowed to unleash its full potential on a sun-dried track.

Based on the pace he had shown on a track that didn’t fit his setup, it is going to be a nightmare for the drivers who will be defending against him with their neutral or full wet setups that many failed to get everything out of today,” Gianni commentated as the Group B & C heat came to an end, officially completing all four sessions that Fatih was required to participate in today, leaving him free to do whatever he wanted for the remainder of the day.