Formula 1: The GOAT

“Who sent Fatih’s car on the track?” a voice was heard behind James’s ears as he watched Fatih’s onboard feed while he was in the middle of another push lap.

“We just followed the timetable. Is there something we missed?” James said as he removed his headphones, a look on his face obviously asking what the heck was the problem and why such a foolish question was being asked.

“Are you trying to have him disqualified from the competition entirely? He only has a practice lic…,” but just as the man was about to finish what he was saying, he caught himself and looked around to see if anyone had heard them. Thankfully, no one other than those on the pit wall heard him.

“Tell him to abort the lap and call him to the pit lane immediately,” the man added before pointing for James to immediately follow him to the team garage.

James couldn’t argue further, as the man who had given the order was the team’s Sporting Director. From his reaction, he knew immediately that the situation was not going to be good at all. He immediately got on the radio and called, {BOX, BOX, BOX. Abort immediately and BOX.}

{Confirm,} Fatih, who was just about to pass the pit entry by the time the call to pit came, responded as he aborted his lap and entered the pits at high speed before braking and reducing his speed to the pit lane limit just a meter before crossing the line.

James immediately walked to where Fatih’s car would come to a stop and waited for the car to arrive, along with the mechanics who had reacted to the call, carrying the dry ice cooling fans. Fatih came to a stop, and a few moments later, his car was raised and dragged into the garage before he finally got out.

“What is the problem?” he asked the moment he got out of the car.

“I don’t know, but the sporting director is waiting for us in the meeting room, and it doesn’t look good at all,” James said as he received Fatih’s helmet and HANS device, which he immediately placed aside as they rushed to the meeting room, curious about the situation.

…..

“Oh, I wonder if he is having a problem, as he was on a very competitive lap with sector one being purple, but all of that was thrown away as he was called into the pit box,” Brad said when the feed cut to show Fatih diving into the pit lane at high speed in slow motion, as the radio recording calling him to the pit lane replayed at the same time.

“It might be a very dangerous situation considering that it was an immediate call to abort the lap, so it maybe has something to do with the gearbox that was replaced yesterday?” Justin responded.

“I hope they solve it fast enough before the qualifying session ends and he fails to set another lap time, because that would make his weekend a nightmare for any driver since he will go to racing without ever fully completing an actual session at all,” Brad added, and the back and forth on this topic continued for a short while before they moved on to commentating about the still ongoing qualifying session as other drivers were still setting their lap times.

……..

“Why wasn’t I made aware of it ahead of time? And do you know how absurd this is?” Fatih asked in complete surprise at how such an obvious oversight could even happen.

“Looks like only me, your manager, and the team manager are the only ones who knew about it. I thought the team manager had already informed you, and most likely it is the same for him. Since he is not here today and I arrived late, there was really no chance to avoid it at all. It is an oversight from our side, I apologize,” Harry, Arden Motorsports’ Sporting Director, said, sounding completely apologetic. He knew it was a very big oversight and a mistake big enough that it could disqualify a driver or have him ineligible for the competition for the entire year, and that wasn’t even the worst of the possible consequences.

“Don’t you think at least I should have been made aware that his license is a Junior License?” James asked, his heart pounding deeply due to how huge the mistake was.

The minimum age for participating in any F4 competition per the FIA was 15, and Fatih had not yet reached that age, meaning he couldn’t be given a grade C license. In return, he was given a Junior License, which could also be called a testing license, that allowed him to participate in free practice sessions but not officially timed ones. Doing that would immediately result in a disqualification and a two-year ban from earning superlicense points, and they had just had him participate in an officially timed session and have his time recorded by the official timing system.

“…..” Fatih was speechless as he wondered if Red Bull was really this sloppy in their actions, as they were the ones who were responsible for the communications and the entire process of license application and approvals. But it was a stretch for everything to go without it being caught by a single person and brought to the table because there were many approval stages. Seeing that, he immediately considered deliberate sabotage, but he immediately dismissed it and asked, “How come no one caught it? I’m sure there are many steps where it would have been caught.”

“That is true, but it would easily pass the scrutineering stage on Friday since it was an official testing license. But those tests don’t happen daily, and thank God we are the ones who caught on to it and not the stewards, who would have black-flagged your session. I don’t want to imagine the mess if that happened,” Harry said as he pinched his brows, knowing that although they were the ones who caught it, they needed to report it immediately in order to have leniency in the punishment they would inevitably receive.

“I will go and report it to the stewards immediately. You stay put here and report it to the team owner and update everyone on the team. We need to sort it as fast as possible,” Harry said as he stood from the chair and immediately left, heading to the stewards’ room to report the situation and confess, while at the same time imagining all of the problems and the earful he was going to hear from both Red Bull and the stewards.

“Let me go and call the CEO,” James said as he stood and left to update the team owner about the situation.

“Let me call Mom,” Fatih said as he too left to go and update his mother, while at the same time hoping the situation would be resolved easily.

…..

“And we have just received an update on Fatih’s situation: he has officially been disqualified for having an ineligible license to participate in competitive sessions, and the situation is currently under investigation for how he was allowed on the track without an eligible license,” Brad said as he read from the message he had received on his phone.

“It looks like someone made a mistake and mischaracterized his test license as an official one, leading to a fourteen-year-old being allowed to enter the track. How do you think that happened?” Justin took over and expanded on it.

“I blame his driving for that. Would you even consider wondering if he has only a testing license if he is driving like that? And it is very lucky that it was discovered fast and was reported by the team itself, as it means there will be leniency. But this is going to cause quite a turmoil as the FIA will be investigating this situation individually,” Brad said, pausing for a moment before he added, “Looks like I will be the one to speak in a Scottish accent, hahahahahahha,” trying to brighten and make light of the situation, as he knew depending on how the public reacted, the FIA might give a harsher sentence than they would have usually given.

“As a result of this discovery, Fatih is only going to participate in free practice sessions until he is eligible to race after he turns 15 on the 16th of May, which means he will miss two race weekends and will only be eligible on the third race weekend. As a result, he will miss six races, which nearly reduces his chances of contending for the championship to almost none.”

“I was really looking forward to practicing my Scottish accent, but it looks like the blessing has fallen upon you.”

……

As the commentators talked about it, the situation kept escalating. Within a few minutes, the report had already been sent to the Motor Sports Association (MSA), TOSFED, and Red Bull as well, and each of them immediately opened their own inquiry into the matter. It was already getting out of hand.

Fatih’s mother was also in contact with his manager and her expanded team that was absorbed into the family office to try to understand the situation and reduce the downfall for Fatih as much as possible.