[TS] Formula One Streamer - Chapter 165
“Let’s start.”
[Beginning data synchronization.]
[1%……]
The scenery of the Bahrain Circuit, bathed in the warm sunlight melting the ground, began to change gradually. The sun, moving from east to west, disappeared rapidly with the acceleration of time. The bright, humid sun vanished in an instant.
As the sun that illuminated the earth disappeared, the moon rose. Although the land lost its light and became dark, the circuit remained bright. Hundreds of white lights lined the 5.412 km of Bahrain, shining brightly and beautifully like constellations.
The weather and surface conditions of the Bahrain Circuit were perfectly synchronized with the data of the main event day, overlaying the virtual world of For One.
On a sticky, hot night, under the bright lights, race cars had completed their alignment on the grid.
Before long, another reality unfolded before our eyes.
[Synchronization complete.]
With a clear sound of “ding!”, the synchronization was complete, and Leclerc and I were summoned onto the grid where the race cars were lined up. The starting point was the 10th grid, Leclerc’s grid, who had qualified 10th.
“I don’t know how long it’s been since I started here.”
Leclerc, who had been starting from the back grid due to the realistic wall of race cars, muttered as if reminiscing.
In objective numbers, 10th place was neither high nor low, just smack in the middle. There were 9 above him and 10 below him, merely averaging out.
However, for Leclerc, who had never escaped the lower grid due to Ferrari’s poor performance, that average felt no different than pole position.
“Finally, I can dream of something…”
Leclerc expressed, lost in thought.
His gaze, now able to join the fierce and desperate cycle of competition, burned with a brighter flame than I had ever seen.
“…….”
Oh dear. At first, I was silently watching Leclerc enjoy this feeling, but…
Flare!
From his every action and gaze, a tremendous spark jumped up to me, igniting a flame without me realizing it. It was a fiery flame that seemed to melt my skin, marrow, and finally burn my heart before it could extinguish.
Sharing with him emotions that were beyond words, I struggled to suppress the burning flame that seemed to engulf the world and finally opened my mouth.
“Alright, since we don’t have time, shall we start drafting the estimate? We have mountains of things to do.”
This was all I could feel amidst the emotional upheaval. I couldn’t be swept away in the whirlwind of emotions forever.
It was time to face the tedious reality head-on for the sake of the next steps.
“Alright, let’s get started. Let’s find a faster route.”
Finding a faster route…
“I like that expression. Yes, let’s find a faster way.”
With those words, we climbed into the race car, V-1, and began what could be countless drives.
Even as the same course repeated infinitely, I didn’t feel tired at all.
Slowly but surely, we were getting closer to our dream…
Because nothing could be more intoxicating than that sweet dream.
***
The laboratory of Red Bull located in Bahrain.
In a situation where their feet were literally on fire, Red Bull, which had unexpectedly emerged as an unplanned competitor to Ferrari in just one season, was in a crisis.
Was it an unexpected situation? The research team at Red Bull, who always boasted mechanical teamwork, was struggling and faltering.
In the disorganized atmosphere where the gears didn’t turn well, conversations among engineers went back and forth.
“It’s tough just trying to catch up with McLaren, but now we have to defend too…”
“On top of that, have you heard about scrapping everything we’ve prepared and starting anew?”
“Who said that?”
“Who, of course, the director.”
“Wow… this is really stressful. When can we finish all that? Just thinking about it makes me anxious.”
“Right?”
As midnight passed, yesterday’s qualifying turned into history, flipping the competitive landscape of the upper tiers of F1 that had persisted for years in a shocking and astonishing single day.
Because of that day, Red Bull had to deny all the history they had built up until now. The past where they had easily bested Ferrari.
Thus, to move forward, they had to forget the past and reconfigure the present.
They had to discard all the data meticulously collected and analyzed by hundreds of their personnel, and reset all the strategies they had prepared for the Bahrain Grand Prix from scratch.
It was an overwhelming situation that was too vast to resolve in a single day, which was now handed to Red Bull.
In a situation no one could have anticipated, the employees at Red Bull were groaning.
“But… I know I shouldn’t say this, but honestly, is this the situation we should be resolving?”
“What do you mean?”
An engineer who had processed the massive workload like a machine suddenly leaned back in his chair and spoke to a fellow engineer.
“No, I mean, to be honest. We’re not lacking in technical capability compared to Ferrari, and in reality, we had better performance. What more should we be doing?”
He seemed to express frustration, as if he was angry, pointing out that they had an undisputed advantage for several seasons.
“Is it a lack of car performance, or is it a poor strategy? If it were in the main event, I’d take the blame, but we shouldn’t blame the strategy for losing in qualifying. It’s really frustrating.”
Was this really a problem they had to solve? He raised a fundamental question about the roots of how this situation had come to be.
The nearby fellow engineers who initially thought it was just a complaint gradually began to empathize with his words. His reasoning was valid, reasonable, and wholly normal.
In terms of measurable figures, there was nothing that Red Bull was worse at than Ferrari. The only variable left was the driver.
Thus, the issue of driving was something only the driver could wholly resolve.
“Indeed. This season we’ve done everything we could. We lived in the lab all day during the off-season.”
“I haven’t seen my family for months because I’ve been living in the lab.”
“It’s not just our fault. We did our best in the areas we can control…”
The exhausted engineers had no reason not to support his opinion.
It was a form of shifting blame. Each form was different but shared the same meaning of “I did my utmost!”
It looked exceedingly irresponsible and appeared to be a cowardly action to justify their past.
“But we really did our best.”
They did not rationalize their past. They only felt genuine sorrow and anger.
So, who could throw stones at them?
Just like Ferrari’s research team, they had been running passionately. The result was merely a shard of passion without a known end, and the essence that emerged from the fragments was real.
The essence that Red Bull possessed carried a solid story incomparable to the superficial loss of defeat.
The story they had built could say that although they lost today, victory was possible tomorrow. They may not shine today, but they could shine tomorrow because they had built too much and were solid.
Their story always had the potential to change.
“Let’s try again. We still have the advantage, so it’s a fight worth engaging in.”
“Yes. Our job is to think of winning after losing, so we shouldn’t be shaken this much.”
“They said the telemetry analysis results will be out soon. Let’s prepare in our respective places.”
Becoming unsinkable soldiers who had fought countless battles, they quickly gathered their resolve.
However, they could not feel good simply because they had lost.
“The analysis results are out! I will send the data, so please check it!”
And their will began to materialize, reigniting the embers of hope.
In this moment.
All 10 teams of F1, including Red Bull, were repeating the same tasks. They were facing and dismantling the established logic they had held onto.
The lights of the 10 different laboratories never dimmed, and the hundreds of thousands of flags protecting their factions outside showed no signs of lowering.
Desperate stories were endlessly continuing to write their narratives.
In that place, there were winners and losers, but there were no eternal winners nor eternal losers.
The clash of enormous stories was preparing for war within the quiet dawn.