10. TIAGO
TIAGO
BAHRAIN
For the first time since I’ve sat in this piece of junk, I feel pretty fast. Not, like, Volare fast, but something, and that’s more than I had in the past three races.
I don’t know what secret sauce the pit crew poured in the fuel tank overnight, but this was not the car I drove in qualifying yesterday. But who cares? I’m actually racing!
‘Tiago, hold position. Repeat, hold position,’ says my race engineer.
The blood drains from my overheated face.
No.
Please no.
I try to keep my voice steady. ‘I can do it cleanly!’ It’s not steady, but that’s not totally my fault. The car’s bumpy as shit. ‘I can—’
‘Confirm: no racing. We need you to manage the gap to the cars behind.’
What in the—? I’m objectively faster. 0.3 seconds a lap faster, if we’re splitting hairs. If I were in his position with fifteen laps to go, I might actually have a chance at sniffing points. Points!
But now? I’m watching his bumbling butt screw up Turn 8.
His rears are twitching something fierce, telling me, on top of everything else, his tyres are failing.
An optimistic fool would hope they’ll pit him soon and I can scoot ahead, but I’m slowly realising there’s no logic in the upper echelons of this team.
To add salt to the wound, Jack Bowden’s Pagari flies by me going double if not triple my speed.
Self-pity switches to horror when I check my rear mirrors and spot the Alpha Prime I’ve just overtaken. My car’s radiating under me, itching to be used, eager to be tested, hungry to pull away.
Yet here I am, watching a Maxim Performance join the party. The one my crew pulled off their fastest pit stop ever so I could get out in front. The reason I drove like I was putting in a quali lap to put space between us.
It only takes two more laps for the Alpha Prime to seek revenge.
C’mon, tortoise-mobile, let’s show ’em what we’re made of.
He’s right on my ass going into Turn 1. I hold a defensive inside line, forcing him to take the longer outside route. There’s a limit to what I can do – the car’s still unstable and prone to locking up – but covering corners and late apex blocking are within my means.
As we exit Turn 3 and make it onto the straight, my instincts are screaming at me to put my foot down and keep the Alpha Prime from getting within DRS. It’s a classic overtaking zone, long and uphill. A chef’s kiss for slipstream.
But my teammate’s too close. He’s supposed to be pulling away, that’s why I’m doing this whole charade. When I check my mirrors, I catch a flash of fluorescent yellow. DFK are here. That’s just peachy. Three attackers and no weapons.
This is painful.
The Alpha Prime makes to dive down my inside. He pulls out of the slipstream and I edge toward the inside barrier, claiming the defensive line into Turn 4. I’m sacrificing corner exit speed, but it blocks a neat overtake.
At Turn 5, he tries again. There’s a flash of lime green in my periphery. Holy f— he’s right there.
Here goes nothing.
I hold my breath as I brake late, later than I ever have in this car, praying praying praying she sustains. If she locks up, this race is done. I keep the tyres right on the edge as I send the car wide enough to squeeze him out.
By the time I hit Turn 8, I have the courage to look to my left. The lime green’s vanished.
It worked. It worked. And I didn’t lock up!
I check my rear mirrors and the Alpha Prime’s backing off.
All that battling’s fucked his tyres. Hell yes, we did it!
For now. They’ll restrategise and come back swinging, but I can breathe for a minute.
My balls are molten in here. Who thought it was a good idea to host a grand prix in a desert?
I don’t care if it’s nighttime, it’s still sweltering.
The grin slides off my face when I catch sight of my teammate. What’s wrong with him? I’ve been sucking up time battling for my life, and he’s still there? He should be way ahead by now! I’m losing a second a lap, and he—
He’s in the barrier.
He just missed Turn 10 and drove headlong into a DNF.
Oh C’MON.
How in the world did he pull that off? Bahrain’s 90% wide runoff.
Finding the only place close to a barrier took real skill.
What’s he going to be like at tight street circuits like Monaco and Singapore?
I slam my gloved fist against the wheel.
What a rookie. And they made me babysit him? Isn’t that swell.
I threw my race for nothing. My tyres are spent having defended lap after lap.
And the gap between me and the RaceX in front is eight seconds.
Might as well be eight years. I don’t have a hope of catching up.
P13 it is, if I can hold on to it. This is the closest we’ve ever had to points – the first race I’ve felt in sync with the car; the first pit stop the crew aced; the first time we’ve had anything like cohesion.
And now our chances are in the dust.
My teammate says his brakes gave up on him and there was nothing he could do. I call bullshit. I know when I see a late, panicked stomp.
The atmosphere in the garage is terrible, even though I managed to finish – in P15, because my tyres were so spent the Alpha Prime and Maxim Performance clawed their places back after the safety car ended.
The Australian TV crew at the mouth of the garage shitting all over the team isn’t helping things.
‘What a disastrous weekend for Leone. Four races in and more failure. A flash of promise, but no follow-through. At some point you have to ask if this little development team is capable of competing at this level.’
She realises we can hear her, right? I’m sitting on a mechanics’ chair near the back and I can catch every word.
The crew work so hard pulling regular eighteen-hour days. They don’t deserve to have their effort and sacrifice mocked by some snooty bitch wearing a pantsuit in the desert. It’s not their fault our team principal and strategists made yet another bad call. Their dejection hollows me out.
One of the engineers strides close to me and I seize my chance.
‘Hey man, are you guys ready to talk—’
‘It’s alright, Tiago, we’ve got what we need. You can go home.’
I nod to the back of his retreating head, trying to balance being the better teammate with the frustration building in my chest. I noticed some interesting things about the battery deployment on the straights that I think could inform future setups, but I don’t see what else I can do except for writing my insights on a piece of paper and leaving it on the desk.
These guys need all the help they can get. I don’t know why they can’t see that.
I’m not used to having all this free time.
We’re not invited to press conferences, broadcasters don’t want us for interviews, brands don’t consider us for activations, my engineers don’t want me for detailed debriefs, and if I get waved over in the media pen, I spend the whole time defending everything we do to journalists like that butthead.
‘I have good news and bad news. Which do you want first?’ JC says, striding into the garage.
I rub my eyes, suddenly bone tired. ‘I don’t think things can get any worse, man.’
‘Oh they can. Good news: you know Matteo D’Ambrosio’s track limits issue? The data’s been reviewed and he’s been given a five-second grid penalty, which means—’
‘I’m P14,’ I say, marginally brighter. It’s my best result so far this year. ‘I mean, it’s still point-less, but I guess it’s something. What’s the bad news?’
He sucks in a breath. ‘It pushed DFK into the top ten.’
My stomach bottoms out. ‘You’re kidding.’
‘Wish I was.’
I can’t believe this. ‘DFK have points? For the first time in three years?!’
‘Four years,’ JC corrects.
I utter it quietly so the mechanics don’t feel any worse: ‘We’re officially at the bottom of the grid.’
‘Correct.’
‘Not joint bottom. Not probably not the worst. The actual worst.’
‘Correct.’
I rub my face roughly. ‘What the fuck?’
‘Their new team principal looks like she’s starting to yield results.’
‘Greeeeat.’
‘C’mon.’ He nods toward the door. ‘Let’s head out. The jet’s on standby.’
‘What do I do?’ I ask as we head to our waiting car. ‘This team’s a sinking ship and everybody knows it. Morale isn’t going to change anytime soon, especially not after that bombshell.’
‘You don’t have much of a choice. You ride it out, do what you can do, and if things don’t improve, hell, there’s always IndyCar next year.’
‘IndyCar? JC, if I leave now, I give up any chance I have at being a World Champion. It’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted. I’m not ready to give it up. I’m good enough to drive for a team like Volare. You saw how I defended today. I whipped that Alpha Prime’s ass.’
‘And then he overtook you,’ JC says through a yawn. Wow, his enthusiasm’s overwhelming.
‘Yeah, well, I had no choice.’
‘What about being a reserve driver in F1?’ he suggests. ‘The pay’s pretty good.’
I harrumph. My face is on that garage (so big you can see my pores, and I’m still not sure how I feel about that) and even though it’s for a backmarker team, I’m still one of twenty drivers in the world’s most prestigious motorsport.
Transitioning to a reserve driver voluntarily is peak humiliation.
JC doesn’t get it. He understands numbers and deals, but not what it’s like to feel your dream rapidly slip from your grasp. To know you could prove everyone wrong if only you had the resources.
I climb into the car and flick onto Instagram. The first face that pops up is Premier League soccer player Brennan Okorafor on a Coke ad. That dude was benched when he started dating Jules, and now look at him.
I’m beyond desperate, and my fortunes need to change fast. As much as it pains me to say it… there’s only one thing that can help. And I’m going to have to fall on my sword to get it.