Formula 1: The GOAT

It was a no-brainer for him to accept the mission. However, a punishment of losing 100 SP if he failed to achieve at least one of the milestones during a race weekend felt brutal, yet understandable. For him to become the Greatest Of All Time, he needed to consistently deliver peak performance.

So, he immediately clicked accept, finally having a mission that could potentially allow him to rake in over a hundred SP per weekend, adding up to nearly a thousand SP over the short championship season.

While Burak was starting the kart, and Fatih waited for it to heat up and for the green flag from the pit lane, he accessed the [Rain Mastery] mission details. He noticed the description had changed slightly.

[Rain Mastery Mission]

All true racing greats excel in the rain. You must master it as well.

Mission Objective: Complete one thousand (1,000) laps under these rainy conditions with a lap time of 01:55.000 or below in La Conca Karting Circuit | 01:30.000 or below in Istanbul Karting Park.

[Rain Mastery Progress: 996/1000]

‘Four laps,’ he thought to himself. ‘I need to put them in early before the track dries enough that it exits the conditions needed for the Rain Mastery mission.’ He revved the kart with his foot on the brake, further warming up the engine. A moment later, the green flag was waved, and the pit lane exit opened. Fatih and nineteen other kids in Group B immediately started entering the track. The very first kid, accelerating too quickly, instantly slid, spun, and ended up facing the wrong way – a stark warning to the others not to be overly ambitious on the damp surface.

……

“Come here, I prepared a seat for you,” Selçuk’s mother beckoned to him. Selçuk had just returned from his Group A practice session, handing over his kart to the academy for cleaning and minor setup checks.

The moment he took a seat, his mother pulled out a bottle of juice, opened it, and handed it to him to rehydrate. As he began drinking, she took out a towel and gently dabbed the sweat from his face and hair, carefully avoiding his mouth.

“So, did you manage to get used to the track?” his father asked him, undeterred by his wife who was still wiping Selçuk’s brow.

“Yes, I’m getting more confident,” Selçuk replied with conviction.

“You better be, or I would have rented the track last week for nothing,” his father stated, his tone matter-of-fact, taking his son’s answer as expected.

“Since the track was wet, I could only get P2, but as it’s drying, I’m sure I’ll be contending for pole position in qualifying,” Selçuk said, looking at his father for his reaction. When he saw the look of satisfaction, he felt a warmth, acknowledged by his father.

But the look of acknowledgment on his father’s face lasted only a second before he spoke again. “I should expect that you will be a contender for the title this year, and not disappoint me like last year, right?”

“Stop putting pressure on him, or you’re going to be the reason he makes mistakes,” Selçuk’s mother interjected, choosing to defend her son.

“I’m just saying that, if he’s not going to bring good results, what’s the point of him wasting money and time on this when he can spend it on something he’s actually good at?” his father retorted, as if to him, any endeavor was only worthwhile if it yielded significant returns, either financial or emotional.

“But he needs to get past the learning curve before he gets results, and you are putting pressure on him while he is still in the learning phase!” his mother responded, not wanting Selçuk to be put under undue stress.

“I can say the same about that foreign kid, Jackson. He won the championship in his second year, while he’s now on his thi—…” But before he could finish his sentence, Selçuk’s father paused, his gaze fixed on something in the distance.

This sudden pause caused Selçuk, who had been looking down while listening to the back-and-forth between his parents, and his mother, who had an annoyed expression, both to look up. They followed his line of sight, and what they saw made Selçuk’s heart plummet.

There he was: the new kid from his academy, kart number 213, on his final approach, exiting T12 (left hander) and entering the straight flat out. This clearly indicated he was going to start his hot lap after a few laps of track reconnaissance, assessment, and tire warm-up.

……

As he passed the start/finish line, Fatih was already at the maximum speed possible, utilizing his mini-DRS effect and carrying full momentum without a tow. He moved and hugged the right side of the track until he neared a few meters before T1 (Left-hander). He braked heavily for a moment as he entered the bend, clipping the apex while he leaned outwards to increase grip on the outer tires. He then powered out of the corner, accelerating onto the longest straight on the track. (Track layout Image Here)

Instead of sticking to the conventional dry racing line, he strategically moved outside of it, seeking the fresh, less rubbered-in tarmac where his tires could find more purchase in the wet conditions. As he did so, he leaned ahead, creating a mini-DRS effect for maximum straight-line speed. Thankfully, the traffic ahead moved out of the way as he neared the heavy braking zone for T2 (Left-hander). He hit the early apex and went wide, smoothly flowing through T2 before accelerating for a moment as he took T3 (Left-hander), which looked like a continuation of T2, requiring only a slight lift.

He entered the following short straight before he took T4 (Left-hander), gaining speed on exit before flowing it into the next straight that came with a significant change of elevation. He drove up a rising slope that carried him over a bridge, experiencing a brief moment of weightlessness at the peak before the track fell away dramatically.

In a show of bravery, despite not knowing if someone was on the racing line on the other side of this falling elevation, he kept his foot flat out. Thanks to the maximum speed of these karts and his weight, he didn’t go flying, but he felt a moment of weightlessness when the elevation hit the peak and started falling.

He didn’t have time to enjoy the feeling, as the most technical part of the track was immediately ahead. Right after the rise and fall of the elevation, he was instantly met with a double hairpin (T5 Left-hander and T6 Right-hander). He had to immediately adjust to the changes in elevation, brake optimally, and precisely enter the T5 left-hand hairpin while setting himself up to take the following T6 right-hand hairpin, before entering a short straight leading to T7, which he knew he could take flat out.

And that is exactly what he did. As if he had practiced it ahead of time, he executed everything perfectly, losing as little speed as possible through the double hairpins and managing to take T7 (Left-hander) flat out, entering the second longest straight on the track. He successfully took T8 (Wide Left-hander) flat out, perfectly clipping the middle apex, going wide on exit, and hugging the right side of the track as he set himself for the second double hairpin (T9 Left-hander and T10 Right-hander). Like the first, he took them as optimally as possible.

However, he lost a bit of time having to overtake a slow kid who was on his line during the exit of T10, the second hairpin, leading to the underpass of the intersecting track parts. He took this underpass flat out, together with T11 (Wide Left-hander). He lifted for a moment on the approach of T12 (Left-hander) before accelerating after hitting the apex and moving his head forward for a final mini-DRS run to the start/finish line.

[P1 – #213 Fatih Y – FP1 – Lap Time: 01:28.945] [Rain Mastery Progress: 997/1000]

The timing screen lit up, immediately pushing Fatih to the top of his group, capturing the attention of nearly everyone who had observed him take that lap.

But they could only stare for a moment before they had to turn their heads back to the track, as it seemed Fatih had no intention of stopping. He hadn’t even done a cool-down lap and had immediately started his second lap. This time, more people were watching him. With each corner, more and more spectators craned their necks, some even standing, to get a better view of the entire track as he completed his second flying lap, losing as little speed as possible even when encountering slower traffic that sometimes tried to move out of his way to the wrong side.

[#213 Fatih Y – FP1 – Lap Time: 01:29.235] [Rain Mastery Progress: 998/1000]

His second lap was a few tenths behind, but it was understandable as he was met with more traffic than on his previous lap. However, he didn’t seem to want to end it there, having started his next lap immediately.

[#213 Fatih Y – FP1 – Lap Time: 01:30.017] (This lap does not count towards the mission, as it is over 01:30.000)

[#213 Fatih Y – FP1 – Lap Time: 01:28.832] [Rain Mastery Progress: 999/1000]

[#213 Fatih Y – FP1 – Lap Time: 01:28.465] [Rain Mastery Progress: 1000/1000]

[#213 Fatih Y – FP1 – Lap Time: 01:26.537]

By the time he completed his sixth lap, nearly everyone on the track was watching him as he finally lifted for the first time since he started his hot laps and began his cool-down lap. It was understandable, as he had spent nine minutes of the fifteen-minute FP1 session doing hot laps, and only a few seconds remained, making further push laps unnecessary.