CHAPTER 92: TO ITALY

"If this is a reward for two podiums and a race win, what would the reward be if I won all of them?" Fatih asked himself as he bounced a tennis ball from the ground to the wall before it returned to him repeatedly while lying on his bed.

Beside him was the dossier that contained information about the races he was going to participate in this year, with additional information beyond the one-page summary his mother had handed him during their discussion.

TOSFED seemed to be putting in a very high effort to ensure that he didn’t face any difficulties that might cause him to perform poorly on the track. But it was not out of their goodwill alone; it was also an opportunity for them to finally fully gauge his performance on the international scene, as that would decide the support they would be providing him for the next year.

It was a very calculated move, as it allowed them to both appear very supportive of Fatih while also spending only a three-race worth of money to know if their investment was a success or a dud. And although even if he didn’t perform well, they would have to continue supporting him due to the contract they had signed under both their and Rümeysa’s insistence, as she had made sure it was tight following her first experience in motorsport, the level of informational and financial support was determined by the performance Fatih was going to deliver. So if he underperformed, they would be spending very little money until the end of the contract, but if he did well, then they would willingly fully support him, and both sides knew that.

"I don’t know exactly, but it should be something that you will be impressed by, I’m sure," Apollo said as he floated above him in the form of a child’s body.

"But let’s not get ahead of ourselves and get up in our heads," Fatih said as he dragged his free left hand to pick up the dossier and removed some papers while his right was still catching the thrown ball, using sound and his Catlex ability alone. He then asked, "How much will these two tracks cost?"

"The usual. For Grade 6 circuits, it is 10 SP per," Apollo said as he opened the system’s Circuit Shop and searched for the circuits for Fatih to decide whether to go ahead with the purchase or not.

He could navigate the system in Fatih’s place, but the final purchasing decision remained with Fatih alone and couldn’t be forced by anyone.

"In Turkey, I didn’t really have to do that, but now it is time we fire on all cylinders and use this ability to our advantage," Fatih said as he went ahead with the purchase of both tracks.

Although it might look like just some advantageous ability, it was more of a cheat than it appeared. Within a race weekend, a driver who participated in all of the available practice time would have a maximum of one and a half hours on the track before qualifying started. Even if you included all of the sessions, it wouldn’t exceed three and a half hours, and maybe double or triple that if they arrived a week earlier and rented the track. But Fatih could practice four hours every day on those tracks without having to spend any money, meaning depending on the time he started practicing on a specific circuit, by the time the race weekend started, he might have the most time a driver had ever spent on that track, meaning he would know it inside out like the back of his hand and what the fastest setup was weeks or days before even traveling there.

"This is going to be something when I reach single-seaters," Fatih said, knowing how advantageous having the simulation was going to be due to the testing restrictions that got stricter the higher up the ladder you went.

"Well, who am I to complain?" he said, chuckling, knowing that this was his special advantage, just like Stroll had his father’s millions to support him until he reached Formula 1.

After purchasing them, he didn’t immediately enter the simulation as he still had some things to do and planned to drive on them after he went to sleep.

With the new high-performance kart already registered, he couldn’t help but look forward to it.

Time continued barreling forward like a brakeless train as Fatih spent all of his time on the two tracks, as they were the ones he didn’t have any experience driving on, while spending only about twenty minutes a day on La Conca.

It wasn’t long until the week of the first competition, the 42nd Trofeo delle Industrie, arrived. Having spent hours both inside the simulation and in continuous testing and practice drives under the support of RFM, he felt fully ready and excited as they headed to the airport a full four days before the first session in order to prevent any jet lag or other problems they might encounter that could delay them.

Accompanying them was his grandmother, Burak, and the cameraman who was documenting everything to be used in the future.

After a two-hour flight, they were picked up by an arranged car and spent an hour heading to Lonato before they arrived and checked into a hotel, resting for the day.

The next day, after refreshing themselves, they headed to the track to see it for themselves and understand the surroundings in order to plan where they were going to spend their time, where the food was, where the academy tents were going to be, and to their surprise, they were not the only ones visiting the track early.

Some were already on the track for setup and unofficial practice preparations, including Enaam and Lando, who were already on the track. Even Mick Schumacher, who was participating under his mother’s maiden name, was on the track driving while they watched, as Fatih was only scheduled for tomorrow’s unofficial practices. These were the advantages of having a team behind you, as those who raced with their own money and were limited in funding couldn’t afford to do things like these, and Fatih was fully intent on benefiting from everything the system had for him.

After spending about an hour on the track, they returned to the hotel while Burak remained behind to communicate with the RFM team that was already there to get up to date with them and make sure that by tomorrow, every wheel on the gear was turning well between him and the team, since they will be working together for the next three races.

...........

"Although we usually test aggressive setups from the start to see what works and what doesn’t, since it is your first time, we are going to start like we did in your tests with a neutral setup and only start moving it to the optimum setup after you are done with track familiarization," Steven said, having already gotten used to Fatih’s keen sense for setup optimization in the multiple tests he had participated in, to the point that his suggestions were taken very seriously.

"Our engine tuners are still experimenting with jetting, ignition timing, clutch engagement points, and other fine-tuning experiments at this moment, so engine changes during the sessions might happen to see the results of these changes and go ahead with them or return to the previous setting before the official free practice starts and limitations take place," he continued the briefing as he went into more detail than usual since this would be Fatih’s first international race experience, and he didn’t want to risk him missing something just because he considered it to be well-known basic knowledge.

The briefing went on for about ten minutes before it was completed, and Fatih was finally allowed to head to the pit lane and get ready to enter the track, which was about to be opened in five minutes.

It didn’t take him long to arrive there with Burak, finding his kart already waiting for him, fully ready, as other drivers from other teams and academies had already taken their positions, waiting for the track to open, requiring Fatih to walk all the way to the back of the pack where his kart was waiting for him since a kart with no driver was not allowed in the queue.

Getting ready didn’t take more than a minute before he entered the queue, waiting for the green flag and the pit lane exit to be open.

As for Fatih himself, he was currently in full focus mode despite it being a free practice. After all, he was a believer in the saying, "Practice as if you are in a race, and race as if you are in practice," and to him, it didn’t matter whether it was an official session or not. As long as he was in a kart on the track, he was going to give his all.

BWOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!

A horn blared as the pit lane exit was finally opened, and one after another, drivers started entering the track, with Fatih following calmly before finally his tires set foot onto the track. It was the first time in the real world, but nothing felt new at all to him since the track he had purchased was a one-to-one match with its real-world counterpart.

It was finally a free practice session where he could drive fully before wanting the setup settings that he had come up with Apollo in practice to be translated into his now-neutral kart, having already experienced the pace it came with.