Formula 1: The GOAT

“Do you think you are a GPU or something? Why are you trying to simulate it like one?” Apollo appeared in front of Fatih, one hand on his waist and the other on his neck, as if Fatih’s attempt was causing him neck pain due to his approach.

“I’m pretty sure the brain is more of a GPU than a CPU, with more than a hundred billion cores for massive parallel processing, so is it wrong to approach it that way?” Fatih asked. His eyes were still closed, but despite that, he could still see Apollo looking at him as if tired of his argumentative style of always trying to justify his actions and sometimes taking words literally.

“I can’t waste my time arguing with you. Instead of trying to simulate the entire car, why not start by creating your hands and the steering wheel and have it match the steering input to the telemetry? Then, once you are adept at doing that, follow it by creating legs and pedals and have them match the throttle and pedal inputs before slowly increasing the size of your simulation all the way to the full car, including pistons firing, brake temperature, and many more,” Apollo said, as if he was going to ignore anything from Fatih that was not going to allow him to resume his teaching duties.

“You want me to simulate even the firing of pistons? Do you take me for a 3D creation program?” Fatih asked, quite surprised by the words coming from Apollo.

“Your brain, at its ultimate level, can handle that much simulation, but to do it, you will need data, which I will help you with, and a very long practice period before you can visualize everything for an entire car just from the telemetry. But for now, focus on just the steering wheel and the throttle and brake inputs,” Apollo said as he waved his hand to create a CAD rendering of the F4 car before the parts split and disappeared, leaving only the steering wheel and the three pedals for Fatih to get used to their images.

“Okay, let’s do it again,” he said, opening his eyes once again to try and visualize just the steering wheel.

He recalled the look of the steering wheel from his mind as everything around him disappeared and went out of focus. He fully focused on the steering wheel, which he slowly rotated to see how it looked from different angles, but the moment it moved, the imagination was cut abruptly.

“What the…”

“Did you think it was going to succeed on the first try?” Apollo said, interrupting Fatih’s statement. His tone this time was more similar to the one he had when teaching Fatih about the car. “Do it again until you can sustain the steering wheel simulation for at least five minutes while it is rotating,” he said, making Fatih once again start his imaginary simulation without any arguments. He knew that he needed repeated practice, just like he did in every other training that led to him earning an ability, and he knew if he earned this one, it was going to be quite a beneficial one too.

“..tih, …atih, FATIH!!!!!”

Fatih was finally removed from the stupor he was in when his body was shaken by his race engineer, returning his focus back to the real world.

“Yes, is there a problem?” Fatih asked as he looked at his surroundings, trying to act as if everything was normal.

“Are you alright? I called you for quite some time, but you didn’t respond at all,” James, his race engineer, asked as he scrutinized Fatih.

“I just lost focus for a moment, but I should be fine by the time my track time arrives,” Fatih said, trying to move on to the main point fast.

“What do you mean ’for a moment’? It has been fifty minutes,” James said with a look of surprise at Fatih’s response.

’What? Fifty minutes have passed already?’ Fatih wanted to ask out loud but ended up doing so in his mind, barely managing to hold himself back from blurting it out.

“Are you sure you are fine?” James asked once again. “Are you getting nervous or something?” he added.

“Nope, I’m fully fine,” Fatih said, closing and opening his eyes. They returned to full attentiveness, the previously unfocused look completely disappearing.

“Then head to your car, as there are only five minutes until Dennis’s first track time is over and your time to head to the track comes,” James said, pointing to the garage where Lisa was standing with her hands on her hips, looking at Fatih.

“Ooh, okay,” Fatih said as he removed the headphones from his head and started leaving the pit wall before pausing for a moment, turning to James, and saying, “Thanks,” before he jogged, pulling on the upper part of his racing suit as he went.

’Fifty minutes went by pretty fast,’ Fatih said to himself as he was running.

“Time goes that fast when you are focused on something interesting and intense,” Apollo said with a lighter tone, as even he had lost track of time while supervising Fatih, who was fully focused and improving rapidly.

“Here,” Alex said, meeting him at the garage entrance and handing him the gear that went on his head.

Fatih immediately removed the custom earphones molded to the shape of his ear canals before lubricating them with his saliva for easier entry and followed it by putting on his balaclava. He then took his helmet from Alex and walked to Lisa while holding it in his hand.

“Okay, the procedure is simple. You get in the car, we strap you in, push you out of the garage, and when we give you a thumbs up, you’re green to go, okay?” Lisa said, speaking loudly so Fatih could hear.

“Okay,” was all he said.

“During the drive, if you feel any weirdness with the car, report it immediately so that we can identify and deal with it as fast as possible. Don’t try to hide it just to have a longer session, or you might miss more time if we have to repair the car after something goes wrong,” she said before patting Fatih on his shoulder and adjusting his racing suit for the final time as she moved aside, opening the way for him to head to his car.

His car was not yet powered on, but it was fully ready and waiting for him.

He immediately put the HANS device on first before putting on his helmet and strapping it tightly to the device, while leaving the visor open, before nodding to the mechanics working on his car.

He followed that by immediately raising his foot, which one of the mechanics cleaned the sole of before placing it in the cockpit. The other shoe was then cleaned before he stood fully in the cockpit. After adjusting and raising the suit in the crotch area to avoid pinching it when sitting down, he finally got into his seating position, getting comfortable.

The mechanics immediately started strapping him in, making sure he was one with the car, and no matter where it went, he would fully go with it.

“Tighter,” Fatih said when he tried to move his body and found that he could. The mechanics immediately tightened it a bit more.

“Okay,” he finally gave his thumbs-up when he tried to move but couldn’t.

{Radio check, one, two,} James’s sound was heard through Fatih’s earphones.

“Loud and clear,” he responded while holding the radio button on his chest, as it was not embedded on the steering wheel.

{We are only using radios during these tests, so don’t get used to it,} James said in his usual light tone.

Unlike F3 and higher, F4 didn’t have a two-way radio system, which was a deliberate choice by the organizers to make sure drivers learn independent open-wheel racing and don’t become fully reliant on feedback and directions from the pit wall from the start. Once they move to the next category, they are deemed ready, so a two-way radio is allowed starting from F3. As for how they communicated, drivers relied on traditional pit boards held out by crew members on the pit wall to receive information such as lap times, gaps to other cars, and remaining laps. The cars also featured a basic onboard signaling system that replicated trackside flag warnings on the steering wheel display to improve safety.

“I will keep that in mind,” Fatih responded.

{Okay, let’s power the car on. Only two minutes remaining,} James said.

Fatih immediately started the power-up procedure.

His left hand moved to the small panel on the left side of the cockpit that had buttons and toggled the ignition switch to the UP position before he waited for the steering wheel’s digital display and oil pressure gauge to illuminate. Once that was done, he immediately pressed and held the start button but didn’t turn on the fuel pump yet, continuing to crank it until the oil pressure gauge on the steering wheel showed a reading of 1.4 bar. He then flipped the middle toggle switch (fuel) to the ON position, and the engine fired immediately once the fuel was introduced.

Once the engine was on, he released the start button and let it idle as he waited for the water and oil to reach operating temperatures. While he was doing that, his car was pushed out of the garage and into the fast lane. He now waited for the green light to head to the track, his foot fully on the brake as he revved the engine up and down for a moment.

{Thirty seconds.}

Fatih immediately closed his visor, which had golden tear-off strips, before he released the brake and immediately engaged the clutch as he revved the engine and put the car in first gear, fully ready, with his eyes focused on the pit exit lights that were still red.

The moment the lights turned green, he released the clutch…

VROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM