Chapter 446: Celebration & Scheming

’KORKMA, S?NMEZ BU ?AFAKLARDA YüZEN AL SANCAK;’

Fatih, with his eyes closed and head raised high, sang the national anthem, fully savoring this moment. It had all been a dream, and one that any fan of motorsports had in their life: joining the grid, making an impact before finally standing at the top spot of the podium. As someone who was on the other end of it, finally being on the side he had dreamed of, he fully savored every second of it, as he knew this was going to be one of the final moments of peace before the upcoming storm that he and his family would find themselves in the midst of.

When he opened his eyes to look at the AlphaTauri mechanics below the podium swaying left and right as the Turkish national anthem played, all of them had smiles on their faces.

As he swept the crowd, he finally met eye-to-eye with Christian Horner. He maintained eye contact as he, from the podium, looked down on Horner, who had to raise his head to look at him, creating a contrasting image while at the same time symbolizing the current power dynamic between the two sides. At the moment, thanks to the contract and having met the conditions set for him, Fatih had the upper hand against Red Bull.

Once the race winner’s national anthem finished playing, the Italian national anthem immediately started playing for the constructor’s team. Standing on the podium representing AlphaTauri was Lisa, Fatih’s chief mechanic, who stood there with a smile on her face as she watched the mechanics at the bottom singing the Italian national anthem.

Italian fans found themselves in a very complicated situation. They hated Fatih, but at the same time, he was the only one who had resulted in the Italian national anthem being played for two races back-to-back when Ferrari, who was their national pride, had failed to do so this weekend.

But what they were feeling was nothing in comparison to Max’s and Checo’s fans, who were previously very content with the lineup and the cooperative atmosphere the team was in. Now, there was a possibility, if the rumors that had spread over the past two weeks were to be believed, that Fatih had now definitely earned his promotion to the main team.

Considering the performance he had shown, he didn’t look like someone who was going to be content with being a number two, so there was a chance that instead of cooperating, the two future Red Bull drivers might fight and steal points from one another, creating a toxic relationship rivaling or even dwarfing the Vettel and Webber relationship.

That rivalry had surprisingly started worsening following the fight for the lead that ended in a crash, wasting a guaranteed one-two finish during the Turkish Grand Prix, Fatih’s home GP.

Once the podium celebration was over, Fatih was doused with the champagne of the two other drivers along with his chief mechanic, while he ended up focusing only on targeting Lisa with his rose-water-filled champagne bottle, before finally bringing the podium celebration to an end.

The post-race interviews were finished very rapidly before the entire AlphaTauri team gathered in front of the garage for a team picture to commemorate the second win in a row, as Fatih and Gasly flanked the pit board that had both the drivers’ numbers and their finishing positions. Fatih was once again doused in celebratory champagne, but thankfully this time Gasly was there to share some of it.

After handling everything expected of both the AlphaTauri drivers, along with the post-race FIA press conference that ended with Fatih and Checo being bombarded with questions related to promotion and demotion to the main Red Bull seat, which both sides skirted around, retaining the positions they had made clear during the interview they had with Paul di Resta, the drivers were finally free to do whatever they wanted.

Fatih, not planning on staying there any longer as he had something important to talk about with his mother, immediately headed to the airport that night along with his team, boarding the chartered private jet as they left the country, heading back to the UK. He finally managed to eke out some sleep once the plane reached cruising altitude and finally had the opportunity to take a look at the week’s exploits.

Total SP Earned for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix:

War Against the Fatherland (Win): 1000 SP

Race Finish Points: 125 SP

Brilliant Overtakes: 100 SP

War Against Ferrari (Finish Ahead): 25 SP

War Against the Fatherland (Overtakes): 20 SP

Total weekend SP: 1270 SP

Total SP: 2,005 SP

Compared to the more than seven thousand SP he had earned two weeks ago, this looked disappointing, but he remembered the gains were great because he had accomplished the four consecutive milestones from the season-long mission, which earned him hundreds of points along with a multiplier for a grand slam. Unfortunately for him, the season-long mission’s milestones were rewarded only once and, even if achieved again, they were not rewarded again.

But still, he earned a pretty decent amount, and if he could keep the earnings like this for fifteen races, he should be able to finally upgrade an ultimate-level ability to Limit Break, because there was no 100 SP reward for winning the following races unless a new, lucrative situational mission was given to him by the system.

Closing the system interface once he was done looking at his rewards revealed the garage he was at: the Circuit Paul Ricard garages. Apollo had already gone ahead and changed the track, which had been purchased last year.

Preparations for the next race could finally start, but instead of an AlphaTauri car, Fatih was currently looking at the matte indigo-blue, yellow, and red colored car glistening under the powerful LED lights hanging on top of the garage, supplementing the sunlight already lighting the garage brightly.

In front of him was the Red Bull Racing RB16B that he had managed to scan when he got out of the car to shake hands with Checo Perez. By the time he had gotten out of his car, Checo was still inside his, making the handshake one where he needed to lean on the halo to clasp Checo’s hand, creating the perfect opportunity to finally register the car in the system’s garage.

"We should start preparing ahead of time, right?" Fatih said as he tried to calm his excited heart, looking at a monster that could go toe-to-toe with and, in some races, beat the unbeatable Mercedes through pure pace.

"But before enjoying it, I should understand what makes it tick," he said as he rubbed his hands together, fully prepared to learn everything about this car and find what made it the pace monster it currently was.

As a fanatic fan in his previous life, he had tried to learn as much as possible about what made certain cars faster and others uncompetitive, but the only way he could learn that was through YouTube videos, which most of the time were nothing but either pure speculation from rumors or truth mixed with exaggerations, removing all avenues of learning the entirety of the truth because no team was going to fully divulge how they managed to do something and kill their advantage.

But in this life, he was finally given an opportunity to learn everything firsthand with his own eyes, and it was one of the reasons he had actively pursued studying the three fields encompassing what made Formula 1 possible, so that he had the full spectrum of knowledge needed to fully understand everything in the car, how it interacted with other things, and what exactly made this car faster than the others.

And with the two cars using the same engine and gearbox, the only thing that he now needed to understand was the aero side of things, along with the suspension and cooling system, and he would be able to fully understand the difference and learn something from it. It was a result of the wisdom of an entire F1 team as well, so that when he finally moved there soon, he would already be caught up with what made the car tick and everything else, killing two birds with one stone.

Thanks to his enthusiasm, he spent the four hours of his allotted simulation time tearing the Red Bull car down piece by piece while using his near-photographic memory to compare every part to the one that was in the AlphaTauri and mark what exactly was different, by how much of a difference it was, and the reason there was a difference in the first place, before finally moving to the next part as he daydreamed about how much pace he could extract from the Red Bull two weeks later in the French GP.

......

"We shouldn’t promote him," Horner said to Helmut in his office, where there were only the two of them. He paused for a moment before he added more context, "I saw the face he had today when looking at me from the podium, and I guarantee you we will have a civil war in Red Bull if he is promoted, and it will be worse than the Vettel-Webber one. Even the Rosberg-Hamilton one will not hold a candle to this one."

"Why do you like complicating things? We currently don’t have a choice if we take into consideration the penalty that will be levied against us if we don’t go ahead with the promotion," Helmut Marko said, looking at Horner with the face of a man who, although he was being forced to make a move, was also happy about the move in the first place.

"Why does it feel like you would want to promote him even if the penalties weren’t there?"

"It is useless to think about hypotheticals. The reality of the situation is that it is nearly impossible to avoid promoting him due to how tightly the contract has been written, and we should start hearing from their side tomorrow, waiting for our answer. I don’t see any reason to delay it when we have to do it at the end of the day, so why antagonize them even more than we already did? We should at least show our goodwill to them," Helmut said, insinuating that if they can’t avoid it, then enjoying it was also an option.

"That is where you are wrong," Horner said before opening a drawer and bringing out the contract, opening it to a certain page before sliding it to Helmut and pointing with his finger to a highlighted line.

He added, "The penalty only triggers if we are the only one interfering with his promotion after he has met all of the conditions, but it includes a way out of those penalties if both sides come to a mutual agreement.

So, all we have to do is come up with a mutual agreement that will satisfy both sides and remove the reasons for him to be promoted."

He showed him something that the legal department had highlighted and explained to him when he had requested they try to find anything in the contract that would allow them to avoid the promotion without the penalty that would bankrupt the team if it accumulated to the end of the season. That was what they managed to come up with after thoroughly going through the contract.

"The mutual part is the impossible one because why would Fatih, or even his manager, accept not being promoted to a race-winning team and remain in a midfield team? The penalties will accumulate so long as he does not agree to the mutual agreement."

"Well, that’s for us to come up with one, and we have three weeks at the latest to come up with a solution and have that agreement signed before the Austria double-header. The penalty for France, we should just pay it.

After all, we are already on the hook for two million dollars in bonuses for his two wins anyway, so what is a million more?" Horner said with a smile, making it clear that he was going to use that time to dig deep and everywhere to make sure that he found a way to solve this matter.

While Fatih was happily dissecting the Red Bull and daydreaming about his Red Bull debut, the team principal, along with the head of the Red Bull driver academy, were at that moment discussing how not to promote him.