Formula 1: The GOAT

“Almost brand new-looking tires for Fatih in a sea of old, used tires for the rest of the grid,” Brad, the British Formula 4 main commentator, said as the feed showed the right-hand tires of all the cars on the pit lane waiting for the green flag. Fatih’s tires were in focus at the start, showing them to be barely used before the camera panned across to the other cars, revealing how battered theirs were.

“It is a byproduct of cost reduction and preventing people from gaining an advantage just because they can afford it. Hankook, the tire provider for the series, gives each driver only two sets of new tires for every race weekend. They have only eight new tires for an entire weekend, but as a caveat, they are allowed to bring and use their already used tires from previous weekends.

So to extract the maximum performance, nearly all teams use the previously used tires for practice, one new set for qualifying and race one, and the second set for race two and race three,” Justin, the co-commentator, took over immediately to explain the context of Brad’s words.

“Yes, it is a very good model since it teaches the drivers about what is more important and what can be pushed to the limit. If you push too much or make too many mistakes during the qualifying session, then it will come back to punish you in the next session when those now-destroyed tires are used.

It might even force you to use already used tires with little grip. But if you only extract exactly what you need and keep them in good condition, the second time you use them again, you are going to be swimming in an ocean of cooked tires with little grip.

But that is a lesson Fatih has yet to even gain experience in, and I’m sure he would choose to have old tires if the other option was what led to him having almost new tires in a practice session,” Brad said, knowing that many people were tuning in due to the chaos Fatih’s situation had caused. There was no way he was going to let such an opportunity go to waste when it was handed to them on a silver platter.

“Hahaha, I agree, but if that had happened, many people wouldn’t have been as interested in this part of the season as they currently are, since the order would have pretty much started settling in. But now, a challenger that was projected to be very fast from the first session, who, due to a mistake, has been kept away from the championship for forty percent of the season, has returned with the odds stacked against him.”

“The odds are not in his favor at all. Although he might have been competitive at the start of the season, that can be argued as a result of Red Bull’s extensive transitional training, but for the past twelve races that he missed, the rest of the grid had enough time to bridge all of that advantage and blast past it, essentially putting him as the most inexperienced driver on the grid today.

Even his teammates have already scored a race win each, so the pressure to perform well is going to be very heavy, and that is where things start going wrong for drivers, don’t they?”

“I can’t argue much regarding the pressure part. A driver who might be very talented and only needed to take his time warming up might find himself pushing prematurely in order to catch up to others as fast as possible and prove that he is good, and end up making one mistake after another.

With each new mistake, their confidence shatters more and more, and they find themselves being left further and further behind until doubts start appearing regarding their talent. Since he replaced a race winner and someone who is currently eighth in the championship, there will be more scrutiny, since people will wonder why he replaced a well-performing driver. But if they adjust immediately and perform well, then isn’t that in itself the proof that they are that good?”

“And that is why we have many people who are watching with interest. They want to see for themselves if he is going to take it slowly to build up his confidence and feel for the car he has been away from for four weeks, or immediately try and go for the gold on the first try and either crash and kill his confidence or perform so well that no one will be able to argue about it at all,” Brad said, resuming fanning the flames they themselves had ignited as they catered to those who were tuning in just because of Fatih’s situation.

“And we are about to receive the first of six answers to our questions and assumptions as the session is green-lighted and the drivers are now entering the Croft circuit to start their free practice,” Justin took over the moment the green light was turned on at the end of the pit lane.

The feed changed to show Fatih in an extreme close-up where only his helmet was visible, his head turned, looking in the direction of the camera, before he started moving. The static camera immediately lost focus, following the driver behind him, which was Jack Doohan, as one after another, drivers started to trickle onto the track.

…

{Okay, let’s ease in and build confidence through the session, understood?}

{Why waste the best grip of the tires for something like that? There is no need to worry about that.}

{If so, we need an additional five-second gap to avoid any traffic during a push lap.}

{Understood.}

The radio conversation between Fatih and James was played while Fatih was shown on the feed swerving left and right aggressively before he entered the Complex turn. He then started driving slowly as if he was letting the overheated tires radiate some of the heat as he approached the final corner, which was a hairpin, while also opening the additional five-second gap he was told to by James.

“His race engineer didn’t even bother to argue with him going against the plan, hahaha,” Brad said after hearing the radio of Fatih throwing the plan away. It was already looking like the pressure or confidence Fatih had was enough for him to not want to go with the ’boiling the frog’ strategy the team gave him.

“And away we go,” Justin said as Fatih, the moment the car settled at the exit of the hairpin, hit the floor as he barreled across the straight towards the start-finish line in the middle of the track.