Formula 1: The GOAT

“Jack Doohan needs to drive as perfectly and as fast as he possibly can, while Fatih only has to drive faster than Jack, which he has shown he is capable of doing repeatedly by topping the previous sessions. It is also aided by Fatih being in the chasing position and not the one being chased, as usual, so it gives him peace of mind, as it is easier to take from someone than to protect what you have.

We can see the distance between the two drivers is now being continuously reduced as Fatih takes advantage of being the chasing driver and tucks into Jack Doohan’s slipstream, which is very powerful for the cars without DRS as they head into Stowe corner.

However, it looks like Fatih is not content with ending it like that, as he moves out of the slipstream to mount an attack on the outside into Stowe corner, forcing Jack Doohan to move defensively. But it was a feint, as Fatih changes his line to the inside, reducing that gap from a few tenths behind to taking the corner almost side-by-side with him, having the inside line out of Stowe.

A magnificent move that turns the chase into a side-by-side drag race into the Vale chicane. On the long straight, who is going to be last on the brakes? Jack Doohan still has a short lead compared to Fatih, with his forced outside line now turning into the inside line leading into the chicane, while Fatih has more confidence in his driving and late braking.

OH, THEY BRAKE NEARLY AT THE SAME TIME! JACK DOOHAN PUSHES FATIH WIDE AS THEY ENTER THE CHICANE, BUT FATIH STAYS HIS GROUND AS HE MANAGES TO ROTATE THE CAR! BUT THE MOVE TURNS OUT TO BE COSTLY FOR JACK AS FATIH’S OUTSIDE LINE INTO THE CORNER NOW TURNS INTO THE INSIDE LINE OUT OF THE CHICANE, AND JACK OVERSHOOTS HIS SPEED AND GOES OFF THE TRACK! FATIH GETS THROUGH INTO THE LEAD! UNBELIEVABLE BACK-AND-FORTH BATTLE BETWEEN THE TWO DRIVERS!

JACK SHOWED BRAVERY AND INTENT TO FIGHT, WHILE FATİH SHOWED TECHNICAL DRIVING AND BIDDING HIS TIME, WHILE FORCING THE OTHER DRIVER INTO MAKING MISTAKES AND CAPITALIZING ON THEM BY SETTING UP THE ATTACK AHEAD OF TIME. GENTLEMEN, WE MIGHT BE WITNESSING THE STARTING POINT FOR GREAT DRIVERS, SO ETCH THESE MOMENTS INTO YOUR BRAINS!

As for Fatih, who has now finally taken the lead before the end of the first lap, it looks like it is going to be a repeat of the previous race, as he has now already cemented his lead by having more than five-tenths of a second between him and Jack Doohan, who now has to be wary of Dennis Hauger, who has narrowed the distance thanks to Jack losing time by going off the track…”

As the self-chosen commentator went on and on, the mechanics and everyone watching on the track, who had been fully focused on the television, finally had a moment to relax and take a breather. They had been in full focus and tension from the start of the lap, the moment Fatih started initiating his attacks, and weren’t allowed a moment of respite between Fatih starting from third to him emerging in the lead. His attacks looked no different than a professional driver bullying beginners by using his experience as an advantage, but everyone here knew that if it was experience based on track time, then the other two had more than ten times what Fatih had. But on the track, if you said it was the opposite, no one would argue against you, as the attacks were ruthless and the mistakes he forced the other side to make were strategic, all culminating in him being the person who benefited from them, even if it was not immediately, but a few corners later.

“Unless there is a safety car, there is no way they are catching up to him, so hand over the money,” one of Fatih’s mechanics said, tapping his friend while stretching his hand, wanting his betting winnings. The mechanics of each driver believed their driver was going to win this final race because Fatih was being sent to the rear of the grid and wouldn’t have the clean air advantage from the get-go, so to make it more fun for each other, they had even bet between one another.

“I’m never betting against you again,” his friend said as he tried to reach into his pockets, only to remember that he was not carrying money since he was in his fireproof overall. When he looked back at his friend, who was laughing at the clumsy mistake he made, he slapped the extended hand as he said, “It’s not over until the checkered flag is waived, and who knows, there might be a safety car.”

Just as he mentioned a safety car, he remembered that for one to come out, a crash had to happen, so it meant that it would be more work for them. He took his words back, “or just a yellow flag for foreign material on the track, who knows.”

“Let this be a lesson to not bet against Fatih,” his friend said as he massaged his slapped hand.

……

Fatih, now finally back in the lead, still retained his full focus on the car as he now entered pacing mode, trying to extract only enough pace out of the car to maintain the same speed all the way to the final lap.

There was no advantage in setting one fastest lap after another if the tires were going to be cooked a few laps before the end of the race, as the amount he would lose in that time period would be enough to lose not only the advantage he had gained but even more if the other drivers conserved their tires.

But the opposite was also the same, as there was no need for the tires to have any more additional grip by the time the race ended, since they wouldn’t be used again. Being too gentle on them would just result in needlessly losing time, so he needed to push just enough that by the time he passed the finish line, all the grip on the tires would be gone. But fine-tuning that was going to take a bit longer; still, a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.

However, although he looked to be in conservation mode instead of a shootout mode, his pace was still competitive compared to the other two drivers as he followed Apollo’s advice from his karting days to the letter. It was advice he had received when he kept operating at one hundred percent capacity, lap after lap, and always being on the edge.

Apollo had told him, “Great drivers don’t operate at one hundred percent capacity all the time, as it is enough for them to operate at about eighty percent with the same, if not better pace than good drivers operating at their maximum. Operating at eighty percent gives you a buffer but also an option to immediately ramp it up to the max at a moment’s notice, which makes it both more effective and doesn’t put too much needless pressure on your body and mind. At the moment, you can handle it easily, but the higher you move and the more things you now have to take into consideration, the more important it will be to pace yourself.”

It was a long-winded piece of advice, but Fatih had taken it to heart and maintained a seventy-five percent operation level, which in itself was still enough to maintain his lead, and he had yet to be pushed any further than eighty percent.

However, to prevent that seventy to eighty percent operation capacity from becoming his actual limit due to constant repetition, in his simulation training, he maintained his operation level at maximum capacity. Thanks to that, he was very good at pacing both himself and his performance from a fully focused single-lap pace to race pace since he knew what the highest possible limit was and could pace himself against that while having a buffer.

……

“Großartig,” Helmut said, “magnificent” in German, when he saw Fatih set up and execute the second attack that propelled him into the race lead, cementing his already high evaluation of him to the same level he had for Verstappen.

“What a shame,” he added, prompting the man who had accompanied him to the negotiation meeting with Fatih’s mother to lean in and ask, “What is a shame?”

“If it weren’t for the new super license, we could have once again broken that record,” Helmut said with a serious expression.

“You think he is F1 ready?” the man asked, quite surprised at the statement, as Fatih hadn’t even debuted in F4.

“Not quite ready yet, but his way of thinking is already there, so if it was permissible, we could have handled the rest for the next year and had him in F1 while he is sixteen, but a shame that it won’t happen.”

Upon hearing that, the man was speechless. It was a devastating revelation that Helmut had deemed a fourteen-year-old to be a possible candidate to break the record of the youngest driver if it was possible. He once again turned to face the screen and take a good look at Fatih’s car, which was now the focus of the TV director, showing him going through Copse corner, before he whispered, “Thank God for the regulation.”

He knew that although many people would be thrilled by the record being broken if it was possible, he saw it as the opposite because the amount of pressure the driver would face would be enough to act as a bottleneck and have him not even live up to half his potential.

So he was thankful that the regulations prevented Helmut from throwing another driver to the wolves because in F1, pace alone was not enough, and all of the experienced drivers would use that to their advantage to break him. He might not survive on the other side and might even be forced to leave the sport when he had just started to live his dream and would have the rest of his life to think about it, which was most likely decades.

But that assessment alone was enough to reveal the amount of importance Helmut had now placed Fatih in his mind, which meant it was both a good and bad thing for Fatih but an even worse situation for the other two academy drivers of theirs, as they now had an insurmountable mountain of a driver in their class who they would always be compared against and be reminded of.