Formula 1: The GOAT

The flight took eleven and a half hours, landing at the private aviation terminal at São Paulo’s Guarulhos airport. They enjoyed the full perks of private aviation, going through immigration within minutes before they were on their way out of the airport to the hotel in a pre-booked car that was waiting for them.

It was still 3:00 AM local time, and although they weren’t feeling as tired as they would have if they had flown commercial, due to the higher pressurization reducing jet lag, they still needed additional rest, so they headed to the hotel. They arrived and immediately went to sleep, as Fatih needed as much uninterrupted rest as possible to be in tip-top condition by the time he headed to the track.

Waking up at 8:00 in the morning, he and Alex immediately refreshed themselves, followed by breakfast. The two of them then took a car to a private helicopter terminal to board a helicopter for their journey to the track, reducing the travel time from an expected two hours in traffic to just fifteen minutes. They landed on the designated helipad at the Interlagos circuit, where they were welcomed by a Red Bull VIP liaison and taken by a private golf cart directly to the entrance of the F1 Paddock.

The photographers already on the track snapped pictures of them as they headed to the Red Bull hospitality suite, where a guide welcomed them with refreshing drinks before handing both Fatih and Alex team kits to change into. It only took them five minutes to finish changing before the guide took them to the team’s garage, where he finally met someone he recognized: Helmut Marko.

”How are you feeling?” Helmut asked as he extended his hand to Fatih, who reciprocated.

”Wouldn’t complain if I had more rest,” Fatih said with a smile as they shook hands.

”I will take it from here,” Helmut said to the guide, who was about to leave, only for Alex to hold her back as he had some questions. But that was not something for the two of them to worry about, because they had already started walking away, heading into the garage. Everyone they met on the way greeted them by nodding or waving, but Helmut just ignored them and continued talking while Fatih just listened.

”Christian, let me introduce you to our prodigy junior,” Helmut said sarcastically when they saw Christian Horner talking with Jos Verstappen about something, interrupting them. ”Fatih Yıldırım, this is Christian Horner, and this here is Jos Verstappen, Max’s father,” Helmut said, introducing Fatih to the two before introducing the two to Fatih.

”Ah, finally meeting the one Helmut won’t stop talking about,” Horner said with a smile as he shook hands with Fatih.

”I hope he only said good things,” Fatih said as he met his hand, causing the two to laugh before he moved to shake hands with Jos Verstappen, who had a smile on his face as well. However, anyone could tell that it was not a sincere smile. For Jos, this year had been nothing but validating as he was seeing with his own eyes the proof that the team was now clearly becoming Verstappen-centric. The biggest evidence was the team forcing both drivers to apologize when it was clearly Max’s fault for the Baku crash.

But the buzz the man in front of him was creating was causing some people in the team to not fully side with Verstappen, and Christian had even sometimes shown that they still had a backup if he kept pushing things too far and challenging his power. So, although Fatih was still only in F4, he was still causing a few problems in his plan to consolidate his son as the clear number one in the team by the time Fatih reached F1, which was still two to three years away, something he had made sure of.

Ricciardo’s surprise announcement about his move to Renault was nothing but the cream on top of the cake, as it gave him a golden window where Verstappen would be the team’s number one, solidifying his position. By the time Fatih arrived, he would be the undisputed number two, as the team would have been operating at Verstappen’s pace for three years, making it very difficult for them to adjust to accommodate Fatih as an equal.

The conversation was very short, but it was enough to show the dynamics of the team. If the three were put on a line based on their stances, Helmut would be in the middle with Horner and Jos on opposite ends. Fatih then left with Helmut to go and be introduced to other important people. He met with Max, Daniel, their race engineers, and the chief of race operations before they headed for the Pre-FP3 Engineering Briefing.

”You are going to be a fly on the wall. Just monitoring and nothing else,” Helmut said as he handed Fatih headphones from a cabinet as they entered the meeting room. The room was just a long table with laptops in front of every chair, along with a massive screen that showed live camera feeds of the staff at the Milton Keynes race operations center, fully ready and waiting for everyone to gather to start the meeting.

Keeping to his word, he really acted as a fly on the wall, just observing how the meeting was conducted. It looked like an extreme balancing act as they discussed everything they had gathered from telemetry and data from yesterday’s FP practice, along with the drivers’ suggestions and feelings about the car, what they were going to do about them, the improvements they had made, and the results of the tests they had done.

They then moved on to discussing their run plan for FP3 and what they wanted to learn by the end of the session in preparation for qualifying and the race. The meeting took nearly an entire hour, and only then did it come to an end, and everyone walked out.

Just a few minutes later, the first cars left the garage, heading onto the track, as Fatih, now with his headphones connected to the team’s radio, was at the back of the garage watching the free practice.