CHAPTER 83: A CONVERSATION WITH TOSFED

Time passed quickly, and it wasn’t long before Fatih returned to school to start his final primary school year. Based on the Turkish educational structure, which is four years of primary school, followed by four years of middle school, and four years of high school before university, he was just at the beginning of his educational journey.

Although Fatih showed exceptional performance in school, having perfect results for the previous three consecutive years, Rümeysa refrained from fast-tracking him as she had with his karting career. She decided to use his now-free time, due to his reduced learning needs, to allow him to increase his practice time for karting and continue his second hobby of learning new languages.

He always managed to complete a language within seven months, having already learned four languages within the last three years: English, German, Italian, and French, with all of them being at an advanced level.

At the moment, he was midst of learning Arabic, which, due to its depth and history, was expected to take him a full year before he reached the same advanced level as the other four.

He continued going to an academy to have conversations with native speakers of those languages, trying to elevate all of his learned languages to a native level of intonation, cultural fluency, rhythm, stress patterns, sarcasm, grasp of tone, slang, and everything else to close the gap between him and someone who lived in those areas as much as possible. Thanks to his Sponge Brain, he was absorbing and digesting everything very easily, aided by consuming content in these languages, which accelerated the process.

With Fatih already notified about their planned move abroad once he finished primary school, Rümeysa had already started making the required preparations. She had resigned and completed the handover from her position and was now ready to fully focus on the preparations for the move.

With Fatih’s dual citizenship, his side of preparation was quite easy, but for Rümeysa, it was slightly different. To ease that, she was currently having a meeting with the TOSFED to talk about both this matter and another unknown topic that was included when she requested their help.

"Thank you for accepting the meeting we asked for on such short notice," Mansur, the Karting Sporting Director, said as he took a seat after they finished exchanging greetings with Rümeysa.

"I’m also receiving help from your side, so it is very easy to accept them," Rümeysa said, easing the tension in preparation for the conversation that was about to unfold.

"Then let me get to the point," Mansur said, pausing for a moment to gauge Rümeysa’s attention before he continued. "Knowing that Fatih has already reached a limit in Turkish motorsport, we have decided to adhere to your request and provide you with our recommendation letter to ease your visa and residency applications, but we would like the partnership to go a bit further."

Rümeysa, raising an eyebrow, asked slowly, "In what sense?"

"We know that in his international career, it would be very helpful for him if he were to use his German citizenship and process his future certification under the DMSB(Germany’s TOSFED), which, frankly, is more influential than us." As he spoke, he focused on Rümeysa, trying to see every expression she was making as a reaction to his words, pausing for a moment before he said, "We would like for Fatih to continue competing under the Turkish flag and have his certification continue to be handled by TOSFED."

When no response came from Rümeysa, who looked to be in deep contemplation, Mansur breathed a sigh of relief. Although it was not an outright acceptance, it was also not an outright rejection, so he continued, starting to tap into the points he had prepared beforehand.

"Although the instant benefits he will receive upon having his certification and nationality connected to Germany are significant, the long-term benefits are very limited compared to if he remains under the Turkish flag and the TOSFED umbrella.

At the moment, Turkey has a very limited number of successful drivers on the international motorsports scene, with only Kenan Sofuoğlu having a very successful career and winning championships in the FIM Supersport World Championship.

That is limited to motorcycles, and there is no similar success example level in four wheel, showing exactly how talent-strapped we are. It also means there is a very large bandwidth for us to support our talented drivers, but the same can’t be said for the DMSB, who have a large roster of talent for them to support.

If he remains under our jurisdiction, the higher he rises, the higher our influence within the FIA will also rise, and the more support we can provide for him.

The same is true for the support he will receive from the people of his country. If he remains under the Turkish flag, he would also be receiving their nationalistic support, and we are very nationalistic people. Although he would receive the same support in Germany if he were to rise, he unfortunately would still be under Michael Schumacher’s shadow.

He will most likely receive the same treatment as national representatives who are of different ethnic origins, where if they win, they are celebrated as their fellow citizens, but if they lose, the support disappears, and a strong call for them to go back to their country would be the majority sentiment. But he won’t have to worry about that if he were to fight under the Turkish flag. So long as he does his best, even if he loses, he will still be supported.

But if he wins, he will be the Schumacher, the Senna of Turkey, as no one would have reached that level before him in the pinnacle of motorport, giving him the same level, if not more, of support from what is a near-equal population between the two countries. And I’m sure you know the benefits of being the first of something in this digitally connected world."

Mansur paused for a moment, allowing Rümeysa a period to digest the information he had just provided her, which he knew was heavy, having invested quite a bit of his team’s time to find evidence for the points he provided.

After a long pause, Rümeysa finally spoke. "I understand and agree with the majority of your points, but there is really no benefit for him in the short term, since many of the points you provided are ones that bear fruit after a very long time. But the short-term difficulties he will be facing for that decision are not things that are easy to deal with," showing that she had taken this thought seriously but saw no short-term benefits, which for a young driver was very important as it was their development phase, and depending on how it went, he might not even be able to reap the long-term benefits.

"If that is the problem, we have a few ways we can provide some short-term benefits so that he is not the only one who is sacrificing something. We will be recommending him to the FIA academy and applying for his inclusion in the official CIK-FIA list for exceptional talent.

Should our application be accepted, it will earn him a few benefits, like elevated visibility to top teams and sponsors, priority access to events like elite karting competitions, preferential placement in FIA-sanctioned training camps and workshops, and development support like coaching from FIA-certified instructors, technical feedback from race engineers and data analysts, and physical and mental performance training.

It will also result in his inclusion in the international karting ranking system, which tracks performance across events and helps determine readiness for category upgrades, even if he doesn’t meet the age requirement.

We will also be co-sponsoring his career abroad and pushing for wild-card entries.

These are things that, although other federations can provide, he will have competition under the same federation, but for us, there is no one at the moment to share all of these benefits, soo all of our focus will be on him," Mansur added as he slid a dossier containing all the same information he was talking about but going into more detail and providing multiple examples to prove that he was not bluffing and his statements were evidence-backed.

"What benefits will you be getting in return, other than the increase in influence?" Rümeysa asked as she skimmed through the files, planning to go through them in detail later. For the moment, she wanted to know what the other side was benefiting from because, looking at the situation as it was, Fatih would be the one benefiting heavily, not TOSFED.

"Although our increased national standing could be considered enough return on the investment, it will also increase interest in motorsport in the country, increasing the opportunity for talented drivers to appear. We gain leverage in the FIA circle, an increase in the funds we are receiving from the FIA and sponsors who, with Turkey now having an icon, will be a very desirable area for sponsorship. We also gain soft power in the political circles, which would also be helpful for Fatih in the future as well."

"But why are you speaking with such confidence, as if it is guaranteed that he is going to succeed? All of your plans would only bear fruit if Fatih reaches Formula 1, so isn’t it a gamble from your side?"

"Yes, it is a gamble, but one with a very high chance of being a reality, and with our support, we increase those chances even higher. But even if it doesn’t pan out as we imagined, the possible results if it actually happens are way too big to avoid just because of the possibility of it failing," Mansur said calmly with a confident smile before he added, "Although I’m the one speaking to you, this matter has approvals from the highest level, so you don’t have to worry about it. We will be his strongest backers in his career abroad when it comes to something related to the FIA.

As for additional monetary help, we are also in talks with Turkish companies to sponsor him as well to reduce the remaining monetary burden on you, so please take your time going through the information I provided you before you make your decision."

As he was done saying that, he reached over for his bag, removed another dossier, and handed it to her, saying, "And here is the recommendation letter you requested," making it very clear that they were not planning on using the recommendation letter as leverage to get what they wanted but were looking to form a mutually beneficial agreement.

This showed the level of hype Fatih was carrying in the motorsports circle in Turkey because when anyone with a voice in motorsports saw him in action, found themselves imagining him standing on the podium with a Turkish national anthem playing on the speakers and couldn’t help but want to support him, evident by the letters that were being sent to TOSFED on a daily basis. He was already gaining fame, and his YouTube videos were accelerating that even faster, but on an international scale, due to them being entertaining and open to everyone, even those outside the motorsports circles.