Formula 1: The GOAT

Chapter 342: Silverstone VII

Following his return to the pit lane, the mechanics immediately started changing the setup from wet-weather to dry-weather conditions before Fatih was sent out fully ready for the qualifying session.

...

"This is not what I asked," Fatih said to himself as he drove on the track. He had left the pit lane just a few seconds ago and was weaving left and right to try and put temperature on the slick compound. By the time he arrived at the Wellington Straight, the first long straight out of the pit lane, he stopped weaving and started driving slowly, not making any preparations for the qualifying lap he was planning to do at the end of this lap.

{Is something wrong?} James asked on the radio.

{I’m returning to the pit at the end of this lap,} he answered on the radio.

{Why?}

{This is not the setup I asked for, and we will be wasting time driving on this, as any data from this will be useless,} he said without sugarcoating things.

After a short silence from the other end, James finally spoke again, {Understood, we are waiting for you.}

{Okay,} he answered before he completed his lap, entered the pit lane, and came to a stop in front of the mechanics who raised the car, put it on dollies¹, and pushed it back into the garage.

He immediately got off the car and walked to the monitoring center that was between the garages, picked up a radio and headphones, and connected himself back to the communication network.

{We are all ears,} the setup engineer said on the radio the moment Fatih was connected to the radio system.

Fatih paused and wondered for a moment if the setup engineer was unhappy with his response, but he didn’t bother to think about it for more than half a second before he pressed the radio button and started breaking down what type of setup he wanted. To make sure they didn’t make it however they wanted, he broke down the exact changes he wanted on the car and by exactly how much. It was at this time that he was very thankful to Apollo for forcing him to tear down and reconstruct the car again and again, making him very knowledgeable about it.

...

"What do you think?" Helmut asked the performance engineer who was with them on the pit lane station as he saw the reaction on the performance engineer’s face as Fatih kept giving the details.

"When did he receive the driver manual?" the performance engineer asked Helmut.

"About a month ago when he started the simulation practice," Helmut said, giving the approximate time.

"So he memorized the entire manual in that period?"

"Is what he is saying a coherent image?" Horner, who was there listening to everything, jumped in.

"Yes, it is all combining to a setup similar to Max’s but a tad bit more aggressive than that, so I suggest we override it. He might be doing this to show off," the performance engineer said. Having been a setup engineer before reaching his current position, he knew the car and the setup requirements in detail and knew how difficult it was going to be for someone new to drive the car in the proposed setup. Even Albon, the current Max’s teammate, was having a hard time driving at the same setup level and had to tune his down to avoid crashing.

"What?" Horner said, surprised.

"HAHAHAHAHA," Helmut just had his lazy old laugh at the information, causing the performance engineer to look at the two of them, wondering what was going on in their minds.

"Let him do it," Horner said while still laughing, as he was really curious how Fatih would handle a car that unstable¹ and pointy², one that even actual F1 drivers who had tried to mirror Max’s setup underperformed in for different reasons.

"But he is definitely going to crash," the performance engineer said, trying to dissuade them.

"Well, tomorrow we will only be having a race simulation, so there is no time crunch, and we can repair the car fully by then if he crashes," Horner said, as he too was curious to see how Fatih would perform.

They had already come to a decision to make sure they kept him, but if he managed to keep that car on track, then that would turn "doing their best to keep him" into "aggressively doing nearly everything to keep him."

With the green light from the two top people, the performance engineer updated the mechanics on the radio to go ahead with it, and they immediately started a half-hour reworking of the car’s setup.

Horner looked in the direction of Fatih only to see him leaning in the VIP spectator area, talking with his family who were present, as if he hadn’t just put himself in a situation where he would be compared to Max directly.

It was not long before the setup was finally done and Fatih was once again sent out for his qualifying session practice in a super-sensitive setup that everyone who knew about it expected would either end with him in the gravel ¹or having to drive so carefully that he would not be able to gain time.

...

{How is the setup?} James asked just as Fatih went through a few corners and arrived at the Wellington Straight, where he started weaving left and right, trying to put as much temperature into the tires as possible to bring them to their optimal operating window.¹

{Perfect,} Fatih said as he felt the car responding to his every minute correction¹ just as he expected, putting a smile on his face. He was now in a setup that he had already driven in the simulation, and although the car he had used then had a Renault engine, the previous and today’s morning sessions were enough for him to acclimate to this new Honda engine and still be able to apply his experience one-to-one, thanks to his Invictus ability that was at max level.

With the engine being in prep mode¹, it was doing everything to harvest energy for the battery to ensure the qualifying lap would start with maximum battery power at his disposal.

It wasn’t long before he found himself exiting the chicane into the short straight leading to the final turn. He got back on power, upshifting from third gear to fourth, then fifth, before turning into the final corner and entering the start-finish straight without lifting as he shifted into sixth gear, then seventh, while pressing the overtake button¹ to use the battery power for more speed.

His qualifying lap had finally started.