Formula 1: The GOAT

The mother and son duo found themselves in a routine whenever they had discussions of this magnitude, which required Fatih to hand her documents to explain his plans. At the end, once he was done explaining, he would just remain quiet and let her go through the document and answer her questions then and there if she had time. Today, she had it, so she took her time reading the documents.

”These are too detailed to be something you just looked up for a few hours,” she said as she flipped the document to the next page.

”I have been studying and preparing for university, and this was in the same direction. I wanted to see if there was something I could do to increase my competitiveness,” he said, telling the truth but omitting the reason he had confidence in his suggestions: he knew the result of Red Bull’s decision to continue using the compact rear in 2021.

”I have been meaning to ask, but are you going to university, or will you end your education with an A-level diploma?” she asked upon hearing his answer. She put the paper down as she remembered something important that she had yet to ask.

They had been so focused on his possible F1 debut since the end of last year that she didn’t even remember the university matter at all, as one major thing after another kept springing up every time one was handled.

”Yes, I’m planning on going,” he answered as a matter of fact. He knew how foolish it would be to squander something like his Sponge Brain ability and limit it only to driving an F1 car when his intelligence was great when it came to learning anything.

”Huuu,” she breathed a sigh of relief when she heard the response. More than anyone else, she knew how smart her son was, so she was worried he wasn’t going to go to university. Although they were currently rich enough not to have to worry about money or a job for the rest of their lives, him not going to university would have hurt her. Had he decided not to, she wasn’t planning on forcing him, but it would still have stung her for a bit.

”What do you want to study, motorsport engineering?” she followed up with the question, knowing it would be futile to expect Fatih to want to study something like economics or law when he had lived his entire life with all his focus on motorsports.

”Mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering, and material science.”

”Are you stuck between those?” she asked, thinking that these were what he wanted to study, and he was having difficulties deciding which one.

”No, all of them.”

”You can’t do that in the UK,” she said, once she was done gathering herself from the surprise of her son’s answer. She knew he was smart, but even to her, this seemed like chewing too much.

”Can’t they be flexible, like my current school?” Fatih asked. He had looked deeply into it, and he knew universities should have more flexibility, which should have made that possible, or at least that’s what he thought.

”You can do it in Turkey, but not in the first year. You will need to finish two semesters first before being able to choose a second major, and after the fourth semester, you can then take the minor, if I remember correctly. And this is contingent on you meeting the legal attendance mandates and lab times, which will be impossible to accomplish,” she said, trying to explain to her son, who seemed smart in specific things but naive in many others.

Fatih then started thinking about it, trying to come up with a solution.

Rümeysa just looked at him, deep in thought, and said nothing, wanting to see what he would figure out and if he was open to compromising.

After about a minute, he finally asked, ”Do I really need a university diploma?”

”What do you mean?”

”Can’t we just pay tutors to teach me? After all, I don’t really have to apply for a job and can just practice within the team. I should be able to skip the basics if I show enough improvement,” Fatih explained what he had come up with in a short time.

He knew the field he was in cared more about capabilities than a diploma. So long as you can prove you have the capability, you will be given the job, and he was already in the team, so that wasn’t a problem. It was not like he was studying for the sake of getting a job in F1, but to fully understand the cars and everything else so that he could apply all of it in the simulation and only maybe later in the future apply it in the real world.

Upon hearing the answer, she went silent for a moment as she thought about whether this was something she should let her son go through. At the same time, it raised questions in her mind about whether she really wanted her son to go to university or just wanted him to have a diploma. If it was the former, then his suggestion was good, but if not, she needed to know why.

.......

”You are quite greedy,” Apollo said when he entered the simulation that night.

”Why? Driver-designers already existed in F1. What is so different about possibly being one?” he asked while looking away from Apollo, knowing that he was most likely taking on more than he could chew.

”But Jack Brabham did it in the 1960s, the same for Bruce McLaren, which was in the 70s. Colin Chapman never raced in a car he designed, and for newer designers, he only picked up racing as a serious hobby later. So it very clearly shows why there are none of them in the modern world due to the complexity,” Apollo said as he floated to where Fatih’s eyes, which were avoiding him, were looking.

”Did they have a system like me?” Fatih, who was made to unwillingly make eye contact with Apollo, asked bluntly.

”We don’t know that,” now it was Apollo’s turn to look away.

”Then the possibilities are limitless, and it is not like I will be designing my first car tomorrow anyway, so why worry? Plus, I have an advantage they most likely didn’t have,” he added as he looked at the F1 car in the garage. With a wave of his hand, everything disappeared, leaving only the Honda engine. With another wave of his hand, the engine turned transparent just in time for the combustion to happen, and he could see it clearly and even slow it down.

”And you want me not to use this to my advantage fully and limit myself to just driving the car? That is like using a cannon to only kill mosquitoes,” he said with a greedy smile on his face. He was not going to limit himself.

Although he had dreamed of being an F1 driver, he had also fantasized about what it would have felt like to be the one who designed them. Both of them were realistically achievable for him, albeit the second one would take longer than the first, which was now already guaranteed.