Formula 1: The GOAT

After dropping Dennis off and returning home, Fatih finally had a chance to have a conversation with his mother, where she updated him on how they were dealing with the situation before he went to rest.

While he was doing that, the media team had already moved to remove the SD cards from the cameras in the car and started going through all of the footage recorded over the entire weekend.

As for the situation among the fans who followed the feeder series, the matter relating to Fatih’s interview and the rumors about it continued to spread. At some point, they had broken through the feeder series bubble into the motorsports scene as a whole, where people who were only interested in following certain series found themselves seeing posts and tweets regarding the situation. Due to how interesting the discourse was, they found themselves hooked and either just followed how it was unfolding or directly participated using the bits of information they had seen before making their own decisions. This created a compounding effect where more and more people were being dragged into the matter.

It wasn’t helped that different discussions about him were happening at the same time. Newcomers would get into it and find themselves learning more about Fatih’s history, while others were discussing his performance in the middle of those who were criticizing him.

Overall, things were going in the direction that the PR head had planned. While some things went too far, they let them go because they hadn’t gained enough traction, and doing something about them risked giving them more attention and inducing the Streisand effect.

…….

Monday.

“Mmmph…” Fatih groaned in pleasure as the physiotherapist massaged his muscles to release the tension in them and let them relax after having to be rigid for an entire weekend wrestling a five-hundred-kilogram car.

“Is the force too much or can you handle more?” the physiotherapist asked.

“More is fine,” Fatih said, fully enjoying the slight feeling of pain along with the release when the compression was finally removed, to the point that he almost fell asleep.

The massage continued for about ten more minutes before it was finished. The physiotherapist cleared him before bidding farewell and leaving the house, leaving Fatih already putting on his joggers, planning to go for a thirty-minute jog before washing up upon his return.

……..

While he was running to clear the lactic acid, Elena was being updated on the development of the situation.

“We have found interesting footage from Fatih’s car that we can use during this period to shape the narrative if we time it right,” Steven said as he handed her a tablet with a video that was already edited and ten minutes long.

By the time she finished watching the video, she too couldn’t help but find herself laughing. It was something that would have usually required context to be understood, but the edit had made it clear by even including clips from the podium showing Fatih on top with Dennis on the side while the national anthem was playing.

“Are the permissions and release consents handled already?” she asked when she was done laughing, a smile still on her face.

“Yes, we even got some of their POV shots as well.”

“Is this going to be posted instead of the weekend recap or along with it?”

“The weekend recap will be posted first in about an hour, and we plan to post this tomorrow or the day after so that those who watched the recap can also understand this one better, though it is not needed.”

As the person responsible for the content and digital life of Fatih, he was given quite a bit of freedom and a good budget. Knowing the importance of the video medium from his time with theconquerors.com, they had paid for access to the raw race footage to be able to post particular parts of the race pertaining to their use, which was finally being put to good use.

“Okay then, we can do that,” Elena approved before the meeting ended, and Steven left to go and resume work with his team.

…….

When the first video was posted, it immediately reacted like dropping oil on an active fire, as it rejuvenated the discussions since new material was now added. Those who were on Fatih’s side immediately used it as a defense for their arguments, showing that he was someone who stood behind what he preached and continued to perform beyond the norm.

Because of how their agreement was made, it included the raw feed without telemetry, but also the camera feeds outside the normal race broadcast, together with positional data for the entire session.

This allowed them to create custom data visualization tools that were either completely unique or improvements upon existing ones. Created mostly from Fatih’s suggestions, these tools required a significant financial investment and the creation of several new positions in the media department. Although they didn’t expect to bring every suggestion to life in this season, everyone knew the effort was worth it as it would be one of their differentiators.

So, although the official feed either didn’t have them or had a worse version, Fatih’s race recap contained the mini-sector times, the gap to the second car highlighted time-wise, an overlay on the T-cam showing speed and other data better and more efficiently than the official feed, and many more features, making them quite interesting and immersive for the viewers. In the single day it had been posted, the number of viewers had already exceeded what ITV, the official feed provider, received on their race recap videos.

And to keep the momentum up, the second video finally dropped on the second day, and the reaction was bigger than the first one. This one, unlike the race feed, was something that could be enjoyed by anyone with a sense of humor, thanks to the context that was provided.

And in a matter of a single day, with Fatih completely unaware of it happening as he was in the middle of practicing karting with Seraphina, he became a meme for the first time in his life.