Formula 1: The GOAT

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“Is he a robot or something?” Davide Colleoni found himself asking as he looked at the lap times Fatih had put on the board before winning the race with more than a seventeen-second gap in just fifteen laps.

Fatih had been consistently more than a second faster than the second-place driver. Although most of it could be attributed to his setup fitting the conditions perfectly, maintaining that level of focus for the whole race to not put a foot wrong while also constantly improving his pace as the track rubbered in was something very rare at this age level of karting, which Davide Colleoni was very knowledgeable about, having competed in it in his younger days.

He watched Fatih, who was pumping his fist up as he returned to the pit lane, celebrating his win. Davide then picked a pen from his chest pocket and wrote Fatih’s name in his notebook before closing it, revealing a red cover with the Ferrari Driver Academy logo on it.

As a competitive and prestigious competition taking place in Italy, he had been sent to be on the lookout for any good Italian drivers or to observe those who were already on their radar. But he found himself discovering a diamond during its first appearance, a discovery that couldn’t help but put a constant smile on his face.

Fatih was now on the radar of the Ferrari Driver Academy.

……..

CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP!

“That was a super overtake and monstrous focus through the pre-final, and congrats on having your name on the record-breaking board,” Ricky said the moment Fatih entered the tent, not hiding his feelings at all.

“Thanks,” Fatih said before starting to drink water as his scalp was covered in sweat.

“Good. I don’t think I need to say this, but it’s better I say it than leave it unsaid. Don’t get complacent in the final. From the performance you have shown, the race is now yours to lose, so don’t lose it.”

Fatih, instead of responding, gave him a thumbs-up as he was still in the middle of drinking water and couldn’t stop fast enough.

“Good,” Ricky said before turning to Lando and raising his hand for a high-five. He then started congratulating him and encouraging him to keep this performance for the final as well.

He continued moving all the way to the lowest-performing driver, who, due to a penalty dropping him to last, had managed to recover from thirty-sixth position all the way to P20, quite a good drive, but it didn’t attract much attention as all the focus was on Fatih.

……..

“I should have done what he did and gone with a full dry setup,” Lando said to his coach, not feeling too excited about coming in second. This session had just shown that he was the best of the rest, and although second position was not bad, it didn’t feel good when the first-place finisher was not visible in front of you from the fourth lap onwards, making it feel as if you were the race leader.

“The difficulty you would have had to experience in order to be the one benefiting now, if you had gone with the full dry setup, is not something I would have recommended or agreed to,” his coach said, tapping his shoulder. In his mind, he wondered what the cause of the kid having so little trust in himself was, as he kept constantly second-guessing his decisions whenever they didn’t give him the outcome he expected or because someone else made a decision that gave them a better outcome.

“If he managed to do it, I should also be able to do it…” Lando said, his voice trailing off, deciding not to complete his sentence.

“There is still the final, and you are still starting on the front row with him. If you play your cards right, there is a chance for you to win. It will be difficult, but there is still a chance. But to make good on it, you need to get into the mentality of the race early and not make a mistake at the start like you did in the heats, because having a good start is the first step to increasing your chances of taking the win. Understood?”

“Understood?”

“Yes.”

His coach had to ask again before receiving an answer from the young Lando, who was looking at Fatih. Fatih was sitting silently with his eyes closed, looking fully relaxed as if winning a race was something normal and was only now focused on the next session in forty minutes.

Even Fatih’s coach looked completely calm, sitting beside him silently as he went through the documents in his hands, as if the race was over.

“Now, let’s review our course of action in the final,” his coach once again interrupted him, placing a piece of paper with both his and Fatih’s telemetry overlaid, showing where Fatih was pushing more than him and where Lando was faster. Although there were a few places where Lando had more pace than Fatih, the only problem was that wherever Fatih was behind Lando in pace in a section, he would crush Lando’s pace on the exit of the corner, regaining all of the lost pace and gaining even more.

His coach started going through the telemetry, explaining what he could try to do to gain a bit more time and not be too far from Fatih. But they both knew matching Fatih’s pace when their setups were different was going to be nearly impossible. His coach still insisted they prepared for it in case it happened, and an opportunity for them to exploit appeared.

……..

“You should have already gotten used to this, so why are you crying?” Güldane asked her daughter, who was rubbing her tears of happiness when Fatih won the race.

“Why is the pot calling the kettle black?” Rümeysa said as she handed her mother a tissue as well for her to wipe her happy tears.

It was the first time in their lives seeing Fatih participate in a competitive qualifying session that he completed without being on the front row, so they were quite worried for him and how he would react if he didn’t perform to the level he was used to. Although they had tried to probe his feelings yesterday, he had shown that he was fine, but they were still worried that he was hiding it on the inside. It seemed all of their worries were for nothing, as he had just completed a comeback as if it was not an international competition with people who were at the top of this sport on the international scene.

And now they couldn’t help but wait.

……..

“Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the final race of the KF-Junior category of the 42nd Trofeo delle Industrie. The drivers now have their final chance to give the best performance they can to take the trophy home. Fatih Yıldırım, the driver most expected to take home the win due to many circumstances fitting his situation perfectly, now leads the drivers across the track for the formation lap. On his left side is his teammate, Lando Norris, making it a front-grid lockout for Ricky Flynn Motorsport, and they will be hoping that is how they will finish this twenty-five-lap final. The aggressive way the drivers are swerving to put heat in their tires shows that everyone still has their eyes on that trophy, or at the very least, a podium,” Gianni commentated on the formation lap as the crowd now held their breath, looking forward to the race.

“I couldn’t agree more, but the number 99 driver leading the formation lap is the one with the highest chance of winning the race, and I don’t see any other way for others to have a chance unless something goes wrong with him. He has shown that if left on his own, a mistake is nigh impossible for him to make, as all the things that made his sessions difficult or caused him not to perform well were a result of someone else’s mistake affecting him. But let’s see if the streak is going to be continued by the track lap record holder,” Martina said as the drivers went through the shortcut, leading to the final corner, passing the torch back to Gianni.

“The green flag has been waved, and the drivers react to start their final race! Fatih, as usual, gets the fastest reaction, catching Lando Norris off guard as he moves in front of Lando to cover him and prevent any funny thoughts from coming to him as he solidifies his position into the first corner, followed by Lando, who is then followed by Alexander Vartanyan, who tries a cheeky move into turn one but is forced to return and tuck back behind Lando to wait for the next chance. He is then followed by Tommaso Mosca, Giuliano Alesi, Enaam Ahmed, Max Fewtrell, Artem Petrov, Mick Schumacher Jr., and Nikita Troitckii, making up the top ten. Fatih, the race leader, is using his perfect setup to open a two-tenths gap already, slowly starting to disappear from the rest of the group.”

As if it was a repeat of the previous pre-final, the moment Fatih got in the lead, he slowly started opening the gap, which by the tenth lap had already reached seven seconds to Lando, only for all of the gap to be shrunk down due to a driver facing a mechanical failure, forcing them to drive under a double yellow for two laps as the driver limped back into the pit lane before the green flag was waved and Fatih resumed his race.

“Coming out of the final corner, the checkered flag is waved, and the youngest driver in the category, in his first international competition, FATIH YILDIRIM WINS THE 42ND TROFEO DELLE INDUSTRIE ON HIS FIRST ATTEMPT WITH A DOMINANT DRIVE THROUGHOUT THE SESSION! THE CROWD, WHO HAS FOLLOWED HIS PROGRESSION THROUGH THE DIFFERENT SESSIONS, GIVES HIM HIS DESERVED CELEBRATION AS THEY CHEER HIM THROUGH THE REMAINDER OF THE LAP!

And only now does the second-place finisher, Alexander Vartanyan, who successfully overtook Lando Norris on the race restart, go through the start-finish line, followed closely by Lando Norris, who fought his best to try and retake his position, but time wasn’t on his side, having to be satisfied with finishing third and taking the last place on the podium. What a superb race!” Gianni shouted at the top of his voice as he commentated on the end of the race, matching the crowd’s excitement.

“I really want to hear what the young Fatih is feeling and ask a few questions about how he got into karting and everything else related to it because drivers like him are very rare nowadays,” Martina said as Fatih came to a stop in the pit lane in front of a number 1 board prepared for him.

“Ussulay, you’ll need to have good English to understand what he is going to answer, but thankfully, we have translators here who will be of help to us during the post-race interview. And I, as well, am looking forward to it.”