Formula 1: The GOAT

”Formula One is back, ladies and gentlemen. Finally, here’s a Zoom meeting we can all get excited about: 3+ new drivers, four former champions, 10 Grand Prix winners on the grid. It’s hello to Alpine, welcome back Aston Martin, and maybe, just maybe, a history-making, record-breaking eighth world title for Lewis Hamilton comes the season finale.

It is potentially the longest season ever; fingers crossed we run all 23 races, and it starts right here with the Bahrain Grand Prix. The third time that Bahrain has hosted the opening race of the season. The previous years, 2006 and 2010, were both won by Fernando Alonso, who’s back in the sport after a two-year absence. It’s a 3.36-mile cir...”

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As David Croft went through his opening commentary, Gasly was already inside the car, fully ready, on the track in his grid position. The mechanics were still around him, with four of them holding the tire blankets as he wallowed in silence. He closed his clear visor as the night lights of the track filtered into his helmet.

He was slowly and rhythmically tapping his finger on the side of the steering wheel, but his mind was somewhere else completely.

He had looked through Fatih’s data immediately after the pre-race briefing, wanting to see if he could understand it immediately and be able to implement it. Within that period, he realized that he would definitely not be able to understand and implement it as fast as possible, but even despite that, he still kept going back to what he had seen.

The telemetry smoothness looked beautiful, as it seemed like Fatih was driving with the knowledge of the car at every part of the track. When he braked, his inputs looked precise, as they lacked any micro-adjustments many drivers had as they tried to get to the limit of braking. The same was true for his throttle and steering inputs.

Many drivers who tried driving with similar smoothness always sacrificed pace, since they couldn’t go to the edge and limit of those specific inputs; there was always a chance that they would exceed it and have to counter-steer, which would destroy the smooth driving style they wanted. But it was different for Fatih, as he seemed to know exactly where the edge and limit were and stopped just shy of it, allowing him to retain the smoothness while also extracting everything from the car.

This messed with his mind because, having seen that it was possible and having driven under the same setup his car was currently in, he couldn’t help but be greedy and want to emulate it. His mind was currently fighting between his greedy side and his rationality, which was telling him that trying to emulate such a driving style during a race was suicide. But his greedy and competitive side was telling him all the things he would be gaining as a result of managing to emulate it, before he immediately remembered that the good things are only *if* he managed to emulate it and were not guaranteed.

Before he could make a decision on what to do, the mechanics cleared the track, as only a few seconds remained before the formation lap started. A few seconds later, the final light went off, and Lewis Hamilton was the first to leave his grid box, only to have to slow down since Max Verstappen, who was on pole position, had yet to leave his.

A few seconds later, the original order was back, and the line of drivers started leaving their grid positions, going for the formation lap as they each went through their own procedures to bring the car to the optimal operating window before the race started.

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”Just set the scene for us here, Martin. Hamilton against Verstappen; it’s the championship protagonists as we envisage it going into this season. You can’t win a championship in the first corner, but Lewis Hamilton will be desperate to make an impression,” David Croft said as the cars started going around the track for a formation lap.

”Absolutely, and at the moment, we think Verstappen’s Red Bull should be better on the longer runs, better in the windy conditions. Whilst the Mercedes has finally started to look like a Mercedes Formula 1 car in qualifying yesterday, they still haven’t got as much rear grip as they were expecting,” Brundle said, discussing the possible championship battle between Mercedes and Red Bull, Verstappen and Hamilton.

”There is another rookie, but he is not yet counted among our statistics because although Red Bull has announced him as their driver, he is yet to be registered as one by the FIA, so he is not among the three rookies that we keep mentioning,” Croft said, wanting to remove the misunderstanding from the viewers who might have thought there should be four rookies and not three.

”It’s true, and I expected to see him here in one of those engineer outfits since, fun fact, he is currently registered as one in order to attend these races,” Brundle added, remembering it being one of the fun facts Ted Kravitz had provided during the grid walk just about half an hour ago.

”OOOOh, what’s that?” But the fun fact was immediately forgotten by what was currently being shown on the live feed, as both shouted in unison.

”That is Sergio Perez stopping by the side of the track. Now, Perez has already changed his control electronics and the batteries after the FP3 session yesterday, and I wonder if that is a related problem.”

”His steering wheel has no display. That looks like a total power failure, doesn’t it?”

”That means they’ll have to abandon the start. They can’t start the race and leave that on the side of the track unless they wheel it away very quickly. And we have orange lights, and the drivers now go for another formation lap around the track just in time for Perez to get his car back on. He is on the move, and I believe, per regulation, he is now required to head to the pit lane and start from there. What a disappointing start for him.”

”Remember that his only race win came on this track, albeit in a different configuration last year, after he was at the back of the grid by the end of the first lap. So, if he is going to win this one again, he is going to have to do it while starting from the pit lane...”

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As the commentators discussed the abandoned race start, reminding people that due to the second formation lap, the race would be shortened by one lap because of the fuel calculations, Fatih had a big smile on his face.

He had just realized that although his interference had changed quite a lot of things, like Perez starting from P3 when in his previous life he had to change the battery after qualifying, leading to him starting out of the top ten, in this life, due to his interference through AlphaTauri, those changes were done after FP3, removing the penalty and allowing him to start the formation lap in P3.

But despite all of that, he still had a failure during the formation lap, meaning there was a high likelihood that some events that are not absolute, like the weather, and are dependent on the surroundings and human actions, will still happen so long as he didn’t directly alter those things and only affected them as a side effect.

He wasn’t sure yet and still needed to watch how other things happened and if they did as he remembered to be completely sure, but at the moment, things still looked to be heading in a positive direction.

”Mazepin, it is time to start earning points for your legendary name,” he said as he looked at the timing board and focused on one of the Haas cars, looking forward to seeing if the Russian driver was going to do what he is best known for: spin.