Formula 1: The GOAT

Once is a coincidence, twice can be considered one as well, though suspiciousness will arise, but more than three times, it was no different than taking it as a certainty.

“Steven, what do you think he is doing?” Emanuel asked the technician who had been responsible for loading all of the new simulation data into Fatih’s simulation practice.

“I’m guessing here, but I think he can already see what gear he needs to take the corner from just seeing the picture shown, but he is deliberately using a higher and a lower gear to see if it could also work, and also why it wouldn’t, to further understand the characteristics of the car. After all, doing so in a real car is not going to be allowed,” Steven said, having finally raised his head from the multi-screen setup in front of him to look at Emanuel while answering.

Just like anyone who could interpret data and who knew what the norm was, he knew with confidence that what they were seeing was nothing of that sort at all, as it was his first time seeing someone who was driving in a simulator for the first time in their lives, doing it in this way.

’Just where did he even find such a monster from?’ Steven asked himself, his eyes drifting back to the telemetry screen, which was the reason it had caused him to even ask the question, as with each passing attempt, it showed Fatih’s throttle and brake inputs getting more and more precise. It was a constant evolution. During the first time in a corner, he would brake at a reasonable distance. The second time, he would reduce the distance again, and on the third, finally braking at the limit. The same was happening for other inputs as well, which meant it only took Fatih the thirty seconds he had on the straights after each corner to digest everything he had learned in the previous corner to apply all of the improvements the next time that corner came.

Other than that, his focus was also something that caused Steven to be very impressed. For an entire hour, Fatih did nothing but go through the corners without complaining about anything, despite having to take a corner every thirty seconds, and not even a moment of fatigue could be seen in his inputs, despite expending a large amount of energy every time he braked and accelerated, as the simulator also simulated the amount of energy needed for braking so as to make sure the driver was used to expending the same amount of energy while in the car.

“Let’s have a half-an-hour break,” Emanuel said on the radio to Fatih, as it seemed even he had only now come to his senses that he had been working Fatih for more than an hour and a half without giving him a breather, which indirectly showed the stamina he had, as he had driven almost an entire Formula One race distance, albeit with more corners taken.

“Okay,” was the only response they received from Fatih before he disconnected the steering wheel and came out of the car.

When he took off his helmet, his hair was covered in sweat, showing how intense the previous hour and a half was, which instantly reminded Emanuel that Fatih was just a fourteen-year-old child.

This realization took him a moment as he once again pinched his hands, but this time for a different reason, as he realized how childish he had been just because his feelings were hurt.

….

“Are you fine?” Alex said as he entered the simulator room with a towel and a cold water bottle, handing the towel to Fatih first.

“Yes, it was quite fun to drive something after a long drought,” Fatih said as he dried his head before taking the bottle and taking a sip.

“You call that fun? It looked no different than just exercising for an hour and a half,” Alex said as he pointed to the simulator cockpit.

“For me, it wa…” but just as he was about to finish his response, the assistant technician who was in the cockpit room with them approached and said, “You are being called to the data room for a debriefing,” while pointing to the mirror showing Emanuel waving at him to come to the room with a piece of paper in his hand.

“Looks like it is time for feedback,” Alex said as he patted Fatih’s back as he started walking towards the door.

……

“It seems like he is really trying to make us show our commitment,” Helmut Marko said as he looked at the document in front of him.

It was the pre-final-approval of Max Verstappen’s new contract that would extend their relationship to the 2020 season.

Unlike the usually expected tense but still difficult back-and-forth negotiations he had expected this time, it seemed like there was something that Jos Verstappen wanted but didn’t want to directly mention.

Because they had yet to discover what exactly he wanted, the contract that they had expected to have signed by the twentieth of this month had not yet received a green light from both sides.

“I’m pretty sure we gave him everything that he wanted to keep him, so what do you think he wants?” Christian Horner asked, as he was having a headache, trying to deal with it.

Currently, both Mercedes, whose second driver, Valtteri Bottas, was on a one-year contract, and Ferrari, whose Kimi Räikkönen was in the final stages of his career, saw Max Verstappen as the ultimate long-term replacement for their senior drivers. On the other hand, it had been a very frustrating season for Max due to the reliability problems of their Renault engines, which had led to him having seven retirements that year, causing their relationship with Renault to deteriorate and be on the breaking point.

If they managed to sign this contract, it would act as a warning for those two teams to back off, and to ensure it was signed, they had increased his year-to-year compensation all the way to thirteen million dollars a year and had even shown him their plan of changing to Honda engines. They had even shown their commitment to that by trying to have Toro Rosso try it next year, though that plan was not going well at the moment.

“I think he needs to increase the promise on building the team around him,” Helmut said.

“What do you mean? Didn’t we already hint at that, and quite obviously?”

“Maybe they want it to be more concrete or maybe even have it in writing.”

“You know we can’t do that, but why the change of heart now when it seemed to be enough to only hint at it at the start of our negotiations?”

“Maybe he feels like he is on a timer and a competitor is coming.”

“What do you mean? We are not even looking for someone to replace him,” but just as Horner was about to argue against the point, something came to his mind, and he started looking at the sequence of the negotiation route from the start until where the problems started arising.

All of his recollections led to one point in time: when the news of Fatih retiring from karting and starting his F4 training came out, which was less than a month ago, and that was the time it coincided with Jos starting to be difficult on the contract renegotiations.

“Is he worried about Fatih?” he asked, despite knowing how absurd that sounded even to him, as Fatih hadn’t even entered an F4 car yet, so worrying about him made no sense at all.

“Yes,” Helmut said while nodding.

“But why worry when he won’t be seeing an F1 car until he is at least eighteen? I mean, it is his son who caused the rule of a minimum age to be placed in the first place. Don’t you think we are overthinking it?”

“Rules in F1 can be appealed with enough lobbying, or we can have an exemption created, so that the rule can’t really be seen as a dam that will stop it. Plus, as someone who has seen a monster like Max growing up, he definitely knows what a monster looks like, and he wants to set up protection until his own monster grows enough without facing too much internal challenge.”

Horner rested his chin on his hand, which was on the table, as he thought about it, and from that, he could see it being a possibility. They were Red Bull, and they were known for aggressive promotions for talented drivers on their teams, so there was a possibility of them lobbying for the minimum age rule to be removed or exemptions to be made if Fatih showed a similar level of talent in his single-seater debut.

The moment they did that, it would mean that the amount of influence Max had on the team, currently being the definite number-one driver in Red Bull without competition, would have a potential competitor who might go toe-to-toe once he gained experience. With that reasoning, it made sense for Jos to want more guarantees of Max’s prioritization in the team and to ensure there was a concrete promise of the team being built around his son, so by the time Fatih came, it would be very difficult to compete on equal ground.

Before he said anything, Horner added, “But we can’t promise more than we already did regarding the team being built around him, since although it will make no difference on the car side, it will make the power division imbalanced in his favor, which can’t happen now of all times.”

Christian was now between a rock and a hard place. Although he might have pinpointed the problem and the solution, it wasn’t a solution they could wholeheartedly take. It was then that Helmut suggested, “Then how about promising them that we will not lobby for Fatih’s exemption for the duration of this contract? It should give them assurance without having to increase our level of building the team around him to the current level.”

“Good idea,” Christian said the moment he heard it, because to him, the promise required them to do nothing at all, so it was easy to keep. “But it won’t be written anywhere,” he added, as having such words written on a piece of paper would mean there was a chance, no matter how slim, that it might be discovered by Fatih’s side, and that would mean the end of their relationship with a potential Verstappen-level talented driver who might inherit from Verstappen.

“Of course, only you, me, and Jos’s management need to know about it, and since all of those who have decision-making power will be in the know, there is no risk of anyone breaching it,” Helmut said, feeling satisfaction on the inside, as he now had more time to see Fatih without the risk of him being whisked off to Formula 1.

“Then let’s reach out to their side and have it concluded as fast as possible. We need to have it signed during the United States Grand Prix weekend.”