"Outlap 1 sangat penting," kata James melalui radio.
Sebaliknya, Fatih keluar dari jalur pit menuju tikungan tiga dengan senyuman di wajahnya. Ia tahu ia telah menyelesaikan aksi menyalip karena waktu pit stop Apollo secara total akan sama dengan durasi pit stop-nya ditambah satu detik. Bisa dikatakan ia telah menuntaskan salipan itu dan menjadi pemimpin balapan virtual, meskipun Apollo masih berada 23 detik di depannya.
Meskipun menjadi pemimpin virtual, ia sama sekali tidak mengendurkan gas, sebab ia tidak punya informasi tentang apa yang sedang dilakukan Apollo saat itu. Karena tidak bisa bertanya ke jalur pit, satu-satunya pilihan adalah tancap gas tanpa ampun saat ia mulai memanaskan ban, tetapi tidak terlalu lambat hingga membuang-buang waktu.
Hanya butuh satu lap sebelum ban-ban tersebut akhirnya mencapai suhu optimal. Ia langsung menggeber mobilnya secara maksimal dan mencatatkan lap tercepat sesi tersebut pada Lap 22. Kini ia sangat yakin bahwa strategi undercut miliknya berhasil, karena ban baru dengan bahan bakar yang lebih sedikit daripada awal balapan memberinya keunggulan yang sangat besar.
Satu lagi catatan lap tercepat pada Lap 23 saat ia berhasil mempertajam waktunya sebesar sepersepuluh detik.
Satu lagi pada Lap 24, memangkas waktunya sepersepuluh detik lagi.
...
"Bisakah ban-ban itu menahan beban gempuran separah itu?" tanya Horner sambil menatap daftar lap tercepat yang terus diperbarui di setiap akhir lap Fatih, yang menunjukkan bahwa sejak keluar dari pit pada lap 21, ia telah mencatatkan 10 lap tercepat dalam sepuluh lap berikutnya.
"Margin peningkatannya sangat tipis, terkadang hanya seperseratus detik, jadi dia tidak sekadar mengejar catatan waktu lap tetapi juga menjaganya tetap berada dalam batas kendali," jawab insinyur performa sambil mengamati telemetri dan data lain dari berbagai sensor di dalam mobil.
Helmut hanya mengamati umpan tersebut dalam diam sambil menggerakkan tetikusnya untuk menumpuk data telemetri antara dua lap. Meskipun semuanya tampak sangat mirip, itu hanya berlaku jika Anda melihat penanda telemetri untuk satu lap penuh. Ketika ia memperbesar tampilan hanya pada bagian yang terdiri dari dua tikungan, Brooklands dan Luffield, ia langsung menyadari perbedaan antara kedua lap tersebut. Karena ingin memastikan, ia menumpuk dua lap lagi di atas data yang sudah ditumpuk tadi dan melihat sesuatu yang menarik.
Fatih secara sengaja mengubah racing line miliknya serta titik-titik tempat ia menginjak gas sebelum tikungan, saat berbelok, pada transisi ke tikungan berikutnya, di tengah-tengah tikungan, dan saat keluar tikungan. Namun pada akhirnya, ia selalu menghabiskan waktu yang hampir identik di dalam kedua tikungan ini, hanya kehilangan atau memperoleh selisih seperseribu detik dalam catatan waktu lap.
"Bagaimana pendapatmu tentang ini?" tanya Helmut sambil menunjuk data telemetri yang ditumpuk agar insinyur performa bisa memeriksanya. Tindakannya menyoroti data tersebut juga menarik perhatian tim yang masih berada di Milton Keynes, sehingga mereka turut memeriksanya.
Butuh waktu sekitar satu menit bagi mereka untuk mengamati data tersebut dan memeriksa apakah fenomena serupa juga terjadi di tikungan-tikungan lain. Dan selain beberapa tikungan, fenomena yang sama terulang di tikungan-tikungan sisanya sebelum akhirnya mereka sampai pada sebuah hipotesis.
{Dia mengubah tingkat keausan yang dialami ban untuk memastikan ban itu aus secara merata, sekaligus menjaga suhunya agar tetap berada dalam kisaran yang sama di berbagai bagian tapak ban yang menyentuh lintasan,} lapor salah satu spesialis telemetri di Milton Keynes, yang membuat semua orang terkejut.
{Bisa jelaskan lebih detail?} tanya Horner melalui radio, penasaran.
{Bergantung pada bagian tikungan mana yang lebih atau kurang Anda tekan, bagian tapak ban yang berbeda akan mengalami gesekan dan keausan yang tidak sama. Jadi, ia memvariasikan bagian mana yang ditekan dan seberapa besar tekanannya di tikungan yang sama pada lap yang berbeda, sehingga bagian-bagian berbeda dari ban yang sama mengalami hal tersebut dan aus secara merata,} spesialis telemetri itu mencoba menjelaskan, meski beberapa orang masih gagal memahaminya—meskipun itu tidak masalah karena mereka yang bertanya sudah mengetahuinya.
Wajah Helmut tampak tenang, tetapi pikirannya sama sekali tidak tenang karena ia berdoa agar waktu berlalu secepat mungkin. Ia tahu jika seseorang mampu memikirkan hal seperti itu dan menerapkannya secara aktif tanpa kehilangan banyak waktu, maka orang itu akan menjadi pebalap yang sangat menakutkan untuk dihadapi di sirkuit di mana degradasi ban memiliki pengaruh yang lebih besar dari biasanya. Bahkan pada hari-hari di mana ban memungkinkan strategi satu kali pit stop, ia tetap akan mampu memperpanjang stint miliknya jika situasi menuntutnya, atau bahkan mengubah balapan dua kali pit stop menjadi balapan satu kali pit stop.
Yang lebih menarik lagi adalah ia melakukan semua ini di tengah gaya memgendarainya yang agresif, yang berarti ia menyeimbangkan dua hal yang berlawanan tetapi tetap menghasilkan waktu lap yang bagus.
Ia ingin melihat berapa lama Fatih bisa mempertahankan ini tanpa kehilangan waktu, namun sepertinya Fatih memiliki rencana yang berbeda saat hujan mulai turun. Bagaikan seseorang yang sudah terlalu lama menahan kencing, begitu air hujan mulai turun, intensitasnya semakin deras, sementara Fatih masih berjarak lima belas detik dari jalur pit.
{MASUK PIT! MASUK PIT! MASUK PIT!} James memerintahkan Fatih untuk masuk ke pit, tidak berniat mengujinya untuk melihat bagaimana ia bisa mengemudi di lintasan basah dengan ban slick.
.......
"ARGHHHHHHHHH!" teriak Fatih di balik helmnya saat ia merobek tear-off untuk membersihkan visornya. Ia tahu perjudian Apollo untuk tetap bertahan di lintasan telah menguntungkan dirinya karena ia sekarang bisa masuk pit untuk mengganti ban full wet dan keluar di posisi terdepan, karena Apollo juga harus masuk pit atau mengambil risiko mengalami kecelakaan atau kehilangan terlalu banyak waktu akibat memgendarai ban yang salah dan tertinggal satu lap oleh Apollo. Perjudiannya telah gagal, atau setidaknya strategi menyalip melalui pit stop yang dijamin berhasil itu telah gagal, dan ia harus melakukannya langsung di lintasan setelah menutup sisa jarak lima belas detik di antara mereka berdua.
Ia langsung memasuki jalur pit, sadar bahwa ia akan keluar di posisi di belakang Apollo.
{<anno data-annotation-id="e2055414-c399-2bcc-ee74-3ea40214159e" data-title="Outlap">Outlap 1 </anno> critical,} James said on the radio.
Fatih, on the other hand, came out of the <anno data-annotation-id="0822732f-cca6-f125-d6ee-0b2100d181bc" data-title="pit lane">pit lane 1 </anno> heading to turn three with a smile on his face. He knew he had completed the overtake since Apollo’s pit stop was going to be the total of his <anno data-annotation-id="dc540aa0-ce94-bf85-e260-802b35fba7da" data-title="pit stop time ">pit stop time 2 </anno>plus one second. He could be said to have completed the overtake and be the <anno data-annotation-id="5e37f279-bebb-1dd0-d711-e3b7a69228be" data-title="net race leader">net race leader 3 </anno>, despite Apollo being 23 seconds ahead of him.
Despite being the net leader, he didn’t ease up at all, as he had no information on what Apollo was doing at the moment. Since he couldn’t ask the pit lane, the only option was to go out, guns blazing, as he started the process of getting the tires to temperature, but not going too slow as to lose time.
A single lap was all it took before the tires were finally up to temperature. He immediately started going for a full push and set the fastest lap of the session on LAP 22. He now had high confidence that his <anno data-annotation-id="fc1508c4-ce6f-0158-86c2-614857ee6842" data-title="undercut ">undercut 1 </anno>worked, as the <anno data-annotation-id="04f93d89-ec45-da64-62e7-4c39a2a52a5d" data-title="new rubber">new rubber 2 </anno> with less fuel than at the start of the race gave him a very big advantage.
Another fastest lap in LAP 23 as he improved by a <anno data-annotation-id="d43862ea-7bda-1a6d-85d9-0ecb902ae92b" data-title="tenth">tenth 1 </anno>.
Another one in LAP 24, improving by another tenth.
...
"Can the tires handle that much pushing?" Horner asked as he looked at the list of fastest laps that kept being updated at the end of each of Fatih’s laps, showing that from when he came out of the pit on lap 21, he had set 10 fastest laps over the next ten laps.
"The improvement margins are very narrow, sometimes by hundredths of a second, so he is not just chasing lap time but keeping it within a manageable window," the performance engineer said as he looked at the <anno data-annotation-id="735ad671-38df-d87b-9536-3e1a7a02530f" data-title="telemetry ">telemetry 1 </anno>and other data from the multiple sensors in the car.
Helmut just watched the feed in silence as he moved the mouse to overlay the telemetry between two laps. Although everything looked very similar, that was only if you looked at the telemetry markers for the entire lap. When he zoomed in on only a section comprised of two corners, Brooklands and Luffield, he immediately noticed the difference between the two laps. Wanting to be sure, he overlayed two more laps on top of the already overlayed data and saw something interesting.
Fatih was deliberately changing his racing lines and the points where he was pushing before the corners, during turning, on the transition to the other turn, in the middle of it, and on the exit. But at the end of it, he always spent nearly identical times within these two corners, losing or gaining only <anno data-annotation-id="57696dd0-a805-1138-dcf1-494b97116eeb" data-title="thousandths of a second">thousandths of a second 1 </anno> in lap time.
"What do you think about this?" Helmut asked as he pointed at the overlayed telemetry for the performance engineer to take a look. His highlighting of it was also caught by the team that was still in Milton Keynes, so they too started taking a look.
It took them about a minute to look at the data and check to see if it was the same in other corners. And other than a few of them, the same phenomenon repeated in the remaining ones before they finally came up with a hypothesis.
{He is changing the amount of <anno data-annotation-id="3eaab530-6d84-9ad3-5c63-5ce9ae53fe15" data-title="wear ">wear 1 </anno>the tire is experiencing to make sure it is used evenly, but also that the temperature is within the same window in different parts of the <anno data-annotation-id="020fa57d-adfe-69d1-3863-745818cf3470" data-title="patch ">patch 2 </anno>touching the track,} one of the telemetry specialists at Milton Keynes reported back, catching everyone off guard.
{Can you elaborate?} Horner asked on the radio, curious.
{Depending on what part of the corner you push more or less, different patches of the tire feel a different amount of friction and wear. So he is varying what parts he pushes by how much at the same corner in different laps so that different patches of the same tire experience it and wear equally,} the telemetry specialist tried to explain, but some still failed to understand, though it didn’t matter because the ones who asked already knew.
Helmut had a look of calm on his face, but his mind was not calm at all as he was praying for time to pass as fast as possible. He knew if someone was capable of thinking of something like that and implementing it actively without losing much time, then that person was going to be a scary driver to face on a track where <anno data-annotation-id="be51f682-d46f-287c-ca0e-241ef2b92d24" data-title="tire degradation ">tire degradation 1 </anno>had a bigger-than-normal effect. Even on days when tires allowed for a <anno data-annotation-id="5373d225-c964-b350-2092-a26d00bbda9e" data-title="single stop">single stop 2 </anno>, he would still be able to extend his <anno data-annotation-id="7bd31c1a-b351-2b2e-01ba-11120b4c518b" data-title="stints ">stints 3 </anno>if the situation called for it, or even turn a <anno data-annotation-id="d22b836b-1880-b9cd-557c-e1bb4e7aad90" data-title="two-stop">two-stop 4 </anno> race into a<anno data-annotation-id="373dc8ab-75f0-cfdd-b302-0d02a6847c5b" data-title=" one-stop race"> one-stop race 5 </anno>.
What was even more interesting was that he was doing this despite his aggressive driving style, meaning he was balancing two opposite acts but still coming out of it with good lap times.
He wanted to see how long he could sustain this and not lose time, but it seemed like Fatih had a different plan, as it started raining. As if someone who had held back peeing for too long, the moment it started falling, it got more and more intense, while Fatih was still fifteen seconds from the pit lane.
{BOX! BOX! BOX!} James called for Fatih to come to the pits, not planning on testing him to see how he could drive on a wet track with <anno data-annotation-id="532b6c69-21b5-b5d7-f0d4-d8c11bbc2bfe" data-title="slicks.">slicks. 1 </anno>
.......
"ARGHHHHHHHHH!" Fatih screamed under his helmet as he removed a <anno data-annotation-id="625c27bb-c4c1-5e60-b8d4-737559ea0f72" data-title="tear-off">tear-off 1 </anno> from it to clear his visor. He knew Apollo’s <anno data-annotation-id="a8fce214-dda1-ead3-dc48-fe24079b795c" data-title="gamble ">gamble 2 </anno>of staying out had worked in his favor since he could now just pit for <anno data-annotation-id="52909d66-c3e8-fdfa-0afb-da129e12ea4b" data-title="full ">full 3 </anno>wets and come out at the front, because he too had to pit or risk crashing or losing too much time driving on the wrong tire and be <anno data-annotation-id="26795cfb-f09e-2937-cb52-a26fe82e0f20" data-title="lapped ">lapped 4 </anno>by Apollo. His gamble had failed, or at least the guaranteed pit stop overtake had failed, and he needed to do it on the track after closing the remaining fifteen-second gap that still remained between the two of them.
He immediately entered the pit lane, knowing he was going to come out still behind Apollo.
<annotations style="display: none;">Outlap: The very first lap driven around the circuit immediately after leaving the pit lane on a new set of tiresPit Lane: The low-speed, heavily regulated garage entry road parallel to the main straightaway where pit stops are executed.Pit Stop Time (Stationary Time): The precise duration a racing vehicle sits completely at a standstill while mechanics change the wheels.Net Race Leader: The actual leader of a Grand Prix when calculated after accounting for upcoming, uncompleted pit stops by rivals.Undercut: A classic racing strategy where a trailing driver pits early for fresh tires, using their immediate, massive new-rubber grip advantage to drop blisteringly fast laps and jump completely ahead of the leading car once that leader finally decides to pit a lap or two laterNew Rubber: Brand-new, un-degraded racing tires that possess maximum physical and chemical grip capabilities.Tenth (of a second): A standard unit of time tracking in motorsport, equivalent to exactly 0.100 seconds on the timing monitorTelemetry: The encrypted, real-time wireless data stream mapping a car’s steering, throttle, and braking inputs for engineers.Thousandths of a second: The finest margin of time tracking in F1, represented as 0.001 seconds on the electronic timing loop.Wear: The physical destruction and thinning of a tire’s rubber tread caused by intense friction against the track asphalt.Patch (Contact Patch): The exact surface area of the tire rubber that is in physical contact with the ground at any given moment.Tire Degradation: The steady loss of mechanical and chemical tire grip over time as the rubber tread burns away and heat-cycles.Single Stop (One-Stop Strategy): A complete race-distance strategy map requiring a driver to make only one single pit stop for the entire event.Stints: The distinct, multi-lap running phases of a race executed between a car’s consecutive pit lane stops.Two-Stop Race: An aggressive strategy where a car pits twice across the grand prix distance to maximize average tire grip.One-Stop Race: A highly conservative, endurance-focused strategy where a driver preserves their single set of tires to bypass a second pit stop.Slicks: Smooth racing tires completely devoid of tread lines, designed to provide maximum surface grip on a bone-dry track.Tear-Off: A clear, disposable plastic protective film layered over a helmet visor that a driver strips away mid-race to instantly clear dirt or rain.Gamble: A high-stakes, un-calculated strategy move where a team gambles against weather models or safety cars to win track position.Full Wets: Heavy-tread rain tires featuring deep grooved channels engineered to pump thousands of liters of standing water off the track surface.Lapped: The scenario where the race leader pulls a full lap ahead of a trailing competitor, passing them on track for a second time.</annotations>
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