Chapter 462 - 2021 French Grand Prix | Race VII

{How are the tires?} Perrone asked the tire engineer back at the home base.

{The data on them looks surprisingly good; they still have more pace in them, and it seems like he is managing while conserving some of the pace,} the tire engineer answered, sounding impressed by what she was seeing in front of her.

Perrone couldn’t say anything, feeling the disbelief of learning that Fatih was still managing when he was closing the gap by a second, if not more, each lap. It was his first time seeing Fatih pull off this tire management strategy because the previous two races required no managing at that level, as he was always at either a track position advantage or a weight and pace advantage.

....

David Croft: "Hamilton and Verstappen have finally gone through Perez and are now free to close the gap to Y?ld?r?m, who is now within one and a half seconds of Bottas. This is going to go to the last lap, as they will want to close that gap as fast as possible, but the two fighting one another is not helping them at all."

Martin Brundle: "Red Bull did this with Perez, and Mercedes hopes to do the same with Bottas. And this is key now: Bottas somehow needs to keep Y?ld?r?m behind him for two or three laps, and you can see the two of them going through Le Beausset."

David Croft: "’Seni yakalamaya geliyorum.’ ’I’m coming to catch you’ in Turkish; I knew I had it written somewhere, knew it’d come in handy one day. Tell you what’s going to come in handy here: Fatih Y?ld?r?m has DRS on Valtteri Bottas with 13 laps to go, and the distance between the two is eight-tenths....."

{The gap is 0.8s, good job. He will soon start struggling with these tires.}

Martin Brundle: "Indeed, this is critical now. This is going to decide it for me. This will decide who’s going to win the race: how long it takes Y?ld?r?m to get past Bottas."

David Croft: "AlphaTauri threw the dice, took a bit of a gamble, and decided that this was not a one-stop race for them, but a two-stop race in terms of Fatih Y?ld?r?m’s potential and ability to win.

So, on the medium tires that are fresher than Valtteri Bottas’s used hard compound tires, and with DRS as well, he gains on the Mercedes; he gains on the Mercedes, but he can’t get past the Mercedes.

But Bottas goes wide! And this time Fatih Y?ld?r?m might get a decent exit out of the chicane and might not need DRS to get past Valtteri Bottas, who looked to have held Fatih Y?ld?r?m up just long enough to keep that first place.

Through Signes they go, wheel-to-wheel, side-by-side, and they come out of the corner with Y?ld?r?m in first place and back into the lead he had previously taken and held for half a lap!"

Martin Brundle: "Yeah, Valtteri was so busy watching Fatih that he outbraked himself. He did make the corner, but then he was forced to crank so much steering into the car to make it, giving an opening to Fatih to retake the lead."

David Croft: "AlphaTauri had taken a gamble, and it has now paid off as he takes the lead from Bottas and now has free air, with the two chasing for the same race win still three and some seconds behind him, and Leclerc, who is chasing with his brand-new tires, trying to unlap himself."

.....

The feed changed to showing the AlphaTauri garage, with mechanics jumping up and down, clapping after Fatih took the lead.

The fans at the track weren’t silent either, as they had been shouting and reacting at the top of their lungs all the way from when Bottas made a mistake into the chicane until Fatih retook the race lead, to the point that even the live feed caught the cheers.

They were being treated to impressive wheel-to-wheel and strategic racing, and they responded in kind with their cheers.

The two title contenders rapidly closed in on Bottas, whose tires were getting worse and worse, and along with that, his pace was tumbling down.

They managed to catch him within just two laps before he let Hamilton through, but in an attempt to only let him through and block Verstappen, he miscalculated the braking point, sending himself wide again and accidentally letting Verstappen through along with Lewis, leaving the two of them to chase Fatih, who was now 3.3 seconds ahead of them with ten laps to go to the checkered flag.

.....

David Croft: "If I had been in a ten-year coma and I woke up today and watched this race to see Fatih Y?ld?r?m racing and driving as he has done, and you told me this is his third-ever Formula 1 race, I would think you were messing with me.

Even I, who have witnessed all of his races, am having a hard time believing that he is a rookie on his third outing with the team.

But reality, which is often disappointing, goes and does the opposite this time, as the records really prove that he is in his third race, and more than that, he has accomplished feats within those races that some of the drivers with years on the track have yet to accomplish even a quarter of.

A record-breaking qualifying lap is what allowed for his Monaco Grand Prix Grand Slam debut; an under-fueling strategic decision and perfect strategic calls gave him a win in Baku, allowing him to have back-to-back wins, and now he has the opportunity to make it a hat-trick if he manages to keep the lead within the remaining ten laps.

The two championship contenders, in faster cars and with more experience than he, are now chasing him, trying to close the gap as fast as possible while fighting one another.

Worse of all, Red Bull might want to put a stop to this win no matter what, as their sister team is going to overshadow them in the number of wins by three to one, as Fatih Y?ld?r?m has acted as a moving block for the past two races, stealing the wins that, had he not been there, would have been theirs.

He was a block for Max Verstappen in Monaco, he became a block for Sergio Perez in Baku, and he is en route to becoming a block for Max here at Circuit Paul Ricard, and what a story that would be.

But the pen is still sliding on the paper, as the story of this race has yet to come to a conclusion, and anything could happen at any time and change things.

Fatih, who has remained consistent lap after lap for the past few laps, is still retaining that same consistency while the two championship contenders are chasing after him, having taken over half a second from the gap between them.

If things continue as they are, and the strategic insight powered by AWS also backs me up, they will catch up to him with three laps remaining in the race, and what a fight that will be to the end of the race."

The crowd at the track and viewers at home watched with bated breath as the gap fell by around half a second consistently as the two championship contenders chased after Fatih. Lap after lap, they got closer and closer to Fatih’s rear-view mirror until, at the end of lap 50, they finally were within the DRS of Fatih.

...

{Hamilton is 0.9 seconds behind and has DRS; Verstappen has it as well,} James updated Fatih on the radio the moment he entered the start-finish straight to finish lap 50 and start lap 51.

Fatih was too focused on what was happening on the track to even answer. He just looked in his rear-view mirrors before moving to the middle of the track, trying to give Verstappen a slipstream, a move he had done to Sel?uk by helping Jackson in his first karting season.

But with the target being Verstappen, who had moved to cool his brakes and engine from being behind another driver, Hamilton just moved towards that racing line, chasing the slipstream and killing the chances of that happening as he rapidly closed the gap to Fatih.

Fatih immediately returned to the racing line as the braking point for the Turn 1 & 2 chicane approached, going through it as fast as he could, knowing that Hamilton was just preparing himself for the next DRS zone.

On the straight following the exit of the Turn 1 & 2 chicane, he subtly lifted off the throttle, allowing Hamilton, who had reduced the gap from 0.9s down to 0.5s thanks to the DRS on the straight, to reduce the gap even further down to 0.2s just as they started going through the Turn 3, 4, 5, 6 & 7 complex.

He did the same for Turn 3 and Turn 4, and took a tight Turn 5 that forced him onto the wider line for the wide Turn 6, which allowed Hamilton to take the inside line while Fatih remained on the outside.

He moved until they were side-by-side, as Hamilton retook the lead for a brief moment before Fatih, who had taken the wide line that gave him more speed, took advantage of the outside line becoming the inside line into the entry of Turn 7, blasting through and gaining a tenth against Hamilton.

To the surprise of Hamilton and nearly everyone, despite being ahead, he saw Fatih’s DRS wing open as he fully took advantage of the detection zone, and Hamilton now had to try and fight against Verstappen, who, with DRS, dived on the inside line before the braking zone into the Turn 8 & 9 chicane.

Hamilton lost the P2 position to Verstappen, and in his attempt to protect his position, they ended up slowing each other down, allowing Fatih to gain a full second, making the gap between him and Verstappen 1.2 seconds.

’Two more to go,’ Fatih thought to himself as he was driving the final sector of lap 51.