Formula 1: The GOAT

The feed immediately cut the moment the car hit the wall to focus on Jack Doohan, who was still in the lead, to avoid showing a possible catastrophic injury to someone live on TV.

“THAT LOOKED LIKE A HEAVY CRASH BEFORE THE CUT, AS PIECES WERE SENT FLINGING UP IN THE AIR! A RED FLAG HAS BEEN PUT IN PLACE AS THE MEDICAL CAR LEAVES THE PITLANE, RUSHING TOWARDS THE START-FINISH STRAIGHT TO CHECK ON THE DRIVER! THE CRASH WAS VERY BIG, AND THERE IS DEBRIS EVERYWHERE ON THE TRACK! I HOPE THE DRIVER IS FINE, BUT THAT WAS A VERY HEAVY CRASH!” Justin commentated loudly as the session was brought to a stop. The feed finally returned to Fatih, showing pieces all over the start-finish straight.

His car had only two tires still connected to it; the other two were not visible anywhere close to the crash site. The camera then panned leftward to the other end of the track where the crash had originated, showing a single tire still rolling on its own, with another one already static on the ground.

{Fatih, are you okay?} James’s radio was played on the broadcast.

It was followed by a silence of about three seconds before a response finally came. {Auughhh,} Fatih groaned into the radio before he said, {Have been better,} in a slow and dragged-out way, his voice still sounding coarse.

“That was not a simple crash at all. It is good news that we have confirmation he is fine, but the medical car rushing towards him is enough to show that not everything is good,” Brad said as the replay finally happened, showing Fatih’s T-cam point of view.

Everything happened so rapidly that there was no way anyone could have avoided crashing. Worse still, the crash might have been made worse as Fatih’s rapid reaction to Hauger covering him caused the car to oversteer for a moment, forcing him to counter-steer and slide to catch it as he entered the straight wide. Moments later, the left side of the car hit the curbs violently, and the rest of the accident was shown before the camera feed cut out, indicating that the camera had not survived either.

“OUGGHHHHH, that was a heavy and worse crash than I expected,” Justin said when the replay repeated, this time showing a different angle of the entire sequence.

As they talked about the crash, cheers could be heard on the track, and moments later, they finally had their answer as the feed returned, showing Fatih getting out of the car with the help of the marshals and the medical car doctor before being escorted into the medical car, which then left, heading directly to the medical center.

…..

{Yes, he is fine,} Hauger’s engineer answered him, but it did nothing to calm him. He had spent the entire lap during the red flag, realizing that his instinctive defense had resulted in a near-death or heavy injury for his friend. His head remained facing in that direction as the recovery vehicle entered the track, almost hitting the car that had stopped in front of him, before his race engineer reminded him.

….

James, on the other hand, was thinking about something different entirely after he learned that Fatih was fine. Alex was rushing to the medical center to be there for him in case he needed anything and to update them on everything that was going on with Fatih after all the tests were done.

“This is just going to reinforce his mistrust in our conclusions,” he said to himself as he turned to the telemetry engineer, who was most likely thinking the same thing. Fatih had pointed out the possible problem location and even asked them to check. Although they had checked and found nothing during the routine checks due to the problem being internal, that was not something he expected Fatih to accept. He would just assume they hadn’t done the checking thoroughly enough, reinforcing his mistrust even further, which was already being reinforced by the deliberate actions of the higher-ups.

“But we at least know to trust his intuition after it has been proven right again and again,” the telemetry engineer joked, pointing out the weirdness of the situation.

{Can the car be repaired fast enough for the final race?} James ignored the snide comment to the higher-ups as he pressed the radio and asked Lisa, Fatih’s chief mechanic.

{We need to replace the entire suspension system, both front and rear. Check if the gearbox has any micro-fractures since that is where the rear suspension is mounted, and most likely has heavy damage.

Check the radiators, engine, steering system, the bodywork… and we don’t know the condition of the survival cell either. If there is even a single fracture, we might need to write off the entire car,} Lisa explained why the situation wasn’t clear-cut and how she needed to wait until the car was recovered and back in the garage to know the extent of the damage and how long it would take to repair.

“They are going to write it off,” James said as he pinched his eyes, knowing exactly how the team and the academy valued Fatih. Paired with him being on the verge of clinching the title, they were definitely going to write the entire car off and bring a new one for the next weekend to remove all potential hidden problems like the one that had caused this crash.

It would have been done anyway to protect their investments, but for Fatih, it was at a different level entirely. In Helmut’s and the team’s eyes, covering the £100k bill for a new car for a single weekend for Fatih was not something they even needed to justify in the first place.

“They are quite weird people,” the telemetry engineer said, as he wondered how they could treasure a driver while at the same time doing things that were not really to his advantage.

{Keep me updated. I need the information before the post-race debriefing session to decide.}

{Do you think he is in a position to race in the second race?} Lisa asked, a slight hint of worry and guilt audible in her voice.

{I don’t think so. He suffered 45G forces due to the sudden stop on the wall, which is worse than a tire wall, as the concrete didn’t have any give,} the telemetry engineer joined in after listening to the radio conversation.

{We wait for Alex’s report before doing anything else,} the team principal called on the radio, bringing an end to the conversation.