Formula 1: The GOAT - Chapter 177

Chapter 177: Race Weekend | Friday | Dinner
“It’s no surprise to anyone who knows him, but once again, Fatih puts it on pole with a gap of more than four-tenths of a second to the provisional second position. With two minutes remaining in qualifying, he returns to the pits, showing no intention of going back out on track, as no one has even come close to his lap times since the first practice session of the day. That is the level of consistency he has maintained throughout the year. Even the heavy injury that had him out of the kart for more than three months hasn’t managed to slow him down, pace-wise, from fear or anything close to it,” Michael, the main commentator, said, having just finished commentating on Fatih’s qualifying lap as he returned to the pit lane to save his tires, despite the time remaining on the board.

…

Despite returning to the pit lane, which many interpreted as him not planning to return, Fatih was still parked in the pit lane, fully kitted out in the kart that was in idle, with his hands still on the steering wheel, just waiting and fully ready to rejoin the track the moment someone matched or beat his time.

Many would think that he was being over the top, that even if someone beat his lap time, he had more than three opportunities to regain that position through the next day’s heats and even the pre-final. But both his competitive nature and his SP on the line resulted in him not wanting to lose even a single position if the other person didn’t give everything they had and exceed what he could do at maximum push with all guns blazing.

His focus was on the timing screen while at the same time listening to the commentator, who was speaking in German, which he fully understood. *Tap!* A tap on his shoulder finally brought his full focus back to his surroundings. When he raised his head, he found John standing next to him with his clipboard.

“There is no one who is approaching the start-finish line who will reach it on time to go for another push lap, so you can get up,” John said while extending his hand.

“Thanks,” Fatih said as he held his hand and was pulled up from the kart, which he then helped carry to its stand. They started dragging it back to their tent, where the mechanics immediately removed the tyres and other parts, setting them aside with swift speed as they had a dinner to attend with Fatih.

As for Fatih, he had already left to go and clean himself and change into his casual clothes before he joined his mother and the rest of his father’s side of the family. They waited for the rest of the team to finish all of their remaining tasks before they headed to the restaurant that Elena had booked for them ahead of time, as the dinner was something he had planned with his mother’s knowledge and blessing.

…

“Now imagine my surprise when on his first-ever push lap on the track, he matched Enaam’s lap time and went ahead to beat it. Who would imagine that someone on a new kart and a new track could do that?” Ricky Flinn said, repeating the story of their first-ever session with Fatih.

“Would you believe someone if he came then and told you about the career he was going to have in the next few years?” Enes asked, quite enjoying hearing his great-nephew’s stories.

“I wouldn’t believe anyone, because karting is very competitive, and although a good kart can go a long way, he is not the only one who is going to have one, and there is only so much you can extract from it. But he is proof that even on equal machinery, a talented hard worker will still dwarf anyone else…” Ricky Flinn answered before chuckling, as even he, someone who had seen everything firsthand, knew how absurd the consistent domination Fatih had been delivering was.

“He is currently responsible for more than half of all the trophies in our trophy cabinet, which we have needed to expand quite a few times over the years. Honestly, it is quite a good problem to have,” John said, remembering those days.

“I’m curious, but how good is he compared to the greats who did very well in karting? I don’t know much about it, but are such results normal, or is he an outlier?” Enes, who was fully enjoying this, asked.

Steve, the lead engineer who had been with Fatih since his first practice session when he came to the UK, took a moment to think before he said, “There is no one who has had this level of accomplishment over a four-year period, one after another, but there are a few who have had great record-breaking seasons, like Jenson Button, who won every single one of the 34 races in the 1991 British Cadet Kart Championship, which is what Fatih keeps doing in almost all competitions.

There is Lewis Hamilton, who won the British championship at the age of ten. As for recent cases, there is Max Verstappen, who won three major CIK-FIA championships in a single season in both the KF and KZ categories, which has been done before, and won a total of 13 international karting titles between 2010 and 2013.

All of them are currently very successful and outlier drivers, with two of them having at least one F1 drivers’ championship, and the other projected to be at the same level as them and expected to win at least one F1 title, having already broken two records. One is going to be impossible to break, which is Max being the youngest-ever driver to debut in F1, and the other is him being the youngest-ever race winner.

But even all of them and their brightest later careers post-F1 haven’t had a career like Fatih has had. So if we use them as a benchmark and if he maintains this level of capability in his next steps up the ladder, then we can expect him to be among the greats.”

“Let’s hope so,” Enes said before following it with, “Nazar değmesin,” while tapping the wooden table two times, which was the traditional Turkish way to ward off the “evil eye,” or bad luck/misfortune that is believed to come from envious or excessive admiration. Fatih’s grandmother did the same, only under the table so that no one would see her.

The dinner went very well as the whole team on the long table enjoyed the food and conversation, while the other drivers on the team and Fatih enjoyed their own conversation at a separate table, as they and their side of the team members were also included in the invitation. The final cost for the dinner came out to a total of 2000 Euros.

…

“He has delivered more than we could have imagined over the past four years, bringing us quite a bit of prestige, which is more than we have invested in him over the years. It got cheaper with each passing year as more and more sponsors and his academy covered the remainder of the costs, which left us with mostly the parts that we are the only ones who can better help him with, like his license issuing and applying for exemptions and things like that, making it a mutual relationship where both sides benefited and got exactly what they expected.

So we are planning on maintaining it for his next stage as well since the endgame in our plan is Formula 1, and from the way things are going and the performance he keeps delivering, it doesn’t look like that much of a pipe dream,” Mansur, TOSFED’s former Karting Sporting Director and now a Sporting Director, said, finishing his long report to the new president of the Federation, Serkan Yazıcı.

He was bringing him up to date about the program, as Mansur needed the approval to start the process of rewriting their cooperation agreement with Fatih now that he had been informed of his move to single-seaters.

It was not like Serkan didn’t know about Fatih, as Fatih had been featured very heavily on the karting side of TOSFED-related matters, but this was just a refresher since he had never received one after taking the position, only getting the gist of it from different people when his approval was needed on matters related to him previously.

“So he is expected to need the Grade D license by the time he turns fifteen, as fast as possible, in order to compete?” Serkan asked.

“Yes, we plan to have him complete all of the remaining requirements ahead of time and provide the license the moment he meets the age eligibility. We are expecting to receive the license application from the Red Bull junior team next week, and if you approve it, we will immediately start working on it,” Mansur said.

Although there wasn’t really a need for him to go this far, since matters like these are easy to deal with for such a talented driver with such a powerful team, he still wanted to do so, as he felt like he was doing his part in supporting the driver who will go on to lead the country on the international motorsport scene that they have now managed to enter. Plus, his promotion was largely due to his proposal regarding the plan to support Fatih, which had led to him receiving a rapid promotion to where he was.

“Sure, go ahead with it as is, and if you see that appropriate changes are needed, go through with them. I will let you see to it,” Serkan said before signing the document in front of him, planning to not interfere with something that had been working perfectly. This is what Mansur needed, lest they end up destroying their relationship and losing a driver that would lead to their increase in influence on the motorsports scene.