Driven

by Toby Vintcent

  Straker, looking the security man straight in the eye, said: ‘We also lost a car in Monaco – crashing unexpectedly, completely without warning. We are not sure, yet, whether that crash was linked to this sabotage. But with cars and drivers travelling at such high speeds – even faster, here, of course – this is serious. We don’t want to put lives at risk, particularly your spectators.’

  Straker ran his eye round the walls of Beauregard’s office and saw the photographs of the security man standing with racing drivers, celebrities, film stars, Belgium’s two famous Van Dam(me)s – José and Jean-Claude – and, in pride of place, was a picture of this former policeman standing with His Majesty Albert II, King of the Belgians. Straker added solemnly: ‘I’d hate for a disaster to occur at the Belgian Grand Prix.’

  An hour later Straker came away with the commitment of a doubled security detail on the Ptarmigan Team, a beefed-up screen around their trucks in the paddock, and a cordon round the garage in the pit lane.

  At three o’clock that afternoon Remy Sabatino took her Ptarmigan Formula One car out onto the circuit during the first day of practice.

  Apprehensively, Straker sat in the headquarters truck as before, listening out on the team radio between Backhouse in the pit lane and the car. On the screen in front of him Straker watched Sabatino via the on-board camera positioned above her helmet.

  Day one of practice came to a close, though, with no visible sign of anything untoward.

  Technically, the day had gone extremely well for the team. The car was performing well, giving Sabatino an excellent feel with outstanding pace.

  Day two began, and Sabatino went out for a further series of practice laps.

  With a few minor tweaks to the rear wing, and a couple of adjustments to the brake balance, Sabatino was thrilled with the Ptarmigan’s performance. Everything about the set-up – hugely different from the one they had deployed in Monaco – was near perfect. The tyres were working well, getting quickly up to temperature. Aerodynamically, the Fibonacci Blades were making a material contribution through the slow corners without unduly damaging straight-line speed. All these elements came together, giving her a major confidence boost – indicated by her taking the double apex of Pouhon in seventh gear at full throttle, with no temptation to lift off.

  The new aero package was clearly working superbly.

  The balance of the car was exceptional.

  Straker was pleased the car was performing so well. But he couldn’t calm his mind. The next day was critical – Qualifying – and the ritual of timed laps to determine the places on the grid for the race. But he was getting concerned.

  There had been no sign of the saboteur, anywhere.

  He hoped to God he hadn’t missed something.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Straker had a restless night. Waking early, he left the hotel while it was still dark. He arrived at the track in the gloomy twilight of dawn. There was a crisp chill in the air, intensifying his senses – particularly smell. He became very aware of the forest, the earth, the rotting mulch of long-fallen leaves, and pine resin all around. Such smells brought back vivid memories of exercises during basic training, typically held in national parks and across wind-swept moors – periods of his life that had been hellish at the time but which he now looked back on with a degree of fondness. While they’d been times of great trial, he had ultimately excelled. He wondered if he would look back on this episode of the sabotage threat in the same way.

  Arriving at the Ptarmigan garage in the pit lane he was confronted by a surprise. Three large security men were standing there in black overalls, each carrying a night stick and wearing a coiled wire from their right ear. Straker was encouraged, though. Beauregard was clearly delivering on his extra security screen. But was this really going to be any defence against such sophisticated saboteurs?

  Qualifying One was now minutes away. Standing in the door of the garage, Straker waited to see Sabatino walking down the pit lane towards her car. Wearing her full turquoise racing suit and carrying her helmet under her arm – no longer prepared to leave it unattended – he was reminded of an astronaut heading for the launch pad.

  Sabatino smiled as she approached. ‘Keep them away from me,’ she said, punching him on the arm as she walked into the Ptarmigan garage.

  Straker, back in the headquarters truck and watching via her on-board camera, saw Sabatino head out of the pit lane and feed herself onto the circuit to start her first out-lap of Qualifying One.

  She needed to post a fast time.

  Sabatino found her Ptarmigan well and truly on song. She put in an early hot lap, and found the set-up to be as near right for this circuit as she could hope for. By way of confirmation, her time in Q1 was the fastest of all the cars by some margin.

  ‘Fantastic, Remy,’ said Backhouse shortly afterwards over the radio. ‘You’ve taken it by point-nine!’ he shouted. ‘Better still, you’ve pissed all over the Massarellas.’

  Straker heard Sabatino’s upbeat reply. He could sense the rising anticipation among the team for what lay ahead.

  She prepared herself mentally for Q2. While only a stepping stone in the process, she could not afford to ease off. There was no carryover of previous times. Her scorching lap in Q1 would be lost – reset to zero. Only by staying fast in the next session would she be assured of getting through to Q3 – the stage that mattered – the top-ten shootout. That was the clincher, when the competitive positions at the front of the grid were determined. The closer to the front at the start, the fewer the cars that would have to be overtaken under combative conditions during the race.

  And to be sure of securing the biggest advantage, Sabatino was out for nothing less than pole. Not only would that be good for tomorrow, it would also help defend her six-point lead at the top of the Drivers’ Championship.

  Straker, once again, was sitting in the headquarters truck next to Oliver Treadwell – Ptarmigan’s Australian Director of Strategy – monitoring the team’s radio and CCTV coverage. Straker inhaled deeply and refocused, hoping they weren’t going to have any trouble.

  A number of cars went out onto the track immediately Q2 started.

  Sabatino hung back in her garage, composing herself, psyching herself up for a peak effort. Presently, she fired up the engine and pulled out of her garage, turning sharp right into the pit lane. She ran on the limiter down to the end, and, crossing the line, powered up, feeding herself out onto the track. Several cars bombed past, trying to notch up their flying laps to secure good positions on the grid.

  She put in a hot lap. But, running into traffic around Malmedy, she was four tenths off her best time. It put her only sixth fastest at that moment – and half the field had yet to post their best time. She would have to do better to be absolutely sure of getting through to the top-ten shootout.

  She was ready, now, for a big one.

  Building up speed, she felt good very quickly. Temperatures rose well in the Ptarmigan’s oil and hydraulics, helped by some aggressive zig-zagging followed by a burst of top speed down to Turn Twelve. Sabatino saw all her metrics climb easily into their windows of operation.

  The car felt ready.

  She felt ready.

  Heading down to the Chicane, sunlight flashed and flickered through the trees and across the track as she squinted to see the beginnings of the circuit’s buildings, tents and infrastructure up ahead. Thirty seconds later and she was in the pit straight, building up the pace to start her flying lap.

  Radioing the team, she declared: ‘Here we go!’

  In fifth gear and still accelerating as she crossed the start line, she focused on the run down to La Source, the famous three-twenty-degree Turn One. Pulling over to the left of the start/finish straight to open up the corner as much as possible, she braked as late as she dared and changed down four times to second gear before turning in hard right. Into the turn, she accelerated hard. Her right front clipped the inside kerb as she pumped power into the engine through the apex and
then the exit, all the time feeling for any lightening of the back end as she turned the corner. The power was phenomenal, so much so she had to make two minor flicks with the steering wheel – of opposite lock – to correct her exit from La Source.

  In a blink of an eye she was through and across to the other side of the circuit, clipping the red and white stones of the outside kerb, this time with her front left. She managed to straighten the car up while still on the black stuff, not flinching from feeding in as much power as the grip would take.

  Changing up three gears and hitting eighteen thousand RPM each time, she pointed the car down the hill.

  Now she was heading towards the most exhilarating section of any Grand Prix circuit. Anywhere.

  Eau Rouge.

  As she cleared the slight kink in the track, she could look down and see the famous part of the track stretched out below her. This was it. The corner combination of Formula One.

  She was in sixth gear and still accelerating – up through one hundred and sixty miles an hour.

  Sabatino’s heart rate rose to a similar number as she breathed deeply, her eyes boring into the landscape ahead. She studied the topography as the road fell away to the bottom of the valley, with its left-hander and then right curve swooping away up the hill on the far side.

  Sabatino was still accelerating. Seventh gear and two hundred miles an hour. Her eyes were flicking between various points of the road, trying to map out exactly where she needed to be to enter this roller-coaster of a complex and emerge the other side without losing line, speed – let alone contact with the surface of the track.

  Hurtling on down the hill, she moved over to the right, still pushing the car as fast as it would physically go, beginning to hug the imposing white brick wall down the right-hand side. Then, as she seemed to be getting too close, almost brushing it with the wall of her right-rear tyre, she committed to slicing left. Darting across the circuit, she made for the first apex of Eau Rouge, her eye still focusing on the road ahead, already looking for the exit to get the best entry into Turn Three.

  Her foot was absolutely flat to the floor.

  She clipped the kerb on the apex, exactly where she intended, causing a jolt through the car, just as the massive downforce of bottoming out through the compression pushed her down heavily into her seat. Sabatino felt the air squeezed out of her lungs. Her line was spot on though, and, holding straight for a fraction of a second, found the perfect entry to Turn Three, slicing back across the track the other way, up through the apex of the right-hander – and on up the hill.

  Eighteen thousand revs, seventh gear – reaching two hundred and five miles an hour – and Sabatino was completely committed.

  Not once did she feel the slightest temptation to yield and lift off.

  Screaming on up the hill in the sweeping right-hander, she saw the crest in the road where it began to level off. At that speed, even the slightest alteration in the attitude of the road could be severe. Cresting this would unweight the car and lighten the suspension, causing the aerodynamics to behave differently as the ride height rose, all of which would lighten the steering. Breathing deeply, Sabatino guided the car across the road to the left-hand side, straightened up to take the crest head-on and then, once over, reapplied the slight left lock.

  She had to be immediately ready for the fast left-hander through Raidillon, Turn Four. In the blink of an eye she was through there, too.

  Stretched out in front of her, now, was the awesome Kemmel Straight, a dead straight and deceptively rising section of the track, running five hundred yards up its narrow cavern between the trees.

  Sabatino breathed deeply as, letting the car do the work in a straight line, she was able to savour the exhilaration of her run through Eau Rouge. A smile crossed her face at the thought. She had been through that legendary complex – absolutely flat out – faster than she’d ever done it before and with not a scintilla less than full commitment. And the car had been there for her every yard of the way.

  In contrast, the Kemmel Straight was an inactive stretch of the circuit. It gave her the chance to assess the readouts on her steering wheel. Everything looked perfect. Her Ptarmigan screamed contently up to full-throttle, -power and -speed – touching two hundred and fifteen miles an hour. Up ahead she could see a car coasting home to the right of the racing line.

  Sabatino breathed deeply again as she drifted to the left-hand side of the circuit ready for the sharp right-hander into Les Combes. She reached the beginning of the red and yellow kerbstones down the left-hand side of the track. She waited to brake – as late as she dared.

  Wait…

  She reached the latest possible point to decelerate. When, suddenly, everything went completely haywire.

  From total stability – with the car running straight and true, and with the engine at its highest pitch – there was an instantaneous change in sound. Sabatino immediately thought the engine had blown.

  There was a sudden – massive – drop-off in revs.

  She was thrust violently forward against her straps.

  The car’s rear end started skidding.

  In the shock, Sabatino’s balance must have been thrown, her right hand collapsing downwards on that side of the wheel. As a result, the car’s back end swung out immediately to the left. She reacted quickly, regripping the steering wheel with full force. Instinctively, she turned it hard left into the slew of the back end in that direction. Then, having prevented the spin, she found she had over-corrected. Consequently, the car slewed its rear hard to the right, the other way. Sabatino manhandled the lock hard right.

  The car started to snake violently.

  Nigel Mansell’s high-speed rear-tyre burst in Adelaide suddenly flashed through her mind.

  She was still doing over a hundred and fifty miles an hour.

  How much longer could she hold this together?

  She felt her rear wheels start to roll again.

  The corner was looming.

  There was no way she was going to make the sharp right-hander into Turn Five. With her full attention devoted simply to bringing the car under control, the racing line was no longer Sabatino’s primary concern. Keeping the car out of the scenery was all she could think about.

  From that blistering speed, it was taking what felt like an age to slow down. She could now only go straight on at Les Combes – leaving the track. Mercifully, there was an asphalt run-off straight ahead.

  Sabatino felt a massive jolt up through her body as she banged over the red and yellow blocks marking the outside of the corner, which bounced the front wheels off the ground. She was still doing over one hundred miles an hour as she crossed the kerbstones. A section of carbon fibre from the right front wing broke off and rose up the nose, shooting straight at her head. Flinching, as the rear wheels then hit the kerb and bounced violently over the raised stones, she ducked as far as her limited movement would allow, but still couldn’t avoid the broken component banging into the top of her helmet.

  Once on the asphalt run-off she made several more attempts to brake. The surface was dirty. The fronts locked-up. She pumped the brakes repeatedly, until seventy metres later, and nearly onto the grass, she managed to bring the car to a halt.

  Finally, the car was stationary.

  Dust swirled up around it.

  Sabatino’s heart rate and breathing were stratospheric with the tsunami of adrenalin coursing round her body. She’d done it. How had she done it? How had she stopped the car safely? She couldn’t think for relief. From the very top speed achieved on any Formula One circuit anywhere in the world, she had brought a stricken – practically out-of-control – car back from catastrophe to a halt without anyone getting hurt.

  For a few moments she just sat in the cockpit while her whole body shook.

  Two panicked-looking marshals came running over, clearly dreading what they might find. Raising her hand, they were quickly reassured that everything was far better than feared.

  Sabatino, lo
oking to get out of the way of any car following suit behind her, sensed that the engine was still turning over. She paddled for first gear.

  It engaged immediately.

  What? How?

  Pressing the throttle, the Ptarmigan responded immediately.

  What?

  As the car moved forward, she quickly realized she had not suffered any punctures. She kept moving, albeit slowly, still sensing for any other trouble with the car, particularly the suspension systems for each wheel.

  Astonishingly, there didn’t seem to be anything wrong. At all.

  Could she get back to the pits?

  She turned the car to the right so she could see back down the Kemmel Straight behind her – to check there was no one about to charge through the right and left of Turns Five and Six.

  Seeing it was clear, she pulled gingerly out from the run-off area, onto the track, across to the inside of the racing line, still feeling for any damage to the car – from whatever had caused the rears to lock-up, or from her high-speed encounter with the kerbstones. The car was still responding. As far as she could tell, there was nothing wrong with it.

  How could this be?

  She accelerated a little, keeping a ready eye in her mirrors for anyone steaming through on a hot lap.

  And … still … she sensed nothing wrong with the car.

  Down the hill and into the straighter section approaching Turn Ten, she radioed in to Backhouse.

  ‘What the hell happened there?’ he asked – sounding, to Straker, pretty shaken up.

  ‘Christ knows,’ said Sabatino appearing remarkably composed. ‘Took me completely by surprise. We were on the absolute straight and level. We were running beautifully. Better than perfect.’

  ‘Bloody hell. How did you keep it under control? Any damage?’

  ‘A bit. I’ve lost a chunk of the right front wing, and I’ve got major flat spots on both rears.’

  ‘Nothing wrong with the engine or gearbox – suspension?’