Chapter 457 - 2021 French Grand Prix | Race II

Fatih, on the left side of the track in his grid position, was fully focused on the five lights that were on, waiting for the moment they would go out.

Less than a second later, they did. Having repeatedly practiced this in the simulation, he dropped the clutch halfway as he feathered the acceleration, doing it instinctively and dropping the clutch fully over the next second.

He got away with a good start, reacting faster than Perez, who was eight meters in front of him on the right side of the track, and the same for Bottas, who was sixteen meters ahead, as the two had a similar reaction.

The good start allowed him to immediately pull nearly side-by-side with Perez as he stuck in Bottas’s slipstream. Though at their current speeds it wasn’t too helpful, with the run to the first corner being four-hundred-something meters, it was still a meaningful aid.

He fully moved side-to-side and started squeezing Perez to the right of the track, trying to push him into lifting, but Perez obliged so slowly that by the time they arrived at the normal braking points, he was still on the racing line, leaving Fatih with a decision to make: brake early and move to the racing line, or trust his instinct and control to outbrake Perez.

He chose the latter, as he trusted himself and kept his foot on the metal even after everyone else started braking within the same area, waiting for ten more meters.

This guaranteed his overtake before he braked to the limit, barely avoiding locking up the front as he arrived at the apex at a very high speed, going wide into the Turn 1 exit before immediately moving to cover the opening on the left side as he took Turn 2, having managed to keep Perez behind him.

Bottas was very close ahead of him after being slowed by Verstappen, who had rejoined the track after going off and losing his lead to Hamilton, who was more than a full second ahead of the group already.

On the exit of Turn 2, in the short straight, Fatih tucked behind Bottas, biding his time and setting himself up for the upcoming parts. They went through Turns 3, 4, and 5 before immediately going wide as they went through Turn 6, deliberately going into the corner entry to set up for a tight exit.

He closed the gap to Bottas down to three-tenths, offsetting his racing line to Bottas’s on the corner exit as the track connected to Turn 7 before finally arriving at the long straight. Fatih tucked into Bottas’s slipstream, gaining and gaining against him while also pressing the overtake as his battery was full, trying to close the gap further.

As the braking point for the Turn 8 and 9 chicane was approaching, he made a move on the right side. Bottas immediately moved to cover him, only to discover that it was a dummy move, as Fatih returned to the racing line while using the battery power just as the braking points arrived.

He once again outbraked Bottas, but this time failed to keep the car on the racing line as he went wide into the corner, which worked in his favor. Bottas, who was on the outside line, couldn’t turn and was also forced to slow down, which allowed Perez to catch up to them.

By the time they came out of the Turn 8 & 9 chicane, Fatih was in the lead, with Bottas and Perez following closely behind as Verstappen and Hamilton were already ahead.

...

David Croft: "It is two against one, but the one is Fatih. A Red Bull and a Mercedes chasing an AlphaTauri as they arrive on the start-finish straight. Fatih is weaving wildly, trying to break the tow, as Bottas and Perez all follow him on his run across the track and are gaining and gaining.

Bottas moves to the right side, making a move, trying to finish the overtake, but Fatih, remaining in the middle of the track, brakes later than him and, with the control of the inside line, manages to defend his position into Turn 1.

This move puts Bottas at a disadvantage as Perez tries to go for the opening before Bottas manages to close it, but now he has lost time against Fatih as the gap to Fatih increases to eight-tenths of a second."

Martin Brundle: "The rookie is driving like a veteran, managing to make the car as wide as possible and make the veterans look like rookies since the race start."

David Croft: "He has proven again and again that he was capable of race-winning and had pace, but many had argued that he can only win through strategically gained advantages and is not good at wheel-to-wheel racing.

We are seeing him at the moment proving everyone wrong as he moves to the right side of the track to cover the inside line into Turn 10. He remains tightly there, doing the same for Turn 11, not giving Bottas any advantage.

Bottas now has to move to cover Perez while Y?ld?r?m places the car perfectly through Turn 12, does the same for 13, 14, and 15, and he is now back on the start-finish line and once again is moving to try and break the tow.

The gap he had opened by forcing Bottas to go slower is now working in his favor as Bottas now has to focus on Perez, who is now side-to-side."

.......

{Update on the gap to the car behind every sector until he is out of DRS range,} Fatih said on the radio while on the straights, as he for the first time took Turn 1 as it was optimal. He knew he needed to open the gap to one second before the end of sector one, or both Bottas and Perez would have DRS, which for a dry race was activated on the third lap, and he wouldn’t since Verstappen was already ahead of him by more than a second.

{Point four,} James updated him as Fatih approached the end of sector one, just as he had requested.

The performance engineer was watching silently as he looked at Fatih’s live telemetry and could see Fatih was not using battery power to try and increase the gap like he had done in lap one, making him wonder why.

The gap decreased more and more through the Turn 3, 4, 5, 6 complex. Bottas, going on the wider line through Turn 6, had already moved to the side, and his front axle was now equal to Fatih’s rear axle when they exited the corner.

As they approached the very close Turn 7, Bottas passed him shortly before they entered the straight, but the engineer, instead of feeling disappointed, was excited as their system marked that Fatih had DRS.

He activated it the moment the activation line arrived and then started dumping the battery power while slipstreaming behind Bottas before actually moving to the outside line as the straight was coming to an end and the chicane was approaching. For the third time, he outbraked Bottas on the inside line, swept to the outside into Turn 8, and took the lead once again.

By the time they exited the chicane, he was already four-tenths ahead as Bottas ended up locking the tires when he tried to lift off the brake. He realized Fatih had outbraked him, only to brake harder later and lock his tires, forcing him straight into the escape route and nearly clipping Fatih’s rear.

The engineer was so excited he unknowingly shouted, "YEAH!" as he had seen the full play. Fatih, knowing that he was not going to be able to keep Bottas back on the straight, deliberately allowed him to close the gap as he harvested power through Turns 3, 4, 5, and 6 before allowing Bottas to finally overtake a few meters before the DRS detection line, giving himself DRS while he still had a full battery, which he deployed on the straight.

It was a level of strategic thinking he never expected from a rookie, but in front of his own eyes, he could see he was playing both physical and mental battles with Bottas.

His games hadn’t ended there, because after being outbraked by Fatih three different times, Bottas, who at the end of the straight was losing ground to Fatih, braked momentarily at his normal braking point before releasing the brakes to try and outbrake Fatih or unsettle him into turning early, only to see Fatih sweep in front of him into the turn.

Fatih’s knife-edge front-end setup worked its magic, pushing Bottas back to braking and locking his tires, forcing him to take the escape route after missing the entire corner. By the time he returned to the track, Fatih had already gained a two-second gap, while he and Perez were now left fighting alone.

Fatih had saved himself from the obliteration he was going to face on the upcoming start-finish straight since he was low on battery and the car was definitely going to be clipping to recharge it.

....

Toto Wolff had a frown on his face as he watched the full incident play out in front of him. As a former race driver turned businessman, he fully understood what was at play here, and the frown wasn’t because it worked against his driver but because he was realizing that even with overestimating Fatih as much as possible, he was still not giving him full credit.

It made him regret not trying harder to poach him. The saving grace for the race, however, was that Fatih at the moment had overtaken both Perez and Bottas, affecting both teams’ strategies at once and not harming only a single one.

James Vowles, the chief strategist at Mercedes, on the other hand, was also very impressed by the showcase, but he was at the moment discussing with the team’s race control at the home base about the changes in their strategy as Fatih was slowly increasing his gap to Bottas and Perez, who were now fighting one another.

{"At the moment, if things remain as they are, we are better off going for an undercut, as we see it to be very powerful,"} a strategy engineer from the home base reported on the radio to Vowles.

"I agree, but let’s keep our eyes out for what the other side might do."

.....

{"You think we should go long with him?"} Will Courtenay, the Head of Race Strategy at Red Bull, said from the pitwall as he conversed back and forth with Hannah Schmitz, the Principal Strategy Engineer who was back at the home base in Milton Keynes.

{"Yes, Fatih is pushing the tires more and more, and they will die very soon. We can let Perez ease out and drop back to protect the tires and let him go long to give him a tire advantage later in the race against both Bottas and Y?ld?r?m,"} Hannah Schmitz explained her reasoning through the radio.

{"Are you aiming for a safety car?"}

{"It would be welcome, but the chances of that are minimal here. The offset is what we are looking for, and it will be very powerful paired with the low fuel he will have compared to the others when they take new tires, so he can push for longer,"} Hannah Schmitz said.

{"Okay, we will go with that,"} Will Courtenay agreed with her line of thought after thinking about it for a short moment and immediately relayed it to the race engineer, who relayed it to Perez through their agreed code to not reveal their plan by using a change of engine mode that didn’t exist to tell him to manage his tires as they were going long.

Adrian Newey, a few seats away from Courtenay, watched the live feed in silence as he felt conflicted in his mind. He wondered how having both Fatih and Max driving his car might push it, only to shake his head in disappointment as he knew that would not come true.

Horner, on the other hand, was feeling the sting, as Fatih was messing with his team’s race strategy, acting as a thorn. He knew if Fatih ended up with a podium today, his meeting with Dietrich Mateschitz was going to be a nightmare, as he had dragged out reporting to him, planning to go report face-to-face by traveling early to Austria ahead of the team and remaining there until the two back-to-back races scheduled there were over.