Formula 1: The GOAT

”It is boring to sit in the room all day, and time seems to be going slowly,” Fatih said as he leaned back in his chair, his head now facing the ceiling of the hotel room he was in. He slowly pulled back, raising the front two legs of the chair and rocking back and forth.

”Only one day remains, so endure it, and you will have your opportunity to let go and drive all you want,” Rümeysa said from the other end of the laptop screen as she tried to encourage her son and remind him that this boredom was necessary if he wanted to be able to drive the car tomorrow and get his license.

”I know, I know, but it doesn’t make it less boring,” Fatih said, still swinging back and forth.

”Well, that’s true...” Rümeysa said, but in the middle of her sentence, her mother interrupted her. ”If you get COVID, that is an entire month that you will be losing at a minimum, so better bored than bedridden. Now stop complaining and tell me what the timetable for tomorrow is. I want to see when I should start tuning in.”

Fatih, now having no opportunity to complain anymore, even just to pass the time, dropped the chair’s front legs before starting to go through the timetable.

”Regarding the driver’s license, thanks to the circumstances, I was allowed to handle all of the requirements like theory exams and others ahead of time, leaving only the final 35-minute driving test that can be done the moment I turn 18. The plan was for me to head to a designated location to do the test, but due to the change in circumstances and the lockdown removing the majority of cars from the road, the test has been modified to take place from the hotel all the way to the track. If I pass it, it will be considered valid, and I will have my license by the time we arrive at the track.”

”What if you fail? Will everything else be cancelled?” his grandmother asked, knowing if that was how it was going to be, even driving a car would be a very difficult situation as he would be feeling extreme pressure since an event that had taken millions of dollars in preparation would be cancelled.

But her worries were quenched when he said, ”No, the 300km test will go on, and I will just have to retake the driving exam within the following days, so there is no problem on that end, and I’m pretty confident in my driving.” As he said that, he had a smile on his face full of confidence, which was not just to reassure his grandmother.

Apollo had even forced him to register a normal car in the system and made him spend an hour driving on different tracks that he had used his control of the system to put in traffic lights, curbs, lines on the track, and many other things, even going as far as to act as his examiner while also later acting as a reckless driver and many other things, so he could say with confidence that he was a good driver.

They continued talking until 10 PM before Rümeysa made Fatih go to sleep, citing his upcoming big day. She reminded him that they would celebrate his birthday once everything had been handled, and Fatih, without arguing, followed the instructions as he planned to do another 300km drive around the track in preparation for tomorrow before ending it with him driving a normal car for the last time before the test.

The following day after he woke up, he took half an hour to get ready before opening the door for the doctor who came to give him his final test. He was given the green light to go ahead with the event when his results came out as negative. Thankfully, it was the same for the family present as well. As they got out of the elevator and entered the lobby, they all had to take a pause due to the situation happening outside the hotel.

Eight police cars could be seen with their lights flashing, along with two media vans and five Honda Civic Sedans (FC5 / Eco), which were sponsored by Honda Türkiye, who had worked in collaboration with Red Bull.

Vural Ak, the chairman of Intercity, the company operating the track, which was also a massive car rental and fleet leasing firm, had wanted to use their own cars, but Red Bull shot that down, wanting to use this opportunity to promote their partner.

A cameraman was standing outside the revolving doors of the hotel with his camera having a small red light on, making it clear that it had already started broadcasting. He was wearing an outfit that made him look no different than a nurse or a doctor in a hospital as a means of precaution, since he would be driving with the family.

He slowly moved back all the way to the red Honda Civic, as Fatih, now separated from his group, came out of the hotel and walked directly towards the car, waving to the camera for a moment before entering. His stepfather and team were each distributed to the other Honda Civics behind them in the midst of the convoy.

Fatih greeted the examiner inside the car, who was now separated by a clear screen, before doing the same to the police and the cameraman who had finally boarded the car. The police officer was there to be the communication link to the rest of the cars in the convoy so that their movements could be adjusted depending on the requirements of Fatih’s test.

Once he was done putting on his seatbelt, he paused for a moment when he heard a helicopter buzzing in the sky before turning to the cameraman behind him and asking, ”Are they with us?” while pointing to the roof of the car. With the helicopter sound getting closer and closer, it was clear what he was talking about.

”Yes,” the cameraman answered awkwardly under the medical gear he was donning.

”Shall we get started?” the examiner said to Fatih.

”Yes,” Fatih said as he rubbed his hands for a moment to shake the nerves. He took a deep breath and said quietly, ”Bismillah,” as he pressed his foot down on the brake pedal before reaching the engine start button, which immediately responded.

He adjusted his rear-view mirror before checking his surroundings and finally pressed the horn to signal to the cars in the convoy formation to start moving. The moment they started moving and a gap opened, he finally flicked down the electronic parking brake switch and transitioned his foot to the throttle, starting his final driving exam.

.......

With the journey requiring them to go through a highway, the examiner was calmly observing Fatih and everything he was doing, with his right hand tightly holding a pen while the left held the binder.

He turned to the police officer at the rear and said, ”Scenario one,” and the officer immediately reached for his radio and contacted the convoy team. The car in front slowed down to 80 km/h in the center lane of the highway before the examiner turned to Fatih and said, ”Overtake him.”

Fatih, without saying anything, just flicked the left indicator while looking at the rear-view mirror. The moment the lights blinked three times, he smoothly steered, changing his lane to the left one before smoothly accelerating to 115 km/h, just 5 km/h shy of the highway speed limit. He then turned on the right indicator lights and finally returned to the middle lane, but this time he kept the speed at exactly 115 km/h.

Having practiced all of these things ahead of time, he went through one scenario after another smoothly, as if he had years of experience. The live feed changed from the in-car mounted camera, the cameraman on the rear, a front-angle shot from one of the news vans that had the rear door open with a camera facing Fatih’s car, and finally, the helicopter, which showed the entire convoy along with the nearly ghostly empty highway.

Although it was just him going through his driver’s license test, people at home with nothing to do were watching with full focus due to the amount of tension this test had, despite it being very early in the morning. The commentators of the situation did a good job backing up that tension and making it clear to everyone watching. Knowing this test was going to happen ahead of time, they had even invited an examiner working for the MEB to aid them in breaking down what the current tests were and how Fatih was doing.

They used all the data they were collecting from the car, like the speed and other avenues, to fully understand while also projecting how he was doing on the test, making it quite entertaining even for people not interested in F1, since they were seeing with their own eyes how one of the most difficult, strict, and stressful driving tests in Europe was done and why it was specifically dubbed to be so.