Formula 1: The GOAT - Chapter 126

Chapter 126: Life After School
Upon arriving at home, his daily mission already completed, Fatih finally had the freedom to do what he wanted as he waited for dinner. On his first day of school, however, he couldn’t really enjoy that freedom, as his grandmother had him recap everything that happened, which he gladly did as he ate the snacks she prepared for him.

Only after his summary was completed and the post-explanation interview for additional details was done did he regain his freedom. He headed to the garage as fast as possible, lest a new round of questions start, and his conscience wouldn’t allow him to leave without answering them.

Upon arriving at the garage, he did the checks on his kart before turning it on, leaving the engine to warm up as he changed into his racing gear. He opened the automatic gate and took his kart out, driving it to the park and greeting the neighbors, who had already gotten used to the sight of him.

The park had bicycle lanes for kids to ride on, but having already memorized the times when the track was free and planning his actions around that, he found the bike lanes quite clear, with no one riding on them, giving him the freedom to drive around the track as he saw fit.

Due to the nature of such roads, they were often filled with sand, making them quite slippery, which he used to his advantage to train his sensitivity in detecting grip through visual cues. He constantly chose new routes, refusing to rely on experience from driving over the same patch of track. His brain, like a sponge, would usually memorize the feel of a specific area and automatically adjust when he returned to it. By avoiding repetition, he forced himself to stay reactive rather than predictive.

He drove for half an hour before ending his practice and returning home to wash up and change into comfy clothes before finally heading to his room.

His new computer, unlike the one he had left back home, was fully powered off, as he had stopped any additional mining; his current reserves were more than enough. Another difference was that this computer was equipped with the latest and best parts, making it quite powerful, a luxury he could easily afford from his monthly earnings.

It was the source of that income that was now the reason for his presence in front of the computer. He started going through the backlog of emails from people in the betting business, which he had promised to answer.

The majority of them were questions about his prediction programs: if he was an insider, if he was a psychic who could see the future, if he would consider opening an even more exclusive group to increase their earnings, if he wanted to sell his algorithm for a few million dollars, if his algorithm could be used for sports other than F1, and many more that ranged from curiosity to someone trying to gather information to see if he would slip. Fortunately, he didn’t, as although there were many questions, a majority of them were repeats, which he answered by pasting the response from the FAQ, only modifying it slightly for questions that needed additional details. Only then did he start answering the technical questions that didn’t breach his privacy.

After a full hour, he finally finished going through the backlog and started looking through the comments on the forum to see if there was anything he needed to moderate. Since it was a private forum where access could only be gained by paying, there wasn’t much of a problem with toxicity, but he still made sure to clean it up as much as possible. The threat of being banned from the forum for breaking the few rules he had in place meant the group mostly moderated itself.

Due to the continuously growing and improving betting market, they were already making plans to increase both pricing and user capacity. Their target was to implement these changes once the dedicated website was completed and the full migration had taken place.

After spending another half an hour getting up to date on the main discussion topics, he finally logged out and headed to the Word document that had an article yet to be written, with only a heading: “2014 Key Technical Innovations & Tricks.”

It was an article he made a habit of writing before each new season, summarizing all the key technical innovations and tricks teams implemented. With new regulations taking effect in 2014, it was going to be a year full of such things. As someone who had knowledge of all of them and owned a news website, being the first to post articles on these matters meant he was just continuing to cement his dominance in the F1 news area and increase the gap even further. He would be the only website that constantly broke news of innovations and tricks while going into very detailed exposés, sometimes before people even realized the existence of the trick or innovation, making it impossible for anyone else to catch up.

After a moment to recall the interesting bits, he started jotting down the headings of different topics he was planning to write a detailed explanation of later: Front-Rear Interconnected Suspension, Mercedes’ Split Turbo Architecture, ERS Deployment Mapping, Exhaust Blowing via Engine Maps, Brake-by-Wire Tuning, and Cooling as Aero.

After finishing the headings, he moved on to writing a short summary to include all the things he wanted in the article before it was released next year.

Following that, he began checking his YouTube channels — both his personal account and the one affiliated with his F1 website. Both were performing impressively, with his personal channel already reaching 600,000 subscribers and the F1 channel close behind at half a million. Viewership on both continued to rise steadily, showing no signs of slowing down.

Although YouTube was still considered a niche platform by many professional companies at the time, they had capitalized on its potential. The response was overwhelmingly positive, as it enabled audience cross-pollination and facilitated higher migration between platforms. This highlighted just how starved motorsport enthusiasts were for engaging content

Once he was done, he decided to call his mother.

“I will most likely return on Thursday, as these meetings are each taking at least an hour since each team wants to go through their entire prepared plan with you in mind. Even if I might not agree to join them, their plans could be a source of inspiration for something we might not have thought of,” she said, finishing her summary before asking, “What about you? How was your first day of school?”

“It went quite well…” Fatih said, having already practiced with his grandmother and knowing the questions she would ask. He remade his explanation to answer as many of the questions as possible before they were even asked.

“Burak would have liked to call you, but unfortunately, he is washing up at the moment,” Rümeysa said once she was satisfied with his retelling of his first day of school, after Fatih had asked about Burak’s whereabouts.

“What?” Fatih asked in surprise as alarm bells went off in his head. Although it might sound like innocent words, the implications were massive.

“I said he is washing up,” Rümeysa repeated, thinking that Fatih didn’t hear her.

“Ooh, okay. I can just talk to him later or tomorrow. Talk to you later, love you,” Fatih said in rapid-fire, abruptly bringing the call to an end.

“Love you too,” Rümeysa managed to get in before the call ended.

“GRANDMAAAAA!!!!” Fatih shouted as he left the room to share the gossip he had just realized, his face radiating excitement.