Formula 1: The GOAT

“Should we move it back again, or is that enough?” Fatih was asked as he tried to push the pedals in front of him and get a feel for them.

He was in the setup phase of his F4 seat fitting process, and before his seat could be molded around his body, they first needed to set his steering wheel reach, pedal distance, and headrest alignment beforehand.

Fatih closed his eyes, using his Invictus, now at Limit Break, to fully focus on his legs as he simulated braking and accelerating, trying to see if, at the current distance, he could extract the maximum output with minimal input. His focus was on the minimal input part of the equation, as even if the pedal distance was not optimal, he was confident that he would still be able to extract everything possible from it, just that it would take more from him than needed. To reduce that as much as possible, he knew he needed to have everything as perfect as possible beforehand.

“Let’s move it back by a centimeter,” Fatih said as he opened his eyes.

“A centimeter it is,” Paul, the lead of this seat-fitting process, said as he pointed for the setup assistant to go ahead with Fatih’s demand.

“How about now?” the assistant asked after pulling both the brake and accelerator pedals back by exactly a centimeter.

Fatih once again tested them a few times before he opened his eyes and gave a thumbs-up.

“Okay, let’s do final checks,” Paul said in reaction to Fatih’s thumbs-up.

“Shoulder alignments are good, steering distance and pedals are now set, so those are good too,” he said as he ticked boxes on his documents after manually checking everything before he finally said, “Okay, now please come out of the cockpit.”

Fatih, who was now fully geared except for his helmet and balaclava, calmly exited the monocoque as the assistants removed the towels and temporary support they had placed where he was previously seated.

They followed that by placing a large, heavy-duty plastic bag and taping it into the now-empty cockpit. They then took the pre-prepared chemical foam, mixing it before they poured it into the bag, which slowly started expanding.

“Okay, now you have to get back in and sit as comfortably as possible before the foam hardens, as that will be your seat shape until the next fitting,” Paul said, which Fatih acknowledged and immediately entered the cockpit, feeling the warm liquid foam that was still expanding around his body as he slowly adjusted himself into the best seating position, one where he wouldn’t have to expend any energy to keep his body stable.

“Any adjustments needed?” Paul asked once Fatih stopped moving after a few minor adjustments.

“None,” Fatih said, not bothering to move any part of his body.

“Good, now you have to maintain that position for an hour for the foam to harden,” Paul said as he started the timer.

“Okay,” Fatih said before closing his eyes, planning to remain like that for the entire duration, which for others might be difficult and feel like torture, but for him, it was something easy to deal with since he had someone to keep him company and talk to without even moving his mouth.

“To them, this entire day is going to be shown as just a ten-minute segment,” Fatih said to Apollo, talking about the camera crew that was with him.

The entire day could be classified as a measurement and fitting day, as everything that needed custom fitting was squeezed into the schedule, starting with the earpiece, then moving to helmet measurements, HANS device measurements, racing equipment measurements, steering wheel grip molds of his hands to reduce fatigue and improve tactile feedback, and now, finally, the seat fitting, which took the longest to complete. Other measurements and molds finished within minutes, and nothing more than half an hour, but even the steering distance and the pedal box adjustments took half an hour alone.

’For you it is a day, but for the technicians who have to take those molds and turn them into custom parts, it is more than that,’ Apollo said leisurely while fully focused on Fatih’s body position, making sure he didn’t move.

He had been helping him with every measurement that required the driver to do something specific to make sure he didn’t make any mistakes and had everything set perfectly, and he wasn’t about to miss it when they were at the last hurdle.

“How long do you think it will take for all of the things we measured to be made?” Fatih opened his eyes and asked Paul. He knew the approximate periods but wanted to hear the time from the actual people who did the job and not what he had read or learned from videos in his past life.

“Mh…” Paul trailed for a moment as he came up with the list of things Fatih had been measured for or had a mold made of before he said, “Some of them, like the HANS device and helmet, are already ready for use if you don’t take into consideration customizations and painting. For your earpieces, we can scan the molds and send them to the manufacturer, who will take them to create the shock-absorbing and noise-canceling earpieces; that takes about a week. The race suit, about three weeks.

For the seat, the foam part will be ready by tomorrow after trimming, and the carbon fiber shell will take two weeks before it is ready since they are made by hand and need autoclave curing. So the race suit is the only one that will take more than three weeks to finish, but everything should be ready by the time you move from the simulator to actual driving.”

Fatih, who was listening, nodded in his mind but didn’t move his actual head before he said thanks and returned to closing his eyes, savoring every moment of the process, as he knew with each passing minute he was actively getting closer to his dream, and he wanted to enjoy both the journey and the destination.

Time passed quickly, and it wasn’t long until the hour had passed and Fatih was finally allowed to leave the mold that had already hardened, perfectly shaped to allow for the most convenience possible in his seating.

“Okay, we are done with everything in our timetable today, so we can leave now if you have nothing else planned,” Alex said as he handed him a bottle of water.

“I have nothing planned, and I’m tired,” Fatih said as he drank the water slowly.

“Okay, then let’s go.”

“Thank you, everyone,” Fatih said, thanking all the people in the room who were going to have to resume working even after he left, and headed to the accommodations that were prepared for them, which this time were not as luxurious as the ones at the APC but were still top-standard.

……..

When the next day came, they arrived at the headquarters at 9 a.m., finally ready to start his theory training, where he would be learning everything needed to bridge the massive technical gap between lightweight karting and a complex aerodynamic race car.

“Hello, I’m Denis, and I will be the one responsible for taking you through the theory training,” Denis said when he entered the small conference room that had been converted into a makeshift class and found Fatih and Alex already there, waiting for him.

“Hi, I’m Fatih. Nice to meet you,” Fatih said as he met the extended hand while standing to show respect.

“Nice to meet you. It is good to finally put a face to the name I have been preparing to meet for quite some time,” Denis said as he shook Fatih’s hand up and down.

Denis then moved to shake hands with Alex before he placed the pile of documents tucked under his arm on the table. He moved to the makeshift board and said, “Although I said it is theory, it will not remain like that for long, since we will be using real-world results as examples, and you will not move forward with any other training unless you get a pass from me on the theory side of things.” The smile on his face had already disappeared and been replaced by a complete no-nonsense expression.

When he received a nod of acknowledgment, he finally moved on, starting to write on the board while saying, “We will be learning three main topics. We will start with Vehicle Dynamics & Aerodynamics, where we will learn about weight transfer, which is quite different from karting; aero concepts to understand how downforce is generated, aero grip, and all of the handling conditions it leads to at different speeds; and slip angle and load sensitivity by going through the basic physics of how tires generate cornering force and how to manage the limits of understeer and oversteer.

Then we will move to the second main topic, which is Technical Systems & Controls, where we will learn braking theory. Unlike karting’s ankle braking, we will be learning threshold braking, where you brake with full leg strength to hit peak pressure immediately to take advantage of downforce, followed by trail braking as you bleed pressure off slowly towards the corner apex. We’ll cover the gearbox and clutch, where we will learn to manage paddle-shift systems.

Lastly, in this main topic, we will learn data analysis and everything it entails to ensure that by the end of the course, if you see telemetry, you will understand everything about it. And the last main topic will be Competition & Racecraft, where we will learn things like flag meanings, track etiquette, and driving rules to both avoid breaking them and exploit them to our benefit.

The course will be more extensive than anything anyone in your position is going to need to learn, which is a choice I made after learning of your academic excellence in school. It made me want to fully utilize it to see how far someone who fully understands the car will be able to go. So, do you have any questions or complaints?”

“None,” Fatih said, though on the inside, he wanted to thank Denis for deciding to increase the difficulty of the course more than necessary.

“Good, then let’s start…”