Formula 1: The GOAT

[[[Have been and still am sick for the past few days.]]]

A few months later, April 6, 2018

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the first race weekend of the 2018 British Formula 4 season. We are a few minutes away from the very first practice session, and it is very clear that the track is more packed than compared to the first race of last year’s F4 season. If you ask the new attendees what made them come, then the majority of them will say that the young man there is the most likely reason they decided to come and watch it for themselves.” As the main commentator started his commentary, the live broadcast began.

It followed his usual script, only for it to change midway when the live feed focused on the audience, which, for someone who was here last year, was more than usual. The feed then changed to the likely cause, showing Fatih Yıldırım drinking from his Red Bull water bottle while talking with a female mechanic next to his car in the pit garage, with a few mechanics doing some final work and inspection on his car.

As the camera lingered longer on Fatih, with the TV director knowing what the viewers wanted, Brad, the main commentator, resumed to give those who didn’t know who Fatih was some context. “He is someone who anyone who is interested in lower-level and feeder series of motorsports would know, Fatih Yıldırım, the undisputed champion in nearly all but one of the karting championships he entered in his entire motorsports career. And the one championship he didn’t win was not because he was beaten by a better driver, but because he suffered a season-ending injury that sidelined him for more than three months.”

“Wow, does that mean if you filter it for only the championships he raced to the end, then he would have a hundred percent winning rate?” his co-commentator, Justin, asked what was most likely going through the minds of the viewers.

“Yes, and his winning rate in races is also very high, over ninety percent. You wouldn’t believe the amount of race win trophies he had in the final episode of the docuseries; it was overwhelming, and it made it very clear why Red Bull junior fast-tracked him into F4 when he turned fifteen, the mandated minimum age for entry, just last month.”

“To those listening to you, they might think you are paid to advertise him,” Justin, the co-commentator, said with a chuckle, pointing out how much time they had allocated for Fatih when the broadcast started just a few minutes ago.

“He is deserving of that, as he is the driver that anyone who knows about his entry into F4 considers to be one of the contenders for the title in his very first season.”

“People expect that much from a driver just entering a completely new type of vehicle compared to the karts he is used to dominating in?”

“That is because he dominated in every new series he had entered in his karting career as well, despite the power in karts changing massively from one category to another. But I can’t deny that it is risking placing unwarranted pressure on a young driver in a new platform, but that is how much raw talent he had shown in his career that contending for the championship and winning it outright is considered a possibility before he even drove a single lap of free practice.”

“I agree, but I want to believe that drivers like Ayrton Simmons, who is on his third year, Johnathan Hoggard, Patrik Pasma, Manuel Sulaiman, Hampus Ericsson, Jamie Sharp, and Lucca Allen, who are on their second year of British F4, have a bigger chance of winning it than he has because they have experience on the car, having driven last season, and for Ayrton, two previous seasons.”

“I would like to agree with you, but I beg to differ since a well-nurtured talent is enough to bridge the experience gap. And from the rumors, it is believed that Red Bull have given their three drivers in this series enough track time through private testing to render the experience of those who are in their second or third year not that big of an advantage.”

“Want to bet on it?”

“Sure, what is on the line?”

“The loser has to commentate on one of next year’s race weekends in a Scottish accent. How about that?”

“You have yourself a bet, and I look forward to your Scottish accent.”

“Now, back to the main topic, I have a question. If Fatih is one of their prized prospects, why did they only have him and Dennis Hauger in only one F4 championship when their teammate Jack Doohan is in three of them simultaneously this year?”

“There are possibly a few reasons, with one of them being that he is also being funded by his father, the legendary Mick Doohan, and can facilitate his participation in other series. Another reason why Red Bull didn’t do the same for Fatih might be because they deemed that a single series is enough for their drivers. But also, you have to keep in mind that these are still students, and the heavier their schedule is, the more difficult it is to be attentive at school since there will be no rest period at all.”

“Well, we will know if it is the right choice at the end of the season. And back to the track, as we are one minute away from starting the first of the two free practices of the day.”

“Then, Justin, can you break down the British F4 weekend format and the way that drivers can win points and how the championship is run?”

“Sure. Since it is a series made to give the drivers shifting from karting as much experience as possible, the weekend structure is denser than it is at the peak of motor sports. It starts with two free practices on Friday, followed by qualifying and the first race on Saturday, before completing the second and third races on Sunday. You might ask why it is divided that way when the races are only twenty minutes plus one lap, but that is because the British F4 series runs as a support series for the British Touring Car Championship, so there is very limited time for them to add more sessions.

On Friday, there are two 45-minute free practices. On Saturday, there will be a twenty-minute qualifying session in the morning and the first race in the afternoon, with the grid set according to the fastest times of the drivers in the qualifying session.

On Sunday, the second race is done with a partially reversed grid, where the top ten finishers of the first race are reversed, and for the third race, the grid is set according to the drivers’ second-fastest laps from the qualifying session. The point format is the same formula used by F1, rewarding the drivers who finished from first to tenth, giving drivers many chances to win some points throughout the weekend.”

“Thank you very much for the breakdown. And the drivers are now finally leaving their pit garages as the track is now in green flag conditions, and the first free practice is go, as Fatih is the first to head onto the track, not wanting to waste any of the forty-five minutes given to them.”

Once he said that, the camera angle shifted to show the entire track from a top-down view through a helicopter camera.

“The track looks very big, but for this round, the F4 sessions will be using the Indy circuit configuration, the shortest of the two available configurations of the Brands Hatch circuit. This configuration has two left-handed corners and five right-handed corners, creating a sort of badly drawn crescent, making it a very optimal track for easing in the new drivers in new and more powerful cars.”

….

Fatih was the first to enter the track, just as the commentator had said about him not wanting to waste time. He was really experiencing the track for the first time since Apollo hadn’t allowed him to practice as he used to do when he was in karting, forcing him to fully focus on slowly understanding how the car operated, why certain decisions were made, and more on the registered F4 car, slowly but positively ingraining him with mechanical knowledge on how the formula cars operated and seeing if he could improve upon them, something he could do in the simulation.

Although he didn’t say it, Fatih had also guessed that the other reason Apollo was doing that was because he wanted him to try and experience a race week from the eye of a normal driver without a system, which he wasn’t really against.

He liked the challenge, but also because he was sure forcing him to do it anyway would be an overkill, like using a cannon to kill a mosquito, which he had been doing in the past because there wasn’t much new for him to do then. The same couldn’t be said after moving to the formula series, as Apollo used this opportunity to teach him about the internal operations of the car.

Finishing the first reconnaissance lap, he immediately kept to his tradition of pushing on his second lap as he started it with his foot on the floor, going through the start-finish line on the Brabham Straight, marking the start of his official push lap.