CHAPTER 81: FATIH VS ÖMER

Mhhhhhh... Whooooooo... Mhhhhhhh... Whooooooo... Mhhhhhhh... Whoooooooo...

Fatih calmly breathed in and out as he led the formation lap, swerving left and right. He would intermittently stop, move in a straight line, and then swerve again, quite the opposite of the constant weaving the drivers behind him were doing. Had it not been for the dominant drive he was showing, many would have interpreted this as inexperience, a sign that he was worried about losing control of the powerful kart. But Burak, who was watching him from the pit lane, had a proud look on his face.

He was one of the few people who knew and realized the greatness of what Fatih was currently doing. It was the optimal tire warmup, which not only brought the tires to the right temperature but did so optimally. He was actively using his senses to feel the grip, in return estimating the tire temperature and adjusting his warmup to fit the live reaction from the tires. This was something he had spent an entire year learning, practicing for an hour every day on different tracks with different layouts to master various tire warmup profiles.

His other three hours of training consisted of an hour of driving karts tuned to a specific driving style. Apollo would change the setup mid-drive, forcing Fatih to adapt and find the fastest driving style for the new configuration. During this training, he was finally using the KART_KF1_2008_BASILINE_001, as it was the fastest kart available to him and one that would instill the instincts he needed. He had to react faster, or else he would suffer painful injuries if he failed to adapt quickly enough. The remaining two hours were spent sharpening his other tools, with the focus always dependent on Apollo’s decision and not set in stone.

Today, he felt eerily in control, not on the edge as he had in the last four races. Although he could control the karts without a hint of a problem and handle the weekends, he still felt the post-race effects of being in the powerful junior karts. But now, that had disappeared, as he had spent his accumulated SP over the last two seasons to finally upgrade his Sponge Body from (Good → Excellent)

, and he was now enjoying its benefits.

Now, all he had to do was focus on the race. Should he win the championship, he would receive a multiplier effect on his earned SP due to the challenge he had been thrown into at the start of the new season.

Mhhhhhh... Whooooooo... Mhhhhhhh... Whooooooo... Mhhhhhhh... Whoooooooo... He changed his breathing pattern as he completed the formation lap, entering his grid position. His eyes were now focused on the lights, not unsticking his tires since he had warmed them just above the optimal temperature, which would dissipate and return to the optimal one during the wait for others to enter their grid positions. As his body started producing adrenaline, it heightened his focus, bringing him to the optimal racing atmosphere.

..............

"The five lights have come on one by one and... IT’S LIGHTS OUT AND AWAY WE GO! Fatih, having a better reaction time, takes the lead of the race and moves to cover Ömer, slowing him down leading into the first corner! This allows Osman in P3 to gain ground, but Ömer sees this and moves to cover Osman, interfering with Fatih’s plan of hindering his championship opportunity. He now enters Fatih’s slipstream on the second straight out of turn three. He’s gaining, gaining, gaining, and he reaches the rear of Fatih, moves to the side as they barrel towards T4! Who will be brave and brake later than the other? OOOOOH!

Ömer locks up as Fatih keeps to the racing line, not allowing Ömer to recover by changing his line. He has nowhere to go and now has to go onto the grass as Fatih retains his lead, followed closely by Osman, who inherits the second position! He’s followed by Yılmaz, Baran, Kemal, Tarkan, and only then do we see Ömer back on the track, but now in P7, shaking his head in anger as he sees his championship hopes slipping from his hands.

He now has a mountain to carve if he is to recover to where he needs to be in order to win the championship. But it is a twenty-five-lap race, and he has enough time to fully focus and try his best to recover. It is not an insurmountable mountain; it is achievable," Süleyman commentated, his excitement obvious to everyone as the first lap alone had already served up a few interesting narrative arcs that he could now follow and guide viewers during the now very interesting race.

"Though we will have to wait for the replay to be sure, do you think Fatih pushed him outside in order to kill his chances of winning the championship?" Süleyman asked the question that was on everyone’s mind, dumping the responsibility on Zakir, who was responsible for the technical aspects of the commentary.

"I don’t think he did anything outside the rule book, as all he did was remain on the racing line, which he had earned by being in the lead. It could be considered not good sportsmanlike behavior by others, but that is not something I agree with. This is a competition, and you need to force the other side to make mistakes if it is to your advantage. What Fatih did was less than even that, as he just let Ömer’s mistake not go unpunished, a very good decision, as he now leads the race and his chances of winning the championship are higher than when the race started," Zakir said, immediately making his side obvious as he gave his reasoning.

"I couldn’t agree more with you. We have just been notified that the stewards have taken notice of the situation and it’s under investigation. But Fatih, uncaring of what is going on, is now opening a gap between him and Osman from the rest of the pack. He is repeating his driving style of dragging the driver behind him along, a nightmare that had killed Selçuk’s championship hopes. I wouldn’t have believed anyone if it was told to me as a story that a nine-year-old is currently on the run and has the chance of winning the KF-Junior championship in his first participation despite missing the first two races. But my eyes are bearing witness to that as Fatih enters his second lap, having already opened a gap of two seconds from the rest of the group starting from P3. Ömer moves to the side and goes side-by-side with Tarkan, and he overtakes him into turn one, moving to P6! He has started his hunt and is now chasing Kemal. The championship is still his to lose, and he looks intent on not doing that."

With Ömer on a charge and Fatih dragging Osman with him to open the gap, the race was exciting lap after lap. Ömer cut down the distance between him and Kemal and finally managed to overtake him in four laps after a valiant fight, moving to P5. But he didn’t stay there long, as he moved to P4 in the next lap and started chasing Yılmaz in P3, who was two seconds ahead of him. He pushed himself and the kart to the limit to reduce that distance over a five-lap period before fighting with him for two laps, finally keeping the P3 position after a back-and-forth overtaking battle took place between them.

"Ömer has recovered to P3, but his journey up to there was not easy, and he is now seven seconds behind the front group. It looks like Fatih expected him to recover to some level, and his strategy of bringing Osman with him proves to be correct, as the gap is not something he can recover over a ten-lap period. But he doesn’t seem to care and continues pushing, trying to reduce the gap as much as possible as he hopes for a lucky break," Süleyman said as the screen showed Ömer going into a corner, cutting it as short as possible to save even a tenth of a second, as if he was in a qualifying session. The screen showed the gap between him and Fatih was now at eight seconds.

For the next eight laps, no matter how hard he attempted to reduce the gap, he only managed to reduce it by two seconds due to Fatih having to drive in consideration of Osman, whom he was dragging, and not in the fastest way possible. But then...

"Oh, we have a yellow flag on two marshal posts as a kart has gone off the track! Is this the lucky break Ömer needed to reduce the gap, as Fatih, the race leader, is now forced to reduce his speed as he passes the yellow-flagged sector?

But unfortunately for Ömer, the yellow flag is only momentary, and it has been lifted. The track is back to green flag conditions, having only benefited him slightly by reducing the gap from six seconds to four. It looks like fate enjoys teasing him. What a cruel thing fate can do to some. But for Fatih, he is now breathing a sigh of relief as he enters the final straight to complete his lap and start the final lap of the race.

He looks to the side, reading the board his coach Burak is showing him, and he nods and pushes harder. As he starts his final lap, he no longer has to care about bringing Osman with him, as the gap between Osman and Ömer is wide enough to not be a consideration. He is now gunning for that fastest lap accolade, and he shows the fluidity in his driving, taking the shortest distance possible on the track. As he comes out of the final corner, he gets on the power earlier but keeps it straight, and now he barrels down the final straight.

Having started this championship from the third race, it was nearly impossible to have the opportunity to win, but with the competitiveness of the category playing to his advantage, paired with his dominance, he went into the final race with the opportunity to win the championship, but only if the championship leader finished third or below. He had done his best to make that possible, and as he crosses the finish line, the checkered flag is waved for him, AND FATIH YILDIRIM WINS THE KF-JUNIOR CHAMPIONSHIP, CEMENTING HIMSELF IN THE HISTORY OF THE BEST DRIVERS IN THE CATEGORY, TAKING THE FASTEST LAP WITH HIM ON THE FINAL LAP, COMPLETING NOW HIS THIRTEENTH CONSECUTIVE PERFECT GRAND SLAM WEEKEND!"