Formula 1: The GOAT

Huffff! Hufffff! Hufffff! Huffff! Hufffff! Hufffff! Huffff! Hufffff! Hufffff!

From the other side of the mirror, Dr. Ernst and his team silently watched Fatih, who was currently jogging on a treadmill with an oxygen mask strapped to his face as he sweated profusely.

“Doesn’t he get tired or something?” one of Dr. Ernst’s assistants asked as he looked at the timer on the telemetry computer, which showed that Fatih was one hour into this exercise and showed no signs of stopping anytime soon.

“The temperature itself should have been hell, but exercising in it as well is a nightmare. Even he had to leave the room, and he wasn’t the one running,” another assistant said as he pointed to the trainer who had left the Oven due to the heat inside it.

Despite just supervising, he was still covered in sweat, sipping cold water to cool himself while still looking through the transparent glass wall into the Oven.

Dr. Ernst, instead of answering, just looked at the telemetry screen, focusing on the temperature shown on it, which was 50 °C. It had been maintained for more than half an hour, having slowly been raised from the starting temperature of 30 °C, the baseline they had started training at since the first day.

“Since it’s his fifth time achieving the same pace without any backlash to his body from the temperature, shouldn’t we certify him already?” another assistant said, this time directly talking to Dr. Ernst, wanting him to hear his opinion.

“Tell him to come out,” Dr. Ernst finally spoke after a moment of silence following the previous question.

“Yes,” the assistant said before pressing the mic button, telling Fatih that the exercise was coming to an end. He then slowly reduced the speed of the treadmill and allowed the temperature in the room to naturally dissipate through the ventilation.

“Here, have this,” Alex said as he handed Fatih a bottle of cold water and a towel to the entirely soaked Fatih.

“Thank you,” Fatih said as he accepted the two items before walking over to Dr. Ernst.

“This will be the end of our adaptation exercise, so for the next three days, you are free to do whatever you want. But don’t do anything to exceed your body’s limits, as you need to allow it to recover to an optimum level before heading to Milton Keynes. Understood?” Dr. Ernst immediately got to the point, not bothering with any small talk.

“Do I have to remain in Austria and at the Center?” Fatih, who was nodding as he listened to the doctor, finally asked as he slowly opened the bottle and started to drink.

“I don’t believe there is any restriction, so I don’t think there will be any problem so long as you’re with Alex,” Dr. Ernst said as he glanced at Alex, who nodded without hesitation.

“They are not going to be following me even during those days, right?” Fatih asked as he pointed to the docuseries camera and sound team that were spread in different areas of the room, getting different shots of him and everything else.

They had even placed a few cameras inside the Oven to record everything since they started training.

“That is up to them, I think,” Dr. Ernst said before picking up a dossier from the table that had all the monitoring screens, signing something, and handing it to his assistant before leaving the room, bringing Fatih’s training at the Red Bull Athlete Performance Center to an end.

“Red Bull will be covering your travel expenses, right?” Fatih asked Alex as they started walking to the door to leave the room, ignoring the camera team, which had two people detached to follow him to record video and sound.

“I think they will if I request it. Do you have a destination in mind?” Alex asked as he carried some of Fatih’s belongings, making him slower than normal, resulting in Fatih slowing down to match his pace.

“I want to go around the most famous places in the country first before heading home tomorrow night and resting there for the next two days.”

“Then I don’t think there will be any problem with that. I will start going and do the plane ticket and hotel booking now.”

“Good, and don’t book a hotel for a stay. We have many rooms at home, so you can stay with us if you want.”

“Then I will have to inconvenience you during that duration,” Alex said just as Fatih took his belongings from him, having arrived at his apartment.

“See you in two hours,” Fatih said before entering his room and heading directly to the bathroom to clean himself from the sweat that had caused his clothes to stick to him.

Two hours later, they finally left the Center, this time borrowing one of the Center’s cars to go and tour the city and its surroundings, planning not to return until tomorrow evening. True to their words, they did exactly that, returning on the evening of the next day and immediately heading to the airport, bound for England for Fatih to spend two days with his family before finally heading to Milton Keynes.

…….

“I contacted them about our arrival, so someone should be waiting for us,” Alex said as he parked the car in the parking lot of Milton Keynes.

“We don’t have any other things on the schedule, like meeting people or something, right?” Fatih asked as he got out of the car with his backpack.

“Nothing about that has been planned ahead of time, and I don’t think there is going to be any tour since you already know the area.”

“Yeah, true. So are we leaving the bags in the car until later?”

“Yes, there is no need to move them now,” Alex said as he locked the car before adding, “Plus, if they add a meeting and you meet important people, it is going to cause quite some dissatisfaction among the other drivers.”

“Because you think they might be wary of favoritism?” Fatih asked in an amused tone.

“Yeah, you don’t think so?”

“You think Red Bull is worried about showing favoritism when everything is built around that? Here, so long as you keep performing, they will show you as much favoritism as you want, and I’m sure other drivers know that as well,” Fatih said, knowing that although at the moment Red Bull wasn’t so skewed to a single driver as they would be in the future, where they would order other drivers to sabotage their own races to support their number one driver, they were still showing it with Max in a way that was visible to everyone. The more he continued performing, the more they were going to show that favoritism.

“But aren’t you worried about being an outcast among the Academy drivers?” Alex, who had no choice but to agree with that logic, asked.

“I don’t care what they think about me. So long as they don’t hinder me on the track or do something that directly harms my interests, whatever they think about me doesn’t really affect me or even matter,” Fatih said as they started walking away, as they had a schedule to keep up with.

……..

“Welcome, I’m Jack, and I will be responsible for making your racing earpiece,” Jack said, introducing himself to Fatih and Alex the moment they arrived at the radio department.

They introduced themselves as well and had a small back and forth before they finally got to work.

“Please sit still,” Jack said, carrying an otoscope as he inserted it in Fatih’s ear before adding, “I’m basically checking for any deformation and blockages around your ears, like wax buildup and things like that.”

After checking the ears, Jack then picked another cone-shaped device and inserted it into Fatih’s ears, leaving a foam block in both ears as he said, “This is to stop the silicone that will be inserted from going all the way into your eardrums.”

“That went further than I expected,” Fatih said when the foam block was pushed by force all the way into his ear.

“It is normal, don’t worry,” Jack said as he picked up a gun-shaped object that had a white liquid and started inserting it into Fatih’s left ear as he said, “Try not to move your jaw or talk too much, otherwise it can change the shape of the mold, which might not fit properly later on.”

Once both of Fatih’s ears were covered by the mold, he said, “Now we wait ten minutes for it to harden.” Fatih only responded by opening and closing his eyes, trying not to move at all.

“Okay, time is up, so we should start the removal now,” Jack said before placing his hand on Fatih’s ear and adding, “Just wiggle your jaw for me. It should help to ease the molds out.”

“Okay, our work with you is done here, and everything else will be done on our side,” Jack said as he placed the molds on the table.

“So you move to production immediately?” Alex, who was watching it happen the entire time, asked.

“No, we will take them to be scanned before we send them to our partner manufacturer, who will be producing a perfect-fit earpiece that won’t fall out even during race conditions. It should take at least a year before we need to create another mold as you grow,” Jack said.

“That is quite complicated for something as simple as an earpiece,” Alex said when he saw all of the trouble Fatih had to undergo just for his racing earpiece.

“Well, communication is one of the most important aspects of racing, so we need to do everything to ensure there is as small a chance of things failing as possible.”