Formula 1: The GOAT

“So, how is Further Mathematics?” Seraphina said as she jumped on Fatih, trying to put him in a headlock. But instead of it working, Fatih just caught her in the air. She tried to dislodge herself but failed as Fatih walked with her toward the pickup location.

“Let go of me! You know I’m older than you, right? Is this how you treat those older than you?” she said in a low voice to not attract attention, but she didn’t move too much because she knew his left hand was injured and didn’t want to hurt him further. Her face was getting redder and redder from embarrassment as she could feel people looking at them.

“It is only by a few months,” Fatih answered as he paused before putting her down, worried that pushing it too far might be counterproductive to her being exposed to such a situation.

“Nine months is now ’a few’? I would have been in the class ahead of you,” she said as she slapped him on the shoulder.

“It wouldn’t matter. I would have still been ahead of you now,” Fatih said, puffing up his chest.

“I’m this close to going and taking that exam in the next window,” she said, tapping her two fingers together. Fatih kept using that argument anytime she brought up her being older than him.

“It wouldn’t change anything. I’ll still be ahead,” Fatih said as he waved his hand to attract the attention of a car that had entered the compound.

“You are lucky she came, or else no one would have stopped me,” she said, brushing everything aside as she didn’t have a counter to what Fatih said, and using his mother’s arrival as the best opportunity to change the subject.

“Get in,” Rümeysa said as she lowered the window after coming to a stop in front of them.

Without saying much, the two of them immediately played rock-paper-scissors. After three shakes, Fatih played scissors while she chose paper.

“Yet to be beaten in the new season,” Fatih said as he opened the front seat door while teasing Seraphina, who just gave up and opened the rear door.

Rümeysa, already used to their antics, just started driving once they all had their seatbelts on.

“Why not let me drive? It will save you the need to keep coming to pick me up,” Fatih said just as they left the school compound.

“You have to wait till you’re eighteen, with the earliest being seventeen, and that needs an instructor,” she said, pausing for a moment before she added, “Plus, I quite enjoy coming to pick you up. Or do you not want me to?”

“I love being picked up by you, and I wouldn’t trust him to drive me,” Seraphina jumped in, having gotten close enough with Fatih’s mother that she could be herself around her.

“You don’t trust me to drive?” Fatih turned and asked her with a look of disbelief.

“Yes, driving on the track is different from driving on the road,” she said as a matter of fact.

“Wait until I’m eighteen. I will remember this,” Fatih said before turning to his mother, who was chuckling, and asked, “You don’t think the same, right? Right?”

Instead of answering the question, she just laughed even harder, causing Fatih to fall back into his seat and lean his head against the car window while looking outside, as he came to the realisation that they didn’t trust his driving skills. It didn’t help that the two were still laughing as they headed to the track for their practice session.

…….

Fatih silently watched as Seraphina drove around the track. He moved his left hand in the way he had been told to by the physiotherapist his mother had hired to help him heal faster and be ready for the final round of the season.

“Try trail-braking at a higher speed this time,” he advised her, using the radio in his pocket to give her live instructions.

“But won’t that lead to me crashing?” she asked back as she went around the track to return to the corner and implement the instructions she was given.

“Then you will know the limit of how far you can push in that corner,” Fatih said as if it were a matter of fact, before he returned to moving his hand as instructed.

It was the same thing he did when he learned and practised on a new track in order to know how far he could push and what the signs were before the car couldn’t handle it anymore, and immediately adjust before things reached the point of no return. This was also the way he rapidly adjusted to real-world tracks compared to the ones in the simulation, which had a few differences, but these little details rapidly reduced those differences.

However, his exercise was stopped mid-way as Seraphina was sent sliding into the escape zone, stopping a few meters before the kart could crash into the tire walls.

“Do it again and adjust based on the feedback,” Fatih said calmly, as if he had expected her to spin out, but let it happen anyway, as it was her way of learning, which had worked repeatedly.

Seraphina was used to this. She silently drove the car out of the escape zone and once again went around the track to implement the adjustments. This went on for more than two hours before they finally returned the kart to their owned garage on the track and sent her home before heading back to theirs.

….

That evening.

“UGHHHHHHH!!!!” Fatih groaned in pain as the physiotherapist adjusted and moved his hand.

“No pain, no gain,” his grandmother said, trying to encourage him, but she herself was wincing from seeing the expression on her grandchild’s face.

“…” Just as Fatih was about to say something in response to his grandmother’s words, he was once again made to make the same face as the physiotherapist resumed his work. He then looked back at the physiotherapist before he said, “This better work, because if it doesn’t, and I don’t get cleared to race, I will COME FOR YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!” But his threats were not heeded as the physiotherapist continued with his job, causing Fatih to resume his screaming.