Chapter 444: Azerbaijan Grand Prix | The Race VII

"We have seen a phenomenal drive from our driver, Fatih Y?ld?r?m. He has had one of the most stressful debut careers of any driver, but he has managed to rise beyond that and still deliver. His team took a strategic gamble, and it has worked out better than they even expected.

But I believe the gamble did not start by underfueling the car, but from the start of the race weekend, as they sacrificed Fatih’s FP sessions in order to make it possible for him to have a brand-new hard, medium, and soft compound for the race, and all of those compounds have now been put to use, with the final compound having finally been put on his car at the perfect opportunity.

This will be no different from qualifying for everyone else, as they are at the minimum fuel threshold, and all of them have soft compound tires used at different levels. It is going to be flat-out for the rest of the two laps," the Turkish commentator tried to remind everyone that Fatih still had an advantage, but to anyone, it looked like both he and those listening to the broadcast were relaying those facts to try and mitigate the level of nerves they were feeling, since anything could happen on the race restart.

As the feed showed the cars going out of the pit lane to start their 49th lap as if it was a formation lap, the feed changed from the cars on the track to showing the windows of some of the houses along the track, showing people on the balconies cheering as Fatih’s car passed below them. In their hands, there were both the Azerbaijani and Turkish flags, as they considered him to be the closest thing to a home driver, and their support reflected that.

.......

Fatih calmly swerved left and right, going fast and slow at different intervals, trying to bring both the tires and brakes up to temperature. He was preventing himself from celebrating ahead of time, and thanks to Invictus being at its home field, he managed to completely mitigate the uncontrollable part of complacency, channeling all his focus on the cars ahead.

As they reached the end of the straight and approached the grid positions, Fatih did a few burnouts to clear the carcass from anything that had stuck to it and put a final temperature spike into the tires before coming to a stop in his P1 position on the right side of the track.

As he waited for the drivers to come and stop in their grid positions, Fatih looked at his rear-view mirror only to be met by a view he had expected: a large amount of smoke was rising from Hamilton’s front tires.

He knew what was coming for Hamilton with the smoke rising like that, but he didn’t feel bad at all since it was going to play to his advantage, and at the moment, he would take any and all advantages he could get.

The commentators saw the same thing as well: "Look at the brakes smoking on Lewis Hamilton’s car as he sits on the grid, waiting for the five lights. Y?ld?r?m on pole, Perez alongside him in the front row. The sister team leads the main team in grid positions; what a strange image. Hamilton is behind the rookie in the second row alongside Sebastian Vettel. These two have a history together and with Red Bull, but they are now restarting behind a Red Bull team’s front-row lockout."

Beep... Beep... Beep... Beep... Beep

Fatih was fully focused on the lights that were now turning on one by one as he revved the engine while holding the clutch and brakes, ready for when they would go out.

"For the second time today, IT’S LIGHTS ON AND LIGHTS OUT AND AWAY WE GO!

FATIH YILDIRIM HAS A GOOD START, JUST AS HAMILTON, WHO LAUNCHED PERFECTLY AND IS NOW SIDE-TO-SIDE WITH PEREZ AS VETTEL SETTLES BEHIND THEM, LOOKING FOR AN OPENING.

PEREZ TRIES TO CUT OFF HAMILTON, WHO LOCKS UP AND GOES STRAIGHT INTO THE ESCAPE ROUTE! YILDIRIM LEADS INTO TURN ONE, THEN PEREZ, THEN VETTEL, AND THEN COMES PIERRE GASLY AND CHARLES LECLERC.

HAMILTON, FROM THIRD IN THE RACE, IS NOW FALLING OUT OF THE POINTS AS THE REST TIPTOE AROUND TURN TWO.

WE LOST THE NUMBER TWO IN THE CHAMPIONSHIP IN THE CRASH, AND WE LOST THE CHAMPIONSHIP LEADER WITH A LOCKUP AT THE RESTART. THIS HAS NOT BEEN A GOOD DAY FOR THE TOP TWO IN THE CHAMPIONSHIP AS YILDIRIM CONTINUES TO LEAD THE RACE....."

The surprise and excitement remained high even when the replay played, as Anthony Davidson from Sky Race Control chimed in while the replay focused on Hamilton, "Hamilton said this is a marathon and not a sprint, but unfortunately, his brakes didn’t agree, as they were absolutely smoking on fire as he came to the grid. I wonder if the imbalance from the surface temperature just wasn’t there when he hit the brakes, Crofty. And George Russell is into the pit lane as well, as we saw him limping on the track."

The TV director immediately played the radio communication between Hamilton and the pit wall.

{So sorry, guys,} Hamilton said, sounding defeated and disappointed.

{Yeah, don’t sweat it, Lewis, don’t sweat it,} Bono, ever the emotional support, assured Lewis.

"It’s been a costly mistake for Hamilton, who is apologizing to the team, as he could have extended his lead over Verstappen by more than fifteen points in a single race and had some breathing room, but now that is out of the window as they will go to France still on the same points they came out with at the Monaco Grand Prix," David Croft brought the discussion back to the championship.

"It is not too big of a problem if you’re playing for the long run, but Fatih Y?ld?r?m and AlphaTauri, what a splendid job they have done today, Crofty.

He had the perfect start, using the brand-new softs to their full advantage, avoiding any pressure from anyone who was near him," Brundle focused on the race leader as he passed the start-finish straight, starting the final lap.

David Croft: "Lewis Hamilton, after 54 point-scoring finishes in a row, fails to score points today as down the inside goes Gasly, who stays in the clear ahead of Leclerc, who is eyeing P4. The consecutive points-scoring streak for Hamilton comes to an end today, all gone out of the window in a lockup in an instant here in Baku. I wonder what is going on in his mind at the moment."

Martin Brundle: "Maybe he just had way too much front-end temperature, and that’s what caught and grabbed that left front. But he desperately wanted that second place into the first corner. He was a little bit tentative at the start of the race, and I think this time around he wanted to go harder but took too much."

David Croft: "It’s a top three that you might not have expected to fill the podium places. But there are going to be smiles from them here in Baku, as Fatih Y?ld?r?m, on his second start for AlphaTauri, is once again leading his second-ever Grand Prix.

MANY SAID HE COULD DO IT IN MONACO DUE TO THE TRACK, BUT HE RESPONDS TO THOSE WITH WHAT HE HAD SAID IN MONACO: HE CAME TO BAKU, HE SAW WHAT IT HAD, AND HE CONQUERED THE GRAND PRIX AS HE ACCOMPLISHED A BACK-TO-BACK WIN AND A HUNDRED PERCENT WIN RATE!

FATIH YILDIRIM WINS THE AZERBAIJAN GRAND PRIX AND SETS ANOTHER RECORD FOR HIMSELF WHILE HE SINGLE-HANDEDLY DOUBLES THE NUMBER OF WINS ALPHATAURI HAS HAD IN THEIR ENTIRE CAREER.

Sergio Perez, who moved teams to Red Bull this winter, comes home with P2, having to remain content to finish behind the sister team, but he is not going to complain about that.

And for the last podium position, it is Sebastian Vettel, who moved teams this season and picks up his first podium for Aston Martin and their first podium in Formula One...."

As Fatih went through the start-finish line to secure his race win, he moved to the leftmost part of the track, close to the pit wall, passing below the AlphaTauri mechanics who had climbed the fence and were getting between the barrier openings as they pumped their fists and cheered just as Fatih passed under them. They have been spoiled since Fatih’s arrival, and they fully savored the unbelievable win streak they found themselves in.

........

"WAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! HE DID IT! HE DID IT!" Rümeysa shouted as she jumped up and down, not caring how tired she was feeling as she celebrated her son’s impressive win.

When, for the second time, Fatih was caught off-guard by news related to him after his qualifying session, she was worried that he might be affected focus-wise going into the race. She hoped he would keep some level of focus until she could deal with the situation, which made her feel heavy.

But her son, living up to his abilities, didn’t disappoint and even exceeded her expectations, as both he and the team took a gamble, and in the end, it brought him another victory, creating an impressive record of having a 100% win streak, a record that, at the moment, has never been held by anyone in the history of the sport, as no one had won their first two races back-to-back.

.....

The feed had cut to Christian Horner on the pit wall, who was currently holding his head with both his hands as he looked downwards in disappointment. Many thought that he was feeling down, having lost the chance to lead both the driver and constructors’ championships if Max had finished in P2.

But only a few people knew that this race win had brought the team into a nightmare scenario against a driver with whom, just a day before, they had killed all close relationships and might have just brought an end to their drivers’ championship run if Fatih had his way and forced the promotion.

.......

Jos, on the other hand, couldn’t stomach watching the remainder of the final restart. He left the garage, heading to where Verstappen was, the moment Fatih retained his lead into turn one after the restart, deep down feeling very complicated. His attempt to destabilize the driver and hinder his performance for today seemed to have blown up and backfired on him.

Worse of all, the relationship that the two drivers might have had if he hadn’t stirred the hornet’s nest was now definitely dead, as Fatih was definitely not going to play the team game as Perez did. He was definitely going to have pace in the Red Bull, just like he had done by taking pole in his debut race the first time he ever experienced the AlphaTauri in the Monaco weekend.

"Shit," is the only thing he could say when he heard the cheers coming from the track, as he knew Fatih had just sealed their fate and there was nothing he could do about it at the moment.