Formula 1: The GOAT

“Don’t disappoint me, prodigy. Show me something, even a glimpse, to make my travel from Maranello worth it,” Luca Baldisserri, the head of the Ferrari Driver Academy, said, having traveled more than 950 kilometers following the continued insistence from his junior scout.

As the one responsible for all the final decisions made at the academy, he couldn’t make any decisions without first witnessing the talent for himself. Depending on the performance Fatih showed this weekend, it might decide whether the FDA would take an interest in him or just wait for him to mature and prove himself in the future before recruiting him.

“Looks like we are not the only ones watching him,” Davide Colleoni, the junior FDA scout who had discovered Fatih, said as he looked at the people spread over the grandstand, many of them with cameras and notebooks in their hands. Nearly all of them were focused on Fatih, who had just come out of the pit lane and started his tire warmup sequence.

Usually, drivers would take a few laps to get to know the track, but having already either seen or read the report about Fatih going for only a single warmup lap before he started his push lap attempt, something that he had done for the entirety of the last weekend, no one wanted to miss it.

During these discussions, many had speculated whether the reason he was doing this was so that he could have constant race start practice or if it was just a ritual he had made for himself, but none of them came to a conclusive answer. For many present today, it was their first time seeing him in the real world, not through videos or a report.

………

Throughout the warmup session, the track just felt right for Fatih. He realized the correlation was either one-to-one or the difference was so minute that his current level of Invictus couldn’t distinguish the difference yet. But that was not his problem, as he was now navigating the final corner on the track, the turn 14 hairpin, deliberately going in slow and wide before finally committing while in the middle of the corner as he started pushing, setting himself up to have as much speed as possible before crossing the start-finish line, marking the start of his push lap.

As he crossed the start/finish line, the usual holographic qualifying-style timer that appeared every time he started a push lap, both in the simulation and the real world, appeared in his vision, showing sector splits. But he ignored it, focusing entirely on the track ahead as he barreled towards the first corner.

He hugged the left side of the straight, approaching the fast right-hander (Turn 1), using the entry kerb before braking moderately while turning in, hitting the apex precisely with the inside wheels, and letting the kart drift wide on exit, using the external kerb under full throttle. He kept the power down until turning into the second right-hander (Turn 2), braking later while keeping the kart close to the inside kerb without mounting it. He positioned the kart wide for the entry of the tight right-hand hairpin (Turn 3), braked heavily, released the brakes as the kart rotated sharply, clipped the apex kerb, and powered out towards the middle of the track. He kept the steering lock applied slightly longer as he accelerated through the subsequent left-hander (Turn 4). He didn’t brake for the double left-hand bend (Turns 5 and 6), carrying speed through both apexes before braking on the short straight that followed. He attacked the next left-hander (Turn 7), leading into the descent, braking firmly before turning in wide, hitting a late apex, and using the exit kerb with just his right-side wheels……

………

“Oh my god, is he possessed?” Riccardo Tornabene, a Tony Kart scout, asked when he saw the way Fatih was driving the push lap as if he had designed the track himself.

It contained a certain fluidity of movement that felt practiced thousands of times, as there were no awkward changes in direction, and neither were there awkward inputs that were expected from a driver in his first session of learning the track.

It looked like the track was perfect under his feet, so much so that his actions felt no different than driving in a straight line due to how the movements were connected.

As a scout from a kart developer, he could confidently say he knew more about karts than many of the scouts present, as they were usually looking for slightly different capabilities from the drivers they wanted to recruit. When drivers joined the Tony Kart Racing team, they would not only be competing on the international scene but also be testing the latest components in a competitive environment before they were released for sale, meaning the drivers in their team were always driving the latest and best equipment in every race.

In return for that, they were expected to be the brand’s advertisements, which could be achieved through delivering good results while at the same time providing good telemetry data and feedback on all the new equipment’s performance so that they could weed out all of the problems while also knowing what they could actually do at their performance limits in order to know how and where to categorize them.

However, it wasn’t like the full testing was done by kids alone, as they had professional drivers also test the new equipment. As a team with connections to many internationally renowned drivers like Michael Schumacher, Sebastian Vettel, and more, who either drove their karts during their karting days or raced for their Tony Kart team, they also used those proven drivers to know the actual full performance. But at the same time, they needed to know how much of that performance could be extracted by those who were actually going to use the karts in international competition.

While in the midst of his thoughts, he didn’t take his eyes off Fatih, who was just coming out of the final turn 14 hairpin and was already on the power as he barreled all the way until going through the start-finish line.

He turned his head to the makeshift timing tower, and there it was, with all its majesty: [P1 – #99 Fatih YILDIRIM – FP1 – Lap Time: 47.827], laden in gold, indicating that the track’s KF-Junior category lap record had been broken.

“Jesus!” Riccardo found himself involuntarily saying, but no one reacted negatively to it, as all the scouts in the grandstands and different areas of the track gave the same reaction.

The lap time he had put in had placed him firmly in first, and that by more than a full five seconds to the drivers who finished behind him. It wasn’t that they were bad; it was just their first time around the track, and they needed time to get used to it and fully understand it. That was the norm, and a five-second difference from the usual pace in the first free practice was considered to be a very superb lap time, which in itself acted as a very large contrast when a monster came and delivered a lap-record-breaking push lap on his first-ever push lap on the track.

As the scouts returned their eyes to Fatih, wondering what he was doing while they had been checking the timing tower, they almost cursed when they saw him in the middle of a second push lap, having not stopped following his first one.

Previously, he had their interest, but now he had their full attention, as they now wanted to see if he could sustain the same pace.

They wondered, and he answered them: [P1 – #99 Fatih YILDIRIM – FP1 – Lap Time: 47.812]

He once again broke the lap record. By a fifteen-thousandths-of-a-second improvement, it was still impressive, but Fatih looked like he was not done, as he was already going for his third push lap.

[P1 – #99 Fatih YILDIRIM – FP1 – Lap Time: 47.798]

[P1 – #99 Fatih YILDIRIM – FP1 – Lap Time: 47.783]

[P1 – #99 Fatih YILDIRIM – FP1 – Lap Time: 47.768]

[P1 – #99 Fatih YILDIRIM – FP1 – Lap Time: 47.752]

[P1 – #99 Fatih YILDIRIM – FP1 – Lap Time: 47.736]

[P1 – #99 Fatih YILDIRIM – FP1 – Lap Time: 47.705]

[P1 – #99 Fatih YILDIRIM – FP1 – Lap Time: 47.648]

[P1 – #99 Fatih YILDIRIM – FP1 – Lap Time: 47.520]

For the next eight consecutive laps, he continued improving his lap time, breaking the lap record each and every time. By the time he had completed a total of ten consecutive push laps, he had improved from his initial lap by more than three-tenths of a second (0.307s). A full third of a second was gained in just his first ten laps around the track.

Despite more than two minutes remaining, Fatih seemed satisfied with what he had done as he entered the pit lane, aborting the eleventh push lap he was doing. But no one said anything about it, as he was already on pace to break his record once again.

Within a total of 7 minutes and 57.349 seconds worth of push laps, he had delivered a performance that was now etched in the memory of every scout, driver, karting enthusiast, and everyone who knew anything about karting.

………

“There should be some sort of record he broke, right?” Steve asked amidst the pin-drop silence that had filled the RFM tent.

“….” No one answered him, as both the drivers and members of the team who were watching what Fatih was doing unfold found themselves speechless, even forgetting that Fatih had already returned to the pits. Only when the mechanics radioed to inform them of his arrival, when no one went to join him, did they start to scramble to the pit lane to meet him.