Chapter 454: A Fast Sunday in Snetterton

"You went up to fifty million, and they still didn’t agree?" Horner asked, quite surprised as he was updated on the pace of negotiations between the two sides.

"Yes, to them, it seems like they see the promotion as something worth even more than the fifty we proposed," the representative who had been spearheading the negotiations said as he detailed what the other side’s intentions looked like.

"Or they know if they don’t get this matter settled beforehand, the minimum they will be getting is a 200-million-dollar termination fee, along with the penalties for the races he wasn’t promoted for until the termination goes into effect," Horner said, as he realized there was really no advantage in Fatih’s side agreeing to this deal if he looked at things a certain way.

"Or he actually sees the promotion as something worth beyond all of that," Helmut Marko said as he leaned back into the side-facing chair on the opposite side of Horner’s desk.

"They don’t seem to be too forward-thinking and see this as our way of trying to retain our relationship for the following years," Horner countered Helmut’s insinuations.

"That is what you think. They might know and not want to retain the relationship in the first place. He already knows there are many teams that will easily clear their drivers to open a seat for him next season, and the performance he has shown over the past two races is enough of an advertisement to guarantee a top-team seat.

Mercedes has yet to renew their contract with Bottas, and although that seat might have been set for Russell, Toto is ruthless enough to keep him at Williams if it means securing Fatih from us," Helmut said.

Although not overtly on Fatih’s side, he just made arguments from their possible point of view, and at the moment, it looked like they were only waiting for Red Bull to make a decision and either promote him or terminate his contract, and their side had nothing to lose in the first place.

Horner thought for a moment, as he knew that if he went ahead with the termination, he would be seen as a fool and a laughingstock in the paddock, but the main HQ would also call him, wondering why they lost a generational talent who they had raised and nurtured for years in his first year in F1 after he delivered a spectacular performance.

The higher-ups were already aware of the ongoing mess, albeit from the point of view of Horner and Helmut, and were assured that this was a situation they could solve ahead of time and have everything settled by the Austria races. But a full week had gone by since they started negotiations, and the other side hadn’t budged even for a minute.

"You think Fatih will agree to be on the sidelines for the remainder of the season?" Horner asked.

"He might be a racing fanatic, but he is not too tunnel-visioned to not see that by giving up this year, he would guarantee himself a top seat next year at Mercedes, or even Ferrari, if they can get past their feelings," Helmut reminded Horner that it was the mother behind him that would make sure Fatih chose the best possible option and didn’t give up gold in the chase for silver.

Horner didn’t say anything, but his mind kept wondering how he could deal with this situation and keep both Fatih and their chances for the drivers’ championship at the same time. In his mind, no matter what idea he came up with, they all failed, and he could only see one possible solution that might guarantee both: promoting Fatih.

It would solve nearly all of the problems, other than the guarantee that he would not be a hindrance to Verstappen, and he could say with confidence that he was going to be a hindrance, even if that was not what he would deliberately try to do.

After all, Verstappen had done worse while he was in Toro Rosso with Sainz when he clearly went against team orders to let Sainz through in Singapore despite the two of them being on different strategies, so what was to say Fatih was not going to do the same?

"I should at least inform the higher-ups of the development," Horner said to himself as he decided that he needed to brief Mateschitz to prepare him ahead of time and avoid any possible surprises if he kept it a secret until it detonated.

Reporting to him about the developments beforehand might even force Dietrich to make the decision for him, and when that happened, the consequences for the outcome of that decision would now not fall on him but on the one who had made the decision for him.

..........

"I’m a very big fan, sir," Matthew Rees said as he shook hands with Fatih, who had arrived at the JHR Developments garage with as little fanfare as possible, having worn a mask, a JHR Developments cap, and glasses, making sure no one outside could discover who he was before he entered the garage, which was an area the team had control of.

"Congrats on your win yesterday," Fatih said as he reciprocated, having watched yesterday’s race at home to keep up to date.

Seraphina had ended up down in fifth, with Abbi Pulling sixth closely behind her, as JHR Developments completed a 5, 6, 7 finish, with the race win also being from the team.

Having been sponsoring two of the drivers in the team, Fatih was satisfied with the results and not at all disappointed, despite having had a monstrous winning record in this series that no one had yet to even get close to. But he knew his circumstances were different, so he couldn’t expect the same level of results from anyone else in the same series.

"It pales in comparison to your win streak here a few years ago," Matthew Rees said as the two ended their handshake.

"The grid was smaller then, so it was easy," Fatih answered as everyone around him laughed along.

He was, for the first time, experiencing the increase in fame as an F1 driver, since everyone in the garage seemed to have gathered around him to at least get a glimpse of him or have a chance to take a picture with him. He spent the following ten minutes doing exactly that before the team intervened. Everyone returned to their tasks while Fatih, along with the other drivers, was sent to the debriefing tent to wait there until it was time for the race.

The drivers didn’t waste time and started bombarding him with questions, both about how it felt driving an F1 car and winning F1 races, all the way to asking for input and suggestions on what to do under what conditions.

It even went to the point of them asking their teams for telemetry from yesterday’s race and qualifying sessions for him to help them with the interpretations, which he gladly went along with since he loved racing and loved helping others improve in that field.

So a short course took place as he remembered the track as if he had driven it yesterday, despite more than four years having passed since he had visited. The drivers then went ahead for their second race of the weekend.

With the reverse grid affecting the entire team, Seraphina delivered a superb drive, managing to bring her car home in P3, while Abbi Pulling, having managed to open a gap, finished P2 behind Georgi Dimitrov. Matthew Rees, suffering from the reverse grid but also a first-lap drop, ended up finishing twelfth, as the fourth driver on the team DNF’d.

Fatih, having considered the situation, had decided along with Seraphina to keep their relationship secret, or at least not go out of their way to announce it after they took a few things into consideration.

She was definitely going to be bombarded with attention the moment it was known that she was his girlfriend, and that risked overshadowing her own motorsports career as a driver, to be demoted to just "Fatih’s girlfriend." Even worse, people would compare her to him and argue that she was a product of nepotism and was only racing because she had a boyfriend pulling the strings.

That was not something Fatih was willing to tolerate, but also not something he wanted to put Seraphina through, as he knew there was a risk that this might even result in her chronic shyness returning and being even worse. This time, she might not even be able to recover from it. So they kept a slight distance while on the track.

Once the race was done, the drivers once again congregated around Fatih as they asked additional questions, having tried to apply his suggestions during the second race and seeing some improvements or discovering a few problems.

Fatih was very happy to guide them so that they could reach the solution on their own, fully avoiding giving them answers from the get-go since they might become dependent.

It seemed like his tutorship finally showed some results in the final race of the weekend, as Matthew Rees once again took his final race win while Seraphina came in second and Abbi Pulling finished third, completing a full podium sweep for JHR Development, after the two of them fought a hard battle from the lower positions, making overtake after overtake to come and finish there amidst an exciting race.

Once the race weekend ended, and thankfully without him being caught by the media, Fatih managed to return ahead of everyone to the hotel to wait for Seraphina to be done with her responsibilities on the track before he joined her family to head back home as her second weekend in F4 finally came to an end.

With only a week remaining until the French GP, Fatih was finally summoned to Milton Keynes to start simulation preparations for the race.

He was away for the next few days before, on Wednesday, taking the plane to France as the race weekend finally arrived for him.

It was going to be a week of expectation, as everyone supporting him now expected an impressive drive from him, while those who knew the car and the situation surrounding the previous two races in detail knew it was going to be a difficult mountain to climb if he were to deliver another impressive race drive.

But before that happened, he had media day to go through on Thursday, where the questions were most likely going to be about the rumors going around that Red Bull was hesitating on promoting him and wanted to keep Perez, which seemed to have originated from the same place as the other two rumors had, creating a very interesting situation for the viewers but not a fun one for those on the receiving end of it.