Driven

by Toby Vintcent

  ‘Not that I can tell.’

  ‘Come in. We’d better check you over.’

  ‘Where am I lying?’

  There was a pause. ‘Twelfth,’ Backhouse said reluctantly.

  ‘I’ve got to log a hot lap – I’m going to miss the shootout. How much longer have we got of the session?’

  Straker was staggered. Moments from a death-defying disaster, and Sabatino was already thinking about her lap and grid position.

  ‘It’s going to be a struggle to get you in and out in time.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  An army of turquoise pit crew was ready waiting as Sabatino entered the pit lane. There was no time for congratulations or praise at her extraordinary handling of the incident. Swerving into her bay, more Ptarmigan mechanics than usual dived in around her to check the car. It was lifted straight up on its front and rear jacks. Off came all the wheels; the replacements were held back while the suspensions and brake assemblies were all checked. Off came the nosecone and front-wing. A replacement was quickly fixed into place, secured, and rapidly adjusted. At the rear, two mechanics dropped to the ground to look up underneath the car to check the undertray. Two more, one on either side, were checking the radiators for any damage sustained over the kerbstones, as well as the aerodynamic flourishes – bargeboards, wings and fins – to see if any of them were missing or broken and would affect performance. A “clear” signal was given: all the wheels were replaced, sporting a new set of tyres.

  Backhouse, speaking with her over the radio, asked whether she was okay.

  ‘Just get me out in time to complete a flying lap.’

  A signal was soon given to the lollipop man. He raised his sign. Sabatino shot forwards, swerving back out into the pit lane, charging down to the end on the limiter. She looked at the official clock. She only had ninety seconds to get right round the circuit to cross the start line before they closed the session.

  It was going to be nip and tuck.

  Particularly on cold tyres.

  Feeding out of the pit lane exit, she passed Turn Four and headed up the Kemmel Straight to where the incident had just occurred. With such little time, she had no chance to coax the car gently up to speed and temperature. She had to cover the ground. And fast.

  Q2’s time was running out.

  Hurtling round the circuit, her only chance was to hammer round every corner if she was to get to the start line in time.

  One minute to go.

  She rounded Rivage, getting a little ragged through the exit and rising up on the kerb. Down through Turn Nine and on to Pouhon, which she took with now typical verve.

  Turn Twelve and on to Fagnes.

  Thirty seconds to go.

  She took Turn Fifteen, her back end slewing out through the apex and kicking up a cloud of dust as she scrambled over the patch of earth between the kerbstones and the grass.

  Up to two hundred miles an hour down the bottom of the valley.

  Fifteen seconds to go.

  She had the Chicane and half the pit straight left. Was she going to make it?

  A coasting car was in the middle of the Chicane, idling home. Sabatino had to swerve dramatically around it, thwarting her exit into the start/finish straight.

  Five seconds to go.

  She floored the accelerator.

  The clock was counting down.

  ‘No!’ she screamed into the radio as she saw the ominous red lights and chequered flag before she could cross the line.

  ‘No!’ she screamed again.

  Sabatino had missed the cut-off.

  By one and a half seconds.

  Straker heard a string of profanity over the radio at the failure to lodge a fast enough qualifying lap.

  ‘She’s outside the top ten. Hasn’t made the cut for Q3,’ said Oliver Treadwell in the headquarters truck beside him. ‘She’ll miss the shootout and will start only fourteenth on the grid. She’s out of it.’

  ‘What a waste, after all that speed,’ said Straker. ‘What the hell happened to her, though, down at Les Combes?’

  Treadwell looked bemused. ‘God knows. I’ve never seen anything like it. We’ll rerun the telemetry and go through everything. We’ve got to try and find out what the hell went wrong out there.’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Qualifying Three went ahead, to determine the ten places at the front of the grid, without her.

  A dejected-looking Sabatino sat with Straker, Backhouse, Treadwell and several other team members at the meeting table in the Ptarmigan motor home. Laid out in front of them was a mass of printouts, charts, data sheets and other readouts.

  ‘I just don’t get it,’ said Backhouse. ‘Everything was optimal, right up to the moment it went. None of the components that could have caused the rears to lock-up like that show any sign of being anything other than perfect.’ He ran a finger along some data. ‘Absolutely fine. Then the trauma of the incident – and then absolutely fine again. Just like that.’

  ‘What about mechanical failure?’ asked one of the turquoise-uniformed team.

  ‘If it were a major component, how come Remy could drive back in and sense nothing wrong?’

  ‘What about an impact with something? A stone, an animal, a bird?’

  ‘No sign of impact. The gyros show the car running unencumbered right up to and after the incident.’

  ‘And again, any impact should have had a lasting effect,’ added Sabatino. ‘Except I found nothing wrong immediately afterwards.’

  ‘What about fuel?’ asked Treadwell.

  ‘We’re just running the data off the system now.’ Leaning back, Backhouse called to one of the team for an update. A few seconds later a stack of paper was plonked down on the table between them.

  ‘What’s this?’ asked Straker.

  ‘The Fuel Injection trace.’

  Straker looked at the landscape-formatted A4 sheets, with row upon row of graphs, extending left to right across each page. They put him in mind of a music score. ‘What are these showing?’

  ‘The injector pulse width – basically the workings of each fuel injection valve in the engine. These show how much fuel was going into each cylinder.’

  ‘Why so many lines?’

  ‘Eight cylinders, an injector each – eight traces.’

  Straker studied just one row. As he did so, Backhouse offered more of an explanation: ‘Each valve is opened and closed, electronically, by a solenoid at precise times in the combustion cycle, producing a square wave.’

  Straker could see exactly what Backhouse meant: in each of the traces, he saw a line looking like a gappy row of squarish teeth.

  ‘Each one of those columns – the up strokes – shows the injector opening,’ Backhouse explained. ‘The width of a column shows for how long – how much fuel – was injected. The down stroke is the injector closing.’

  ‘Why so many pages of them?’

  Sabatino smiled. ‘Eighteen thousand RPM is three hundred-odd revs a second. In printout form, that takes up a lot of pages.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Straker, with a hint of apology, ‘so which period does this lot cover?’

  ‘Before and after the incident. As you can see, bizarrely, everything’s okay after it.’

  ‘What about at the very moment of the trauma?’

  Backhouse leant forwards. He asked for the exact time code of the incident recorded in the telemetry. A few papers were shuffled before a readout was produced: ‘1.36.52.09.’

  Backhouse found the corresponding page of the fuel injection report. ‘Good God,’ he breathed.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Sabatino.

  Backhouse laid the sheet of paper in the middle of the table. ‘Look there,’ he said running his fingers vertically down through the rows of heart beats. ‘At 1.36.52.09 the EFI effectively shut down – across all injectors.’

  Running his finger along one of the rows left to right, Backhouse summarized: ‘Full throttle – wide columns – fuel injection fully open. Then, for what looks
like no more than a quarter of a second, the pulse width narrows significantly – is practically closed – to almost nothing. Then back up to fully open again.’

  ‘What effect would that have?’ Straker asked.

  Treadwell looked up. ‘For that short period of time the engine was all but switched off.’

  ‘But only for a quarter of a second? What would that do to the car?’ asked Straker.

  ‘The revs would drop right off.’

  ‘So it would seem like the engine had seized, I’m guessing?’ Straker offered.

  Backhouse indicated an appreciation of the thinking but with a gentle shake of his head. ‘F1 engines have very little inertia, so it wouldn’t feel like it had seized – not least as the engine appears to have been working normally less than a fraction of a second later. However,’ Backhouse added with a more positive qualification of Straker’s point, ‘the shock – the jolt – of that momentary drop in revs could well, depending on the road surface, cause the rear wheels to lock-up. That could throw the car out of line – out of balance. An unexpected shock at that speed could affect anything. The loading. The aerodynamics. The weight distribution – on the road – between the front and back wheels. If all that happened, the driver – if they’re lucky, or brilliant – would have to wrestle a car that’s suddenly lost all stability and grip, particularly challenging if it was at over two hundred miles an hour.’

  Straker nodded and looked at Sabatino, as if to acknowledge what had happened out on the circuit. There was a moment’s silence.

  He sensed a significant change in atmosphere. ‘Does it look like we might have found the cause, then?’ asked Straker studying all the faces for confirmation.

  Treadwell turned to face him. ‘It might do. It might give us an idea as to what happened, Matt, but it doesn’t tell us anything about why.’

  ‘Okay, let’s see,’ said Straker nodding slowly. ‘You mentioned that each valve is opened and closed electronically? I’m assuming, being electrical, that it has something to do with the engine management computer?’

  Backhouse nodded. ‘It has. It’s all controlled by the EMS.’

  ‘So did anything happen on board to interrupt or interfere with that control?’

  ‘Not that we can find anywhere in the telemetry.’

  ‘Let me be sure I’m getting this right,’ said Straker. ‘You’re saying this was definitely not an “organic” malfunction?’

  Treadwell looked at Backhouse. ‘Not caused by anything on the car, at any rate.’

  Straker paused. ‘If it wasn’t tripped by anything that happened on board, how did it happen?’

  Everyone looked blank.

  Straker’s mind, harping back to their experience in Monaco, was anxious not to jump to conclusions. Even so, he was concerned by possible sensitivities. Sounding generous, he suggested a break for the junior team members, leaving the senior Ptarmigan figures alone in the motor home. Then he said: ‘What about some form of external interference?’

  Backhouse looked at him, his expression almost accusing him of paranoia. ‘I’m not sure that’s likely.’

  Straker sat back in his chair and looked Sabatino in the face, waiting for a similar reaction from her. This time, though, there wasn’t one. Quite the opposite.

  ‘It’s not as if we don’t have experience of such a thing, Andy,’ she said flatly.

  ‘Okay,’ said Straker realizing the significance of that exchange, ‘let’s look at the timing of this. When, for instance, could this momentary shut-down have happened?’

  Backhouse made a moue. ‘Any time. It could have happened at any time.’

  ‘Except it happened – when it did. At the end of that straight – right there. Is there any significance to that?’

  Sabatino started nodding very slightly. ‘It was in Q2, so critical to my getting through to the top-ten shootout.’

  ‘And getting a competitive place on the grid, right?’ added Straker.

  ‘She was on a flying lap,’ Treadwell chipped in.

  ‘Having not clocked a fast enough one – to make the cut for the top ten – at that point?’ confirmed Straker.

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘And with only a few minutes of the session left?’

  Treadwell nodded.

  Straker declared: ‘Your Q2 lap time was critical to getting a competitive place on the grid, and, therefore, your chances of scoring well in the race?’

  There were nods around the table.

  ‘Because of this,’ he said with a wave of his hand over the printouts around the table, ‘you’ve been baulked and will start in fourteenth. Anyone wanting to damage your chances in the race this weekend could – just about – have achieved what they wanted, no?’

  There was silence in the motor home as the implications sunk in.

  ‘Hang on,’ said Backhouse with a hint of challenge. ‘They did it at Les Combes? Why not at Eau Rouge?’

  Treadwell looked Straker in the eye, then at Sabatino, and said solemnly: ‘Because that would have killed her – without question.’

  The faces round the table were aghast.

  Sabatino said easily. ‘A back-end lock-up in Eau Rouge, or in the middle of any corner for that matter, would have had me spin completely out of control – off the track, for sure. And at any kind of speed, that would have to have been fatal.’

  ‘The very end of the Kemmel Straight makes perfect sense,’ said Treadwell with an air of appreciative resignation. ‘On the straight and relatively level. Plenty of run-off. It didn’t do Remy any physical harm, and yet it’s been blisteringly effective – easily costing her a place in the top-ten shootout, let alone a likely pole.’

  ‘Also,’ said Straker, ‘the car exhibits no malfunctions or ill effects afterwards, as we’ve been struggling to prove.’

  ‘And, any such incident gets written off as a freak – even blamed on driver error,’ said Treadwell.

  Almost involuntarily, Backhouse slammed his hand down on to the table. ‘Who the fuck’s doing this to us?’ he bawled.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Straker was anxious to push on with the analysis. ‘Let’s suppose, for the sake of argument, that we’re not wrong and that this was induced – that there was an external force. How could it have been brought about?’

  After a pause, Treadwell offered: ‘Some sort of timing device?’

  ‘If we’re convinced the time and place of the intervention are significant,’ said Sabatino with a shake of her head, ‘they’d have to be sure of hitting me at exactly the right moment. A pre-set timer could never ensure that.’

  ‘How else could someone interfere with the running of a car, then?’ asked Straker. ‘What about remotely – by some sort of radio signal?’

  Sabatino frowned. ‘How could we even know whether that happened, this long after the incident?’

  ‘By keeping our eyes open for clues,’ replied Straker. ‘Let’s start by looking at all the radio traffic with the car – not just the intercom, but the telemetry and data channels as well?’

  These reports were quickly printed off.

  Treadwell laid them out on the table a few minutes later. Picking out the relevant time sheets, Backhouse said: ‘Here’s the data link carrier wave. Normal, up to 1.36.52.09.’

  Straker took the page and studied the squiggly line – resembling the seismic measurement of an earthquake. He peered at the printout for some time. ‘There does seem to be some disturbance in the carrier wave,’ he observed. ‘Was that because of the incident, or was that disturbance the cause of it? Could interfering with the data carrier wave have thrown the engine management system?’

  ‘Absolutely not,’ said Treadwell firmly. ‘Every F1 car would grind to a halt every time a local taxi firm radioed its base, or someone in a nearby town ordered a pizza. Our radio nets are protected using specialized frequency ranges and electronic filters. Any disturbance you’ve found,’ he said pointing at the data sheet in front of Straker, ‘would not have been enough
to affect the EMS.’

  Straker nodded his acceptance of Treadwell’s answer, but somewhat half-heartedly, as he continued to peer closely at the graph. ‘You know, there is definitely interference in that carrier wave – over and above the trauma – at the key moment. It’s faint. But it is there,’ and he spun the page round to show the engineers. ‘Can we, at least, see if there were any other examples of radio interference like that at any other time today?’

  Backhouse responded readily to the request. The pages, just produced, were split up and divvied out.

  After several minutes thumbing through the printouts, each person in turn declared not. ‘It appears, then, that the only interference we experienced all day was at 1.36.52.09,’ Backhouse concluded.

  ‘It cannot, then, be a coincidence,’ declared Straker. ‘It means that there was an unidentified radio transmission, of some kind, at the very moment the fuel injection system shut down and the car lost control.’

  Sabatino said. ‘What are you thinking?’

  ‘That the disruption of your fuel system might have been triggered by a radio signal. If we could track down that unknown transmission – and find its source – we might find the cause of the intervention.’

  ‘This is good, isn’t it?’ said Sabatino. ‘You can do that – you did that, finding the guy using a radio in Monaco.’

  ‘I did, but that was knowing the threat we faced in advance. Here, in Spa, we had no idea we’d be facing anything like this, so, obviously, we haven’t deployed the relevant surveillance kit.’

  ‘So you can’t catch these people?’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘How do you do it, then?’ she asked.

  ‘We’ll have to look for other clues.’

  Sabatino pulled a face, indicating a lack of belief. ‘Like what?’

  Straker leant forward. ‘Have we got a map of the circuit?’

  Backhouse looked a little nonplussed by the apparent non sequitur. After consultation with another screen or two, and the whirring of a printer, a map was produced on a sheet of A3. Straker pored over it, looking at the topography around Les Combes.