Formula 1: The GOAT

”I have to say I was very surprised by the outcome of the session when a newcomer lodged himself in the midst of our expectations. After all, it was seen as an opportunity for Max Verstappen to finally take the lead of the drivers’ championship, considering how uncompetitive Mercedes was leading up to the qualifying session...” Simon Lazenby, who was in the middle of talking about the qualifying session on the post-qualifying show, paused for a moment as the screen on the viewers’ side flashed red with a breaking news alert, while Simon was being live-updated on the situation.

[BREAKING NEWS: SCUDERIA FERRARI LODGES FORMAL PROTEST AGAINST FATİH YILDIRIM’S POLE LAP.]

”I have just been updated on a breaking news situation here in Monte Carlo where the qualifying action may have ended on track, but a massive political grenade has just exploded right in the middle of the paddock, as documents have just been made public on the FIA website.

Scuderia Ferrari has formally lodged a protest against Helios AlphaTauri and our pole-sitter, Fatih Yıldırım, contesting the legality of his historic sub-seventy-second lap time for the chase to pole position.

Let’s go down to Ted Kravitz in the pit lane. Ted, the paddock must be completely melting down right now. What are the specific grounds of this protest?” Simon asked, sending it to Ted so that the TV director and the other presenters could come up to date on the matter and provide a breakdown while Ted would be talking to the viewers.

”Yes, Simon, it is absolutely chaos down here. I’m standing right outside the FIA race control building, and Mattia Binotto just marched past me about a minute ago with a group of people following him, holding large documents in their hands,” Ted said as the feed changed to where he was as he walked closer to the FIA building before a replay of a few minutes ago was shown, capturing Mattia and his group passing on one side of the replayed feed.

While looking at his notebook, Ted continued, ”The official document is protesting under...”

Ted started going through the details of their case one after another before he came to the conclusion he had come up with, ”Everything about this case can be argued that they believe the data they have on hand, once scrutinized, is impossible to be achieved by a human due to the nervous system, and they want the AlphaTauri impounded for a full technical audit immediately, which is already happening at the moment.”

When Ted finished saying that, the feed changed to showing the outside of the AlphaTauri garage, which now had FIA officials already seizing the car to be taken for inspection.

”As we watch the FIA officials who are in the middle of taking the AlphaTauri car for a teardown and long hours of inspecting everything to come up with an answer, let’s go back to Martin and Damon for a complete breakdown of the data.

What exactly did Ferrari’s software engineers discover when they scrutinized Fatih’s lap? Why do they firmly believe there are illegal driver aids hiding inside the AlphaTauri chassis? Let’s get into it,” Simon said as side-by-side videos were put on the feed, one showing the ongoing mess at AlphaTauri and the other showing Martin Brundle and Damon Hill in front of a large screen with multiple videos loaded on the side bar.

”Right, let’s dive into the digital footprints of the lap because when you look closely at these lines, you can see exactly why they had enough belief to make the accusation. In Formula 1, despite the tens, if not hundreds, of sensors, it is obvious to distinguish the human noise that happens naturally when wrestling a 1000-horsepower car. Let’s check the three distinct areas where Fatih’s lap completely diverges from the norm...” Martin Brundle started going through the breakdown, and while that was happening, other teams were also doing the same.

........

”Those shifts sound perfect,” Sebastian Vettel, who had been out in Q2 thanks to Fatih, which allowed him to finish his interview obligations before the end of Q3, said as he listened and watched Fatih’s lap.

”You would be correct. The shifts are always within the perfect shifting window, and he didn’t deviate by more than 5 RPM within the optimal range from shift to shift,” his race engineer said, adding context to what he was watching.

”Haaa,” Vettel found himself involuntarily exhaling because he knew even with all the visual and auditory aids they had, shifting perfectly was extremely difficult, as the window for a perfect shift was about 5 milliseconds (0.005), and that passed faster than any blink could ever do.

The same went for his downshifting, which went along the mathematically optimized deceleration curve, giving zero torque spike or any stabilization ripples as the weight shifted forward, providing extreme stability on a very unstable platform.

.......

”Is that braking real?” Daniel Ricciardo said in surprise as he watched just how late Fatih braked and still remained on the optimal racing line. In areas where other drivers braked at the 100-meter marker, Fatih pushed it down to the 85-meter mark, and in some corners even further, into the 70-meter range, but was still able to decelerate without locking and continue on the racing line.

”Yes, it is. Based on just a light simulation we could do in this time, he is leaving only around a 0.5 percent margin before the tires lock up and lose traction, and keeping it that way all the way as he trail-brakes into the corners,” his race engineer said as he overlaid the telemetry feed to the still-ongoing video.

”How can he do that when muscle fatigue and reflexes are in action?” Daniel asked in surprise, as he could see just how much initial brake pressure Fatih was putting on the brakes, but the tires had never smoked even once.

It was very obvious how impossible it was to make it a reality because the human body had problems keeping that level of precise control for an extended duration. As involuntary twitches and fatigue came into effect, the level of control was lost very rapidly.

But if what they were seeing was to be believed, it was as if Fatih’s body was leading the brake fluid resistance with an alarmingly high level of detail, down to the minute changes happening to it, and modulating his calf to precisely counter it as if he had an anti-locking braking system.

Even with braking later than everyone while remaining on the racing line, he would gain time, but by keeping it at the edge, he gained additional time, which was then pushed further by him trail-braking into the corners, which pinned the car’s weight always on the front, adding additional sensitivity to the already extremely pointy car, making it turn nearly instantly and with zero delays from inputs to execution.

All of that was very clear on the telemetry data in front of them. As he looked at it, he knew just how much on the boundary Fatih looked to be playing and how impossible it was to do, but even more so was that it allowed Fatih to rotate the heavy, long-wheelbase car like a go-kart.

....

0.8% average structural safety margin; that was what the engineers at Mercedes calculated Fatih had left on the suspensions during the curb strikes around the track on his final push lap.

Hamilton watched silently at the still camera in the swimming pool chicane, showing Leclerc, then Max, before finally showing Fatih, revealing that Fatih had taken more curbs on multiple corners. Still, despite that, nothing happened that lost him time when he expected some of the suspension to either give up and break or unsettle the car enough to lose traction.

”By holding the chassis under control while aggressively taking the curbs, he, in return, covered the shortest distance around the corner, saving him time while also carrying more speed, at an average of 10 to 15 km/h more minimum speed directly through the center of the corner. By managing to do that at the apex, that momentum carried with him all the way down the next straight, gaining a massive velocity advantage.”

”So does Ferrari’s argument carry any merit?” Toto Wolff asked, trying to hide how impressed he was.

”When looking at it on the surface level, you can say that, but if you look at it closely, it is impossible for a machine to do that without adding some pretty obvious modifications due to the computing power and speed needed to make all of these calculations, and additional modifications on all of those parts to accept these new and faster inputs while also working in tandem with the driver.

So at the moment, we are leaning on no merit and pure driver capabilities,” the telemetry engineer at Mercedes said as he gave their opinion after having looked at the data more closely and with neutral eyes, instead of Ferrari, who could only look at the data with a possible conclusion in their mind. When the opportunity for regaining pole position presented itself, they discarded all chances that it was talent-related.

”HAHAHAHA,” Toto laughed when he heard the answer, as he now fully looked forward to the press conference of those in the top three.

”I want a full breakdown of how he did all of those things, if it can be done on other tracks as well, and if our drivers can try and learn from it and everything else,” he added once he calmed down from laughing. He took the matter very seriously before turning to Bottas, looking at him for a few seconds before returning his focus to Lewis Hamilton, wanting to hear what he had to say.

”...” There was no response from Lewis as he was still rewatching the lap again and again, fully focused as if in a trance, creating a slightly awkward silence in the room.

While the paddock was being heated, the fan base was also being doused with barrels upon barrels of fuel as both the accusation from Ferrari and Fatih’s reaction met in the public square of Twitter, as a fight between supporters and detractors gained momentum with each passing minute.