Formula 1: The GOAT

”It is good news that, although small in number, fans have finally been allowed to attend the track, which is an improvement from previous races, and we hope it continues all the way to seeing the grandstands fully packed by fans.

But we need to return back to what brought us here, Formula 1, as we start the second free practice on a slightly rubbered-in track, thanks to the qualifying session for the Formula 2 drivers that took place,” David Croft, who had returned to the commentator’s booth to replace Natalie Pinkham, said as the camera showed some fans before the scene changed to showing the end of the pit lane with, once again, Fatih at the forefront, waiting for the green light.

”When you were a driver, how many laps did it take for you to get into the groove before you could push?” he asked Paul di Resta, who was still with them in the booth.

”Well, since you are coming out with new tires, we usually have to go on it immediately, or else we would be wasting tires from the allocated sets. But it is also a reason we come out with the harder compound and not the soft tires, since they allow for more than one push lap, giving us a few laps of buildup while the grip is still there. For Fatih, it looks like he has no intent on following any of that,” Paul answered before immediately returning his attention to Fatih.

”You are correct. On the data screen, it shows only Sainz and Fatih to be on different compounds from the rest, who are all on the medium compound. With Sainz on the hards, it is only Fatih who is joining the track on soft tires,” Croft said as the cars started streaming onto the track.

”I had a conversation with Franz, the team principal of AlphaTauri, during the break from FP1, and he said that for Fatih, this weekend is about him trying to walk as fast as possible to catch up to everyone, so his strategy is fully focused on achieving that and not on what the optimal strategy is supposed to be. So we can expect to see some irregularities from Fatih’s side,” Ted Kravitz said, joining the conversation in the booth all the way from the pit lane.

”It makes sense, as there is almost zero expectation from him for this weekend, and he is already on a push lap on his third lap around the track,” Croft said just as the feed focused back on Fatih as he went through the start-finish line, starting his push lap.

......

Toto Wolff was watching Fatih on his push lap with his brows raised as he saw Fatih set a purple Sector 1, then keep up with it to set another purple Sector 2, as he followed a tidy line for the final sector before crossing the start-finish line, setting another purple sector with a 1:13.872 lap, beating the cars that were building up by more than 2.7 seconds. He moved to the top of the board as he started his cooldown lap.

Whenever he saw the name Fatih on the timing tower, he couldn’t help but keep remembering what Hamilton had said following their watch-along of Fatih’s 300 km qualification drive, which had made him feel even worse for having failed to clinch him.

”From my rudimentary observation, the most interesting part is the driving style he had shown for that duration,” Hamilton had said when Toto had asked what he thought about the drive.

”What do you mean?”

”Every driver has their favorite driving style. Some like to brake late, some brake earlier for better exit speed, and even when the car is under a neutral setup, each driver will drive it differently. You can tell a driver’s preferred driving style by watching him drive a car over just a few laps, but when watching him, I can’t pinpoint what his driving style is.”

”So he hides it quite well?”

”No, even someone trying to hide it makes some mistakes that reveal it, but he seems to be genuinely capable of changing his driving style lap by lap and sometimes from corner to corner, which makes him quite a versatile driver. Across any track and in any car, he should be able to extract what it is capable of and not be hindered by what driving style the car performed well in. I mean, I saw a few people with more than one driving style, but none of them this versatile,” Hamilton said before going silent for quite some time, his eyes still focused on the screen as it showed Fatih doing his celebratory donuts.

Toto, who heard that, couldn’t help but feel regret for not having pushed further, because if that was true, and was added to Fatih’s illustrious CV before he even got in the car, this was the cheapest they would ever get him for. If he proved himself on the track, then that would be even more painful, since it would mean Red Bull would now have two monsters on the track.

”It is good he is in AlphaTauri,” he said in a low enough voice for no one to hear him, but his eyes were still on Fatih’s name, which was still at the top of the timetable despite other drivers constantly closing the gap as the track was rubbered in and they pushed to the limit more and more.

........

Fatih, unaware of what was going on in Toto’s mind, was fully focused on his drive as he returned to the pit lane, having driven three push laps on these tires but failing to improve on what he had driven on the first lap, as the tires had already lost their performance.

{Keep up the good work. Now for the long stint practice for additional data to improve on the final setup before the soft run,} James said on the radio once he was pushed into the garage, cutting the public transmission of the radio to the world.

{Understood,} Fatih said as he remained in the car while they started refueling, looking at the two screens that were dropped and latched to the Halo.

Things were going largely as he had hoped, and he was sure he had already shown a good enough performance from the car to prove to them that the direction he had requested they head into was the right one.

Staying five minutes in the garage, he finally left for the second time in the current stint with brand-new hard tires for the long-run practice.

...

Paul, one of the two setup engineers who were present in the discussion with Franz regarding Fatih’s request, said to Samuel, ”What do you think?”

”I have never seen someone push to the limit from the get-go, but he can truly handle it. If you didn’t know about the setup changes, you might think he is still on the neutral Gasly setup if you look at the telemetry,” Samuel said as he pointed at the telemetry trace from Fatih’s fastest lap around the track, showing how smooth some areas were when the car should have been trying to oversteer at the slightest opportunity, but no evidence of it was visible at all.

”So you are on the side of going ahead and cranking it to what he wants? But will he have enough time to get used to it before qualifying?”

”We will know when he gets on the track with what he has asked for, and if he can’t handle it, we can just revert to the original one. So yeah, I’m on the side of going ahead with it.”

The two telemetry engineers couldn’t help but side with Fatih upon seeing what he could do while still limited to the rudimentary changes they had made to the car, but on the simulator side, things were completely different.

...

”He wants to drive under this setup?” Alexander Albon asked after driving a few laps in the simulator based on the setup Fatih had requested.

”Yeah, we mirrored it one-to-one based on what he asked to see if it is feasible. So what do you think?” the senior simulation engineer answered on the radio, wanting to hear Albon’s thoughts.

”I would advise against it if I were the one driving. The operating window under this setup is razor-thin for anyone who wants to extract what is made possible with it. For qualifying, a good driver might make something of it, but the amount of focus required to handle it at maximum pace is almost impossible for an entire race on a track as unforgiving as Monaco. Only someone who can make small corrections through sheer subconscious could do it, and I know only one person who can do that, and he is not here,” Albon said, as he immediately connected it to what he had experienced at Red Bull when driving alongside Max, who liked his setup to be on the extremely pointy end and extracted everything from it, while everyone who tried to imitate him ended up failing.

With those two opinions on the table, Fatih finished his second free practice, having used three tire sets: two softs and one hard compound. His second soft stint was on the way to raising him to the top half of the timing sheet before his lap was killed by a yellow flag caused by Mick Schumacher, which was then elevated to a red flag after a few minutes, killing any chances of him returning to the track and losing another soft compound.