Formula 1: The GOAT

“Everything is going to be fine, right?” Steve turned to Ricky Flinn and asked as he watched Fatih finish his track entry lap, a few corners away from the end of the lap, before he decided on whether to go for a push lap, following the tradition he had set, or if he would want to go on another warmup lap to regain his confidence on the wet track.

“It is going to be fine, just watch him,” Ricky said, sounding confident, which gave the other two people with him some confidence. But only he knew that he too was worried. This might have been the worst race for a driver who might now be a tad bit more cautious to return to, as a wet track would result in a driver being more cautious than they would have been on a dry track. The knowledge that on a wet track it is easier to go off-track than it would be on a dry one, and for someone who had kissed the barrier and come out of it with a punctured lung, broken ribs, and a broken hand, it was the worst possible situation to be in. That was what all three of them, who had been with Fatih since he made his international debut, had on their minds.

Fortunately for them, the one on the other side was Fatih.

….

“Woooooooo!!!!!! Now, this is how it should feel,” Fatih shouted under his helmet, breaking the fully focused expression he usually had the moment he put a helmet on. But today was a special situation that gave him an exemption, though it wasn’t even to the point where it could be considered an exemption per se, as the hyper-vigilance training that Apollo had continued to instill in him was in full effect. So even when he looked to be focused on something else, he was still vigilant and focused on his kart.

“What is with the excitement?” Apollo asked, he too breaking his tradition of being silent during active on-track sessions.

“It is really good to finally return to a competition where I can fully enjoy the fruit of my hard work and the suffering I underwent in the simulation,” Fatih responded with a smile.

Unlike what many people experienced with injuries of this scale, where sportsmen return and are never the same, that was not a problem for Fatih. Thanks to Apollo’s brutal training, which had him even experience the pain of his spine bending in a direction it was not supposed to, paired with Invictus, the thought of fear had never crossed his mind. Even while he was in a hospital bed undergoing oxygen therapy for his punctured lung, he had never skipped entering the simulation to continue practicing. He had spent that day’s four simulation hours reviewing his accident, doing forensics before redriving the kart, trying to see if there were any early markers that, had he been aware of them, would have allowed him to go a tad bit softer and avoid overstressing the tires to get to the end of the race. No matter how many different scenarios he drove, the kart always ended up having either the front or rear right tire blow, with some of them happening just a few corners from the end of the race. The races he did finish were the ones where he was driving so slow he lost positions, but to Fatih, it was no different than not driving at all.

From then on, and after learning that he was going to be out for about three to six months, he put all of the free practice time he had into practicing on the tracks for the races after his recovery was completed, starting from the current track. The more detailed his examinations got, together with gauging his mother’s response to him telling her he was fine, he had narrowed it down to this race being the most likely one for his return, and had put most of his focus here so that he could vent all of his longing for a real competition on this track when he returned. And he was now just a few corners away from starting the next lap.

“Now give them a performance worthy of them having come here to welcome your return,” Apollo said before going silent, as Fatih was now entering the final straight leading to a right-hander followed by S-corners, which were the second and third to last corners, leading to a final right-hander that puts you on the start-finish straight. That was also the decision-making zone on whether the next lap is a push lap or not.

“Say no more,” Fatih said before he started weaving left and right on the straight to put temperature in his tires with just enough speed to not spin on the wetting track. The moment he reached the middle part of the straight, he straightened the kart and put the pedal to the metal, making it obvious to everyone that he was going for a push lap.

…

(Track Images here)

“And it looks like no sort of injury, fear, or rain is going to stop him from breaking his tradition of going for a push lap one lap after joining the track from the pit lane. It is one of the reasons we love him. Luca, please take us through the lap,” George said, giving the mic to Lucas, the technical commentator, to commentate on the upcoming lap through his technical eye, where he could differentiate if he was pushing fully or driving with some level of caution.

“Considering that this is a free practice, many drivers would choose to take their first push laps with some level of caution, leaving some performance on the table and spending the following laps closing that gap as they gain more confidence in the kart, even more so when the track is actively getting wetter from the rain. But Fatih has never shown that approach in any of his previous competitions, as he always goes in guns blazing, and it doesn’t look like he is going to start now, as he exits the final corner on full power, going wide and taking as much curb as possible on the start-finish straight. He moves his head forward and down for the mini-DRS effect at full power and in sixth gear as turn one approaches.

It is usually a flat-out turn one and two in dry conditions, but in the wet, many choose caution and lift slightly or brake. And will Fatih follow that tradition? OOOOOOOOH! He hasn’t even hesitated, going into turn one on full power, taking the curb, and doing the same into turn two before heading under the bridge, and only then does he lift and brake. It is as if he has seven lives! I’m pretty sure I would have chickened out because any mistake here and many things could go wrong, and you might find yourself in the barriers or the wall of the bridge. None of that is something someone fresh off a three-month injury break would want to happen, but it seems that thought never crossed his mind as he now goes around into the bridge section, already on power and pushing.

You have to hug the chicane and go wide on the exit of the bridge section with as much power as possible to take advantage of the downward slope of the track as it returns to its normal elevation, but in the rain, it becomes very wet on the lower part as it gathers water coming from the slope. But Fatih seems to believe in his kart as he goes wider than normal, even slightly dipping it into the sand, but keeping control. What follows now is a sequence of straights and hairpins, and he is really not leaving any margin for error…”

…….

“….” Rümeysa, in the roof-covered grandstands, watched in silence as Fatih reached scary speeds on the straights, braked as late and as heavily as possible without locking or sliding, took the first hairpin, and repeated the same on the second hairpin into the straight that leads into the chicane, clipping the kerbs nicely. He was back on another straight, taking the following corners with as much speed as possible before returning to the start-finish line.

“The prodigal son announces his return by setting a blistering lap on a wet track, challenging everyone else to try and match him…”

As she watched Fatih drive with that much confidence and none of the fear she was afraid he was going to have, and heard the commentator’s excited voice as he crossed the start-finish line, she breathed a sigh of relief amidst the loud cheering. Although the doctor had told her the chances of psychological issues were minimal based on how Fatih responded, she was still worried that being in the real competition might trigger them. But it seemed like she was just being overly worried, as she realized that she might have been more affected by it mentally than Fatih was.

…….

“There seems to be no problem with the psychological side of things,” someone on a phone call could be heard amidst the rain, updating the person on the other side of the phone.

“Yes, I will keep you updated if anything changes, but it seems like the only evident feeling about him is excitement about finally being back on the track. He went on five push laps back-to-back without stopping, and all of them were as fast as the others, with only a small difference in time,” responded the man to the words he heard from the other side before ending the call and returning his focus to the track.

He was a Red Bull scout sent to observe Fatih’s situation so that Helmut Marko could decide on the next course of action based on how Fatih behaved. If he was fine, they could go ahead with the plans that had been halted as a result of his injury. If he showed fear, then they would have to come up with a new plan that would give him some time to recover. And if he didn’t recover even after some time, then they would even drop him from the Red Bull academy.