Formula 1: The GOAT

{Are you okay?}

{Fatih, are you okay?} James asked, his voice full of worry as the direct feed from the T-cam showed nothing but dust, making it impossible to see Fatih’s condition.

With each passing second that his question was met with silence, his worry increased as he imagined worse and worse outcomes from the crash.

…..

Güldane, Fatih’s grandmother, watched the live feed from the team garage, her hands covering her face. She watched in silent worry, trying to hold back the worst possible thoughts. She had seen Fatih in many crashes from which he’d walked away completely fine, but at the same time, she couldn’t forget the one that had led to medical intervention and sidelined him for three months. She prayed to God that her previous prayers for his safety were answered. Although she couldn’t stop him from doing what he loved, she could at least pray.

…..

The commentators made their worries very clear.

“Do you still think those were just mistakes and not deliberate, now that it’s happened for the fourth time?” Justin, who had been arguing the actions were deliberate, asked Brad, who had defended them as rookie drivers learning the ropes on a new track.

“This is not the time to talk about that when we don’t know the condition of the two drivers,” Brad said, avoiding the question. He was fully focused on the live feed, desperate for a shot of Fatih and the other driver to clear the worry that something terrible had happened.

And like rain in a drought, the feed finally played Fatih’s radio.

{I’m okay, but the car isn’t,} Fatih said in a scarily calm voice, as if he hadn’t just come from a crash.

{Don’t worry about the car; that is something we can deal with. You being fine is all that matters,} James’s voice carried so much relief that he dismissed the potential cost of repairing the car as nothing.

“The advantages of having a rich academy,” Justin joked, lightening the mood now that the immediate danger to the drivers seemed to have passed.

“HAHAHA, true. And it looks like he is fine,” Brad said just as the feed changed to the crash area, now finally visible as the dust had settled. It showed Fatih still sitting in the car, looking towards his right, where the other car was sandwiched between his and the barrier.

He reached up to open his visor, still looking towards the other driver, who was not looking back at Fatih at all but was trying to unbuckle his seatbelt, as if afraid of what would happen next. Fatih didn’t look at him for too long and just removed his own seatbelt, getting out of the car just as the marshals arrived at the scene with fire extinguishers ready.

He gave them a thumbs-up before walking to the front of his car. One of the marshals rushed to stand in front of him, interpreting his actions as him going toward the other driver, and the reaction of the other driver made it clear he was thinking the same thing.

Fatih motioned with his hands, and his head bobbed for a few moments as he conversed with the marshal. He was then let go and resumed walking to the front of his car, with the marshal keeping a close eye on him as he started looking at the completely messed-up right-front suspension.

“Now let’s see the replay of the crash from a clear angle,” Brad said, once he was informed by the TV director that Fatih was not walking over to punch the other driver but just checking the damage on his car.

…….

The replay showed the angle from the chicane’s exit, with the slow-moving car as the main focus. The cameraman had been informed to focus on it, since Fatih had been impeded on all his previous laps. It showed the car entering the corner wide, off the racing line, before moving back onto the racing line just as Fatih dived into the corner. He crashed into the car, sending them both sliding into the barrier, raising a cloud of dust that covered them until they came to a stop.

The feed gave the wide contextual information before it immediately returned to Fatih’s T-cam, showing his point of view starting from the straight. From that angle, the car ahead was seen going into the chicane wide and off the racing line before it disappeared from Fatih’s view due to the barriers. The moment the car returned to his vision, Fatih had already committed to the corner, making the car look like it appeared out of nowhere as it was already moving onto the racing line before the crash happened.

The view made it seem that Fatih was not aware of the other car’s positioning, but the feed was restarted once again, this time including the telemetry data of all his inputs.

This time, those well-versed in watching the inputs saw a different side of the story. The data showed not a single lift of the throttle all the way until the crash, not even a reactive flinch. The same was true of his steering inputs. If someone only looked at the throttle and steering, they would think he was taking the corner as normal, as if the other car didn’t exist at all.

This new information reduced the possibilities to two: one was that he was so focused that he didn’t see the car, and the other was that he deliberately did nothing about it. Most were not leaning toward the second option, because he had already avoided similar impediments three times previously, so him not being ready for it to happen again wasn’t realistic. But the idea that he did it deliberately also clashed with that same reasoning.

“Looks like for the second week in a row, he won’t be making an appearance in the second free practice,” Justin said as he watched the replay repeat itself, making it clear that it was going to be an arduous repair job for the mechanics in Fatih’s garage.

And as if to prove him right, the feed cut to the mechanics in Team Arden’s garage holding their heads as they watched the crash being replayed on the TV.

“This looks very far from an accident,” Brad said in a calm tone, a complete opposite from the position he held previously of attributing it to mistakes.

“And it looks like you’re not the only one to think so,” Justin said as a banner appeared on the feed, stating that the incident was now under investigation.

“From the data, this looks like a clear-cut situation,” Brad, who had now switched sides, said. The reason was a new angle showing Josh Skelton’s car, revealing his steering input and head direction were very weird for that specific corner, as he looked at the rear-view mirror before trying to return to the racing line.