Formula 1: The GOAT

“Hello, sister-in-law, how are you doing?” she said the moment the call connected to Fatih’s paternal grandmother.

“I’m doing well. I just called to check when you will be coming to the family gathering,” she asked after some pleasantries.

“What do you mean, what family gathering? Did you forget that people will be gathering to meet Fatih? Did you really forget the planned meeting for your grandson?” she asked, sounding surprised when the response from the other side was one of ignorance about the gathering.

“What do you mean you didn’t know about it happening in the first place? Are you joking, sister-in-law?” she asked when she was met with even more surprise.

“If you didn’t know, then please act as if I didn’t call,” she said, and just as she was about to end the call, a voice from the other side was heard. “I will make you regret it if you end the call now,” which immediately forced her to return the phone to her ear as she said with her voice shaking, “Why are you threatening me like that, sister-in-law? I just made a mistake while wanting to…” but before she could finish her plea, the voice from the other side interrupted once again, saying, “I don’t care. Now, explain everything from the start and don’t skip anything.”

With a trembling breath, she recounted everything from the phone call all the way to the meeting that was planned to take place this weekend with those who were close to Fatih’s father.

“Yes, the gathering is planned to take place in…” she answered when asked where the gathering was going to be.

“Can you please not tell anyone that you heard it from me? My husband will never let it go if he learns that I was the one who told you,” she pleaded, sounding afraid of the consequences of her mistake. “Don’t worry,” was the only response she received before the call was ended.

The moment the phone call ended, all of her trembling and fearful expression disappeared, replaced by a wicked smile that she immediately wiped away when she saw her reflection in the bathroom mirror, as if she had caught herself doing something she was not proud of.

She took her left hand and placed it on top of her trembling right hand, which was holding the phone, not from fear of the conversation but from the realization of what she had just done.

“She is his grandmother, so it is unfair for her to not be able to see her grandson just because of some grudges from decades ago. That’s right, I’m the good person here, uniting the family. It is for their own good. They will understand when they meet and see that everything is just in the past,” she kept saying and repeating those words to herself, trying to justify her actions to her consciousness, as she couldn’t bring herself to acknowledge the real reason why, as she hadn’t even bothered to try and find it in the first place.

After about three minutes of repeating those words, she finally calmed down, as it only took that long for her lie to have an effect on her. She immediately followed it by unlocking her phone, going to the recent calls list, and deleting the history of her call to Fatih’s paternal grandmother, removing the last piece of evidence that could connect her to the mess that was to come. As for her sister-in-law, she was going to be busy causing a mess and wouldn’t even bother mentioning her as the one who contacted her.

After adjusting her makeup and head covering to ensure everything looked perfect, she put the phone back in her purse and left the bathroom, returning to the grandstand.

……..

“Where were you? I didn’t see you in your chair when I looked,” Enes asked when his wife finally returned to the grandstand, rejoining the family.

“I went to the bathroom, but for even you to not realize that your wife left your side, it looks like you are too focused on our grand-nephew,” she said in a joking tone, but only she knew that she was not joking.

After all, her husband had just thrown out their weekend plans the moment he received a call from Rümeysa about meeting Fatih, without even a second thought, which was the start of her subconscious resentment of Fatih and his family, with everything she learned about them later compounding her dislike of the entire family.

“If I have to choose between the two of you, of course, I will choose you,” Enes answered, causing everyone around them to laugh.

“So what happened when I was gone?” she asked, trying to divert the topic, as she didn’t like being the center of attention at the moment. She was worried they might find signs of her unusual behavior, as it was challenging to hide, having just done something that triggered it a few minutes ago.

She felt like she was under a magnifying glass, not considering that it was just her paranoia magnifying all of the actions directed at her.

“He really is talented,” Enes said, much to his wife’s internal regret for asking the question. “Just watch him for yourself, and you will see. He just returned from the pit lane for some adjustments,” he added, pointing in the direction where Fatih was largely alone on the track, having deliberately opened a gap in order to have a clean lap after rejoining the track and needing to set everything up for a push lap.

The moment Seda turned her head and locked on Fatih, he was already on a maximum push and had finally entered the start-finish straight, driving all guns blazing after having set everything up perfectly.

…..

“Chassis flex optimum, tire pressure optimum, tire temperature optimum…” Fatih was silently going through all of the checks of the new setup to see if everything was correct.

He was doing it verbally and not just mentally because it was the best way to do it and avoid accidentally missing a check. Although even if he forgot to check something during the verbal checks, his senses would tell him exactly what might be missing or what the problem was, Apollo still told him to keep doing them because once he moved to single-seaters, the number of components would increase, which would also increase the complexity his senses would have in interpreting what they were sensing.

“Set up perfect,” he said just as he exited the final corner and entered the start-finish straight. Now, everything in his body was preparing for a full qualifying mode, wanting to push the setup to its maximum and see how the real-world kart responded compared to the simulation.

He moved his head forward and as low as possible to induce the mini-DRS and gain additional speed just as he hit the maximum gear on his kart.

…….

“It looks like the changes for Fatih’s setup concluded pretty early, following the same behavior he exhibits in his previous races. What do you think might be the reason for them having the optimum setup locked in so early over the past few years?” Michael, the main commentator, asked Toni, his co-commentator, who was more responsible for the technical side of things.

“For him, I think it is related fully to their preparations beforehand. If it were other teams, I might say that their track time in the days leading up to the competition is to credit, as many teams travel days early before the competition in order to have as much pre-competition track time as possible so that they can fine-tune their setup to perfection. But from the records I checked about Fatih, he only did that in the first three races of his international debut and stopped doing so. Despite that, his kart setup preparations were always completed in the first practice session, with the only exceptions being when there were changes in the weather. All of this leads to the conclusion that they already know his driving style, and it is a style which is just being as fast as the kart can go, meaning while coming up with a setup, they don’t have to consider his driving style in the equation and just go for the fastest possible setup and let him do his magic with it,” Toni said, and with each word that came from him, the admiration for Fatih’s driving style could be heard.

“If it is like that, then it must be very freeing for the team,” Michael asked, following the pre-prepared script to increase the hype as much as possible.

Although they liked Fatih, the commentary team was not focusing on him solely because of that, but also because that was the only way they could retain interest in the race, which many would say was an already guaranteed win for him unless force majeure struck again.

So this left them with no choice but to drop all the tidbits about Fatih to ramp up interest in viewers and attendees so that they could still find the race interesting by trying to see if those tidbits about him were true, even if the race itself turned out to be a one-man performance. Although the battle for the remaining two podium positions would remain interesting, this was something they also did to retain interest in the top position.

“I can’t deny that. It is like being asked a physics question and being told to ignore air resistance. It is very freeing, and it allows for your imagination to go wild, all the while knowing that the driver you give the final product to is going to extract everything from the car you gave him. Plus, it also acts as a practice round for Fatih so that he doesn’t end up leaning on a single driving style, which benefits both of them,” Toni concluded his response moments before Michael took over.

“And just as you are saying that, Fatih once again returns to the top of the table with the new setup, proving everyone right and leaving the second-closest driver behind by more than four-tenths of a second. It looks like that gap is what all of the remaining drivers will be working hard to close while also hoping that he doesn’t increase it any further. After all, his post-setup-change laps being used as a target benchmark for other teams’ setup changes has now already become a tradition, and a very reliable one at that…”