Formula 1: The GOAT

“Mhhh,” Fatih groaned inside his helmet as he held the outside line on the final right hairpin. His body was now being pushed leftwards, putting pressure on his broken rib. It was on the left side, where Vincenzo had hit him. Although the rib protector he was wearing acted as a cushion between him and the rigid plastic chair, reducing the amount of pressure his ribs were receiving, he was still feeling the pain.

It was the reason he had made the riskiest overtakes at the restart: so he could gauge the amount he needed to pull back on right-hand corners. After gauging it, he realized that all of the overtakes following that needed to be done on left-handers. That was why he used the remaining parts of the restart lap to just keep his distance from the drivers ahead and then made two overtakes on the wide left-hand corner, putting all of the pressure on the uninjured right side of his body. He chose the outer line for the hairpin so that his turn radius would be wider, reducing the amount of G-force he experienced, even if just for a little bit, to lessen the potential pain.

As they came out of the hairpin, still side by side, Stan went wide for a moment to try and stay on the optimal racing line. Normally, this would have had him take the left-side curbs on the exit, but due to Fatih being there, he could only go wide for a short moment. As a result, it had pushed Fatih onto the curbs, and for someone with a broken rib in a car with no suspension, it was not something he liked experiencing.

“Ahh! Ahh! Ahh!” Fatih groaned as his head and body bobbed up and down, feeling all the things his ribs were usually used to protecting. Although he was there for only five seconds, the pain was enough that had he not had Invictus, he would have slowed down. But he persevered, and having taken the wider line, he had more speed than Stan. With each passing second, he gained the lead as the front of his kart got ahead.

Despite having the confidence to fully gain the lead by the end of the straight, he lifted momentarily, giving the lead to Stan before he slotted himself behind Stan’s kart to gain more speed through the slipstream. He then came out of the slipstream as they neared the end of the track and had a near-flyby of Stan, gaining a full two-car distance by the time he took Turn 1, which he did by taking a more-than-necessary wider line to reduce the strain on his rib after finally taking the lead. He now had the opportunity to open the gap, and although taking a wider line lost him some time, he regained all of it by going aggressively on the left-hand corners.

….

“HE’S BACK IN THE LEAD! HE’S BACK IN THE LEAD! IN A SINGLE LAP, HE HAS ACCOMPLISHED IT, GAINING EIGHT POSITIONS AND RETURNING TO A POSITION HE IS THE MOST EXPERIENCED IN! HE’S SHOWING EVERYONE THAT THE MONIKER ’GHOST OF LA CONCA’ IS A DESERVED ONE, AND HE IS NOW STARTING TO OPEN A GAP ON STAN PEX, WHO IS CHASING HIM, TRYING TO PUT UP A FIGHT FOR THE POSITION HE HAD HELD FROM THE START. AND NOW HE HAS CLEAR AIR WITH NO ONE TO SLOW HIM DOWN!” Matia shouted at the top of his lungs, bathing his microphone with spit as he commentated on the entirety of the previous lap, which had seen Fatih go from ninth position to race leader with what could be called highlight-worthy overtakes.

“But don’t you think his driving style has changed slightly since the race restart?” Giovanni asked while Matia rested his throat and took a breather.

It wasn’t just Giovanni who noticed the difference. All those who were well-versed in racing could see that Fatih was taking the left-hand corners more aggressively while keeping his turns on the right-handers soft and wide. In their minds, there were only two possibilities.

“Either he is injured on his left side, which is not a surprise if you watched the crash video, or the kart’s chassis that was repaired has a left-bias characteristic, needing him to be more careful on the right-hand corners. Which one do you think it might be?” Matia said after a moment to consider the possibilities.

“I think it might be an injury, because at the race restart, he went very aggressive with no problem in Turn 1, but it changed the moment he took the lead,” Giovanni said, as he was the one not commentating and could watch the restart with full focus.

As they conversed back and forth, the same questions were being asked in the RFM tent.

…

“Injured? You think he is injured? But didn’t he say he was fine?” Ricky Flinn asked, surprised. He hadn’t had the chance to talk with Fatih, as he had headed to the stewards’ and race directors’ tents to complain. He had only received an update from Steve when he returned, which was when the cars were already heading out on the track.

“You know how competitive he is. There is a possibility that he didn’t tell us he was injured so that he could avoid us pulling him from the race. Or it might be that from the adrenaline, he failed to feel the pain, and now it has finally worn off. I’m leaning more towards that, since he really looked fine when he returned to the pit lane post-crash, and no signs were seen even by the time he returned to the track,” John said, as he had been the one who asked him about his condition when he came into the pit lane.

“What do you think we should do? Pull him off the track?” Steve asked as he looked at the transparent window, seeing Fatih still driving with not much of a problem.

“If he hid it, then it means he considers it minimal, but it also might not be. I think we should call him into the pit lane for his safety. There is really no need to risk his health for the first competition of the year, as it might aggravate and worsen it, which in turn might result in him having to miss more races than initially needed to heal,” John suggested, feeling slightly responsible for having failed to do a more rigorous check on Fatih. If something bad happened to him, he was sure he would feel responsible.

“What if we inform him that we are ready to receive him if he feels that he is not fine and has to retire?” Steve suggested the opposite of John’s aggressive approach.

“You think he is going to pit willingly? I’m pretty sure he is more competitive than anyone we have seen. Do you think he will consider pitting willingly if he is not forced?” Ricky asked, as he had read Fatih’s report of the competitiveness that continued to be revealed more and more with each passing year.

“If he is that competitive, what is to say that he is going to come to the pit lane if we call him?” John asked.

“He follows our calls all the time, though I don’t remember any call of ours pulling him from the race ever being given to him since he joined us. I’m not sure about it, but if we go based on his previous behavior, he will come back into the pit la—” But before Steve could finish, all of their heads swung back to the track following the sound of the crowd gasping. On the other side of the clear window, their hearts sank at what they saw.

…….

On the ninth lap, Fatih had already opened a four-second gap and planned to start easing up the moment he hit five seconds as a safety measure. But as he started taking the wide left-hander, which he had been using to gain back all the time he lost on the right-hand corners, he felt a weird but familiar sensation creep in and out. He immediately lifted about five percent of the throttle to slightly reduce the pressure on the right-side tires before increasing his vigilance, listening to what the kart was telling him. But when the feeling disappeared as quickly as it came, he chalked it up to the straightened but not fully corrected chassis, which must have muffled and muddled the signal.

With his increased vigilance, he completed the lap and started his tenth, pushing the kart to maximum speed on the straight. He took turns one through three in his new racing line that reduced the pressure on his left rib cage, preparing himself for the next four left-hand corners. He pushed through turns four, five, and just as he was taking turn six, taking as much curb as possible, POOF!

The right front finally gave up and exploded. He reacted so fast that his subconscious took over, immediately referencing the mental positioning map that kept track of where he was. He realized he was heading directly for a tire wall between two roads. To reduce the damage as much as possible, he needed to crash sideways, since a frontal crash was more dangerous. He jabbed the brakes while still on the straight, loading the front left tire as the right had exploded. He turned right, as that was the only turn he could take, with the left side now responsible for most of the turning.

At the same time, he induced a drift as the rear responded to the turn. In a matter of less than a second, the kart went from heading straight into the wall to turning right while sliding. The left side met the tire wall, unsettling the tires and moving them enough to make it clear to everyone that it was a high-speed crash. A few tires in the wall were dislodged, one of them even starting to roll, as the wall, if looked at from a bird’s-eye view, would be seen to have bent by a few meters at the point of contact.