Formula 1: The GOAT

Fatih and the other two drivers finally left the track when the sun started to disappear into the horizon. The Silverstone track was not set up for nighttime use, and even if it were, the risk of having new drivers on track at night was something neither Red Bull nor the insurance company was willing to take.

But although the drivers left, the remainder of the team didn’t leave with them. They had to complete final checkups on everything, followed by a meeting regarding tomorrow’s plan, before they could leave for the hotel where they were staying for the duration of the test days. The same was happening for the team back in Milton Keynes, though most of them were just preparing a summary of the test, creating a report to provide to Helmut and the rest of the interested higher-ups in the Red Bull Junior Academy for them to go through tomorrow.

Usually, most of the higher-ups only parsed through them. However, most believed that this time it would be different, since one of their golden boys was included, but also because this was the heaviest investment they had made in training drivers for the transition to F4. They usually subcontracted it to the teams the drivers would be racing for while shouldering the cost, but this time, they had gone so far as to include themselves in the tests in an active role, so they would be interested and curious to see what that involvement resulted in.

…….

Helmut Marko was currently fully immersed in reading yesterday’s test report, which was on his desk the moment he arrived at the office. The page where he was focused was the lap times record, which had the top ten fastest lap times highlighted before the overall fastest lap was recorded at the bottom. This took the fastest sector times from all three drivers to create a single fastest lap, which had all three drivers’ names on it.

Jack Doohan had the fastest sector one, with Dennis taking the fastest lap for sector three, but what surprised him the most was Fatih, who had the fastest time in sector two. Fatih hadn’t completed even a single lap before he crashed, but despite that, his sector two was still more than a second faster than the second-fastest sector two lap time.

“HAHAHA,” Helmut found himself chuckling as he read that part again and again. He realized that he had really hit a jackpot with this recruit. Although he had shown some instability and impatience in his driving, it wasn’t a problem at all. It was the same tendency Max had shown when he debuted in F1, but those tendencies were slowly being dealt with, and he could see them soon disappearing for the most part. When that happened, it would leave behind a driver everyone dreams of having in their car.

With how things were going, he could see how long it could possibly take for that to happen, and the timeline was perfect for him. By the time most of those problems were dealt with, Fatih would finally be making his debut in F1, meaning they would have a full-fledged, generationally talented driver in the car. This should allow them the freedom to take their time developing Fatih the same way they did for Max, as his successor for the future.

Although having them in the same team risked creating a tense situation like the one that had been forming between Max and Daniel Ricciardo, and intensifying with each passing day, it wasn’t too big a problem since a tense competition was good. By then, he would have already pushed Fatih to his limits, making him more agreeable, hence reducing how far their potential future tense situation could go.

“How long until the first car enters the track?” Helmut said as he placed the document back on the table and pressed the intercom. After a short silence, a response finally came from his secretary, “Two hours, sir.”

“Okay, remind me when it is about to start,” he said before chuckling for a moment as he imagined how Fatih was going to react upon being made aware of the choice he had made for him. He decided to resume reading the report, moving to the next page, which contained the record categorised for each driver.

Fatih’s was short, as he didn’t get to do much on the track. However, the short time he had was memorable enough for the report writers to highlight: “He drives with confidence and a belief that the car will do what he wants it to do, so long as he inputs the commands perfectly, which he managed to show glimpses of on the short lap he did before the crash. The telemetry history shows no hesitation in his inputs with minimal corrections after inputting them. The small corrections can’t be determined if they are temporary due to inexperience in the car or if they are expected to continue following him in the future. If so, it is advised to be addressed early before a habit is formed,” making it very obvious that the report writer was very impressed by the incomplete lap he had managed to drive.

………..

Unlike the calm environment in Milton Keynes, it was the complete opposite in Silverstone. Fatih’s car was unfortunately still under repair, in the final stages of the process, as they were finally starting to replace the parts that had arrived from headquarters.

Once they were done with that, they would finally move to reassembling the car, which would be faster than disassembling a crashed car. It was expected to take at least three hours before everything was back together and the car could rejoin the track. Meanwhile, Jack and Dennis, having none of the problems, were allowed to be on the track together as they followed the second day’s plan, albeit at an entire half-lap interval.

As for Fatih, it seemed like his shenanigans were not over, as he was once again sitting exactly where he sat yesterday, watching the mechanics work on his car with full focus. Thankfully, he was still only watching, or the mechanics might have complained that he was distracting them.

“Hey, Fatih,” Alex called as he approached him before he said, without waiting for his response, “I have had a talk with James, and he updated me on their new plan.”

“Are there any changes to the normal plan for my situation?” he asked upon hearing what Alex said.

“They said no changes are going to be made, and they will be following the same plan, meaning you will be on the track with another driver. I tried to explain to them that you didn’t have any track time, but they said the instruction comes from the higher-ups and there is nothing they could do,” Alex said, his tone and movements making it clear that he was not in the least pleased with the decision they had made, as it didn’t make sense for a driver who needed experience, especially when there were no rules forcing them to stick to the plan. The other two drivers had more than their allotted track time due to Fatih’s crash.

Upon hearing Alex, Fatih immediately had a few people in mind who could make such a decision, which was quite a few: Helmut Marko, the de facto head of the program; the head of the training program; and the head of the on-track practice.

But the latter two couldn’t make such a decision without risking the wrath of Helmut, so that only left Helmut as the only one who could make such a decision without as much as a worry that he was going to face any problem. “It is fine. It’s not like it is going to make much of a difference since we will be half a lap from each other,” he said calmly as he looked at his car for the last time before he stood and started walking towards the back of the garage, carrying the chair with him.

Upon returning to the small driver’s room, he took his towel and laid it on the ground before he lay down, much to the surprise of Alex, who had followed him, wondering where he was going and what he was planning to do.

“Are you planning to sleep? Don’t you want to argue for your situation?” Alex asked as he squatted next to Fatih, who was lying on the ground.

“We are not going to have a positive outcome, no matter how we argue, as it looks like they have made up their minds. All that is left is to find another means of dealing with the situation,” he said, not elaborating further as he closed his eyes, entering the simulation.

“…..” Alex was speechless at Fatih’s response before he decided not to bother him. He stood and walked out of the room, closing it as he left.

……

“Apollo, how about we postpone the teardown for a moment if we don’t want to embarrass ourselves on the track?” Fatih said the moment he appeared in the simulation. He had repeated what he did yesterday by not logging into the simulation for today’s allocated time, planning to enter it after he finished watching his car’s teardown and rebuilding.

“Nope, not happening until you finish the current task,” Apollo said, shaking his finger as if he was unaware of the situation he was in.

“I’m sure you know the situation on the other side, but are you really going to remain rigid?” Fatih, who hadn’t heard much of a rejection of such magnitude from Apollo, found himself surprised as he tried to reason with him.

Due to the people he had grown up around, Fatih was used to thinking that so long as his reasoning was objective and made sense, most of his requests would be accepted, as the other side would not suffer any loss by allowing him to go along with the easy and reasonable way he had come up with. Unfortunately for him, the current Apollo didn’t look like he was planning to indulge in that at all.

“Nope, you need to learn not always take the easy route,” was all Apollo said without elaborating any further. He went as far as to turn himself invisible to avoid Fatih trying to plead with him.

Fatih stood there speechless for about ten seconds with his hands on his waist before he turned and walked to the toolbox, planning not to waste time complaining, as that would not change the situation, but to work as fast as possible, disassembling the car and reassembling it so that he could join the track as early as possible.