Distance, now, was what she wanted. As much distance from Barrantes – to neutralize any threat he posed from behind – and, at the same time, to close the distance on the car in front.
On they raced.
The Ptarmigan was performing as well as Sabatino could have prayed for. Her lap time was consistently quick – on or near the fastest times of the day.
Then something unexpected happened.
Sabatino started gaining on the car in front.
Substantially.
Point-six of a second on one lap.
Point-eight on the next.
She was gaining rapidly on the car in P3.
The excitement mounted. Could the crowds and TV audience be about to see another spectacular overtaking manoeuvre, right into the closing stages – not only of the race but of the Championship?
Sabatino pushed on.
Minutes later, she saw the back end of the car in front.
But this elevated Straker to a completely new level of anxiety.
The car she was closing in on was the other Massarella.
Calling up Backhouse on the radio, he asked: ‘Is she that fast, or is Luciano slowing down to let her catch him up?’
Backhouse paused. ‘Don’t know.’
Straker breathed in. ‘Where’s Barrantes? How far behind her is he?’
‘Two point two seconds.’
‘If Luciano slows any more, he’ll back her up to allow Barrantes to catch her. Remy’ll be in a Massarella sandwich. Who knows what shit they might then try and pull?’
Tahm Nazar’s voice came up on the radio. ‘Andy, you’d better warn Remy what’s happening. I’ll go and make another show in front of the Massarella pit wall.’
Two laps later and Straker’s worst fear was realized.
Simi Luciano, in P3, had slowed yet further, but not sharply enough to make it look like it was deliberate. Sabatino very quickly got on terms, moving into his immediate wake. His slower pace, though, was causing Sabatino to slow up too. Adi Barrantes, in the other Massarella, was bearing right down on Sabatino from behind.
Straker’s heart was in his mouth.
If these bastards were going to do anything to thwart Ptarmigan’s Championship chances, now was the time to do it. They could inflict the cruellest wound of all – just three laps from the end of the season.
Straker thought that as an act of revenge, it would have little to parallel it.
SIXTY-NINE
Sabatino was rounding Subida Dos Boxes, Turn Fourteen, with both black cars looming large in her forward and rearward vision. From that exit, the three of them began their long uphill drag, sweeping left-handed all the way into the end of the pit straight. Nose to tail. Sabatino got a good exit. But so did the Massarella in front. She kept in touch as they raced up the hill. Then, looking in her mirror, she saw that Barrantes had had an even better launch behind. He was right up her tail as they passed through Turn Fifteen.
Sabatino watched the car in front, desperate to see any sign that Luciano was lifting off, and trying to back her up into the other Massarella. She could benefit from slipstreaming Luciano, but so too could Barrantes take a bigger tow by being behind both of them.
Straker watched the Massarella sandwich as the three cars raced at full throttle up the hill in line astern and crossed the finish line. He found himself holding his breath – yet again.
Sabatino had to remain hyper alert and be ready to react to any action against her – whether that came as tactical manoeuvrings, field of play or foul play.
Unless she took the initiative…
Sabatino decided to make her move.
As before, she ducked out quickly from the slipstream to the left, setting up for a lunge down the inside of the front Massarella.
But Luciano reacted rapidly and moved across, forcing her even further left. The circuit was wide enough for her not to be pushed into the wall, but she was well off the racing line and onto the dirty part of the track.
This veer across her front had taken some of the steam out of her attack.
Looking into the mirror on each side, Sabatino was now desperate to know where Barrantes had gone.
She couldn’t see him.
She kept to the inside of the leading Massarella as they both hurtled towards Turn One. Again, Sabatino looked for Barrantes.
Then she saw him. There he was. Behind her, to the right – and the distances between them were only a matter of feet.
Sabatino looked at the road ahead. The corner was looming. The gap was beginning to close in front of her. She would have to move out, to the right, to regain the racing line if she was to maintain her speed into and through this corner. She looked in the mirror to see Barrantes. He was right there on the outside of her, overlapping her rear axle with his front wing.
She was boxed in. If she moved out now, wouldn’t she hit him? If she moved out now, would he yield?
She hinted at making a move. Barrantes didn’t budge. He was holding his ground. Sabatino moved back. She was completely hemmed in. If she didn’t want to be penalized for any collision, she would have to do the yielding. Which would cost her the place. And that, with only three laps to go, would easily cost her her title.
Sabatino was running out of road.
Luciano, in front of her, secured his claim to the racing line and cut in front of her – right to left – towards the apex. Sabatino wanted to do the same, but was still being fenced in by Barrantes – forcing her into a much tighter angle. If she maintained her current speed and line she would corner too deep, particularly on the exit. And that would be exactly what Barrantes wanted – allowing him to slip in down the inside as she went wide, on the far side of the turn.
There was no time left.
Sabatino had to decide.
Lift off and give Barrantes the place or keep on, run too deep – and give Barrantes the chance to cut back on the far side of the corner and still take the place.
Both options sucked.
Straker, Nazar, and the entire world watched this high-speed bottleneck, all at the limit of their nerves.
Sabatino acted instinctively. When cornered, lash out.
As the distance to the corner closed down, she resolutely maintained her position. That would surely put Barrantes a little on edge – being that ballsy.
Then, exactly when she expected Barrantes to be thinking about braking, she flicked the car as violently to the right as she could – for an instant – checked that lock and swung the wheel back to the left. It was not dangerous as she never encroached on Barrantes’s line. It was just an extremely aggressive insinuation. The sharpness of the flick, in the confines of their convergence, was startling.
Barrantes couldn’t not react. He had to flinch.
And he did – a little more than Sabatino had even hoped for, flinching out to the right.
The moment he’d done it, she turned her wheel quickly, immediately filling the space – the line – Barrantes had just vacated. She was now further to the right than she had been before. While not exactly on the racing line, she had given herself a better angle into the corner.
Would it be enough?
She maintained her pace into the apex.
On her outside, Barrantes was still feeling the effects of destabilizing his line so close to the corner. He, now, was going too fast on an angle that was wide of the entry. It was his turn to stab at the brake and try to rebalance his car and approach. But that’s when it went wrong for him. Barrantes locked-up his front left. Losing grip at that critical moment, he started running even wider. His front right then ran off the clean line of the track and rolled onto the dirty part. Braking now, that tyre could only lock-up too. He was suddenly in recovery and survival mode.
Poetic justice! His intimidation had been thwarted by Sabatino’s reply in kind.
She was soon in the midst of the corner.
She fought herself round Turn One. Inevitably, she ran slightly wide, but with Barrantes fighting his
own battle with the corner away to her right, she could use the full width of the circuit without fear of his cutting back inside.
Sabatino found stability and was back on the power. But Luciano in front had got the cleaner exit and was already charging down the hill through the Senna S below her.
Even so, she’d done it.
She’d defended P4.
How the hell had she got out of that? She looked in her mirrors for comfort. Barrantes was a good way back, still recovering from his flinch-induced error. She looked forwards to the other Massarella: Luciano looked like he was racing again, now that his wing man had failed in his assisted attempt to get by. Luciano’s attention had clearly switched from team tactics to maintaining his own position, P3.
It afforded Sabatino some time to settle herself.
‘Well played!’ yelled Backhouse into the radio. ‘What a game of chicken!’
She shouted back, ‘Where’s Paddy?’
‘Still in P2.’
‘To my P4?’
‘Correct.’
‘His eight points to my five? We’d be level on points.’
‘Points, schmoints. You’ve got more wins this year than he has.’
‘I’m still on for the Championship, then?’
‘You are.’
‘How far back is Aston from the leader?’
‘A good eight seconds.’
Sabatino looked down at her steering wheel display.
There were only two laps to go.
Aston couldn’t do it, could he? He couldn’t make up eight seconds and take the leader? Not with only two laps remaining.
‘You should be okay,’ said Backhouse reassuringly. ‘Hold steady. Lean off the mixture.’
‘Two more laps.’
‘Two more.’
‘Oh my God!’
SEVENTY
Sabatino breathed deeply. Two more laps. Less than six miles. Could she really be it? Was she really about to be World Champion?
Only two laps to go.
Then one lap to go.
Could she hold this together?
Sabatino forced herself to concentrate on the road, and on making no mistakes.
She crossed the finish line once again. This was it, now – the last lap.
She tried not to think about it. Less than three miles to run.
After the twenty rounds of Grands Prix this year – the hundreds of laps – the pressure – the distances flown – all the sabotage bollocks from Massarella. Was it all about to pay off?
Round Turn Five.
Through the succession of corners through Six to Twelve.
Keep it on the road. Keep it on the road.
She didn’t know what had happened until she’d rounded Junção, Turn Twelve.
She wasn’t told immediately.
Up ahead, on the outside of Turn Thirteen, she could see a yellow flag being waved. An obstacle of some kind. Something blocking the circuit.
What could it be?
Who could it be?
She rounded Turn Fourteen – and saw the reason. There was a Ferrari on the inside of the track. Stationary. A Ferrari. But whose?
Wasn’t that the race leader?
‘Andy, Andy? What’s happened to the race leader?’
Sabatino knew instantly from Backhouse’s tone. ‘Looks like he’s out – we think he’s run out of fuel, half a lap from the finish.’
‘So I’m third? P3?’
‘Yep.’
‘That’s good, isn’t it?’
There was an ominous pause on the radio.
‘That’s good, isn’t it?’ she repeated.
Sabatino screamed into the end of the start/finish straight.
Up ahead, the chequered flag was being waved. The race was over. Hadn’t she won the Championship?
Why wasn’t the radio going mad?
‘What’s wrong?’ she called. ‘Aston wins. I’m P3?’
‘Correct.’
There was silence over the air.
‘Oh no! NO! Fucking no!’
‘Afraid so.’
‘Aston wins – ten points – to my six?’
‘Remy…’
‘I’ve missed it by one point? One fucking point.’
Sabatino screamed to herself in the cockpit. ‘All that way, all that success. And we miss it by … one … fucking … point.’
SEVENTY-ONE
Sabatino ambled round the circuit on her in-lap. Her frustration was stratospheric. One point. That was all. She thought about what might have been – had the saboteur not destroyed her Qualifying run in Spa, had she not taken Luciano off in Monza, had she not flat spotted the front right in China causing that unscheduled pit stop, had she not lost her gearbox here in Brazil. An absence of any one of those incidents could have given her the damn title. How could she have come so tantalizingly close? As a thwarted competitor, her instinctive soul-searching was now starting in earnest.
But all that was about to be blown away.
It started as soon as she came to a stop.
She heard it the moment her engine powered down.
There was cheering. Triumphal cheering.
Sabatino pulled the steering wheel towards her, removed it, and climbed out of her car.
As she straightened up, and looked around, there was an immediate disconnect. All that cheering was focused on her – and not just from her own team. From everyone, everywhere.
Sabatino scanned the other cars and drivers in Parc Fermé.
What?
Aston’s Lambourn wasn’t even there.
It took some time to sink in. This adulation was for her. It was Sabatino who was being hailed. Film crews appeared and trained their cameras on her. Even when Aston’s Lambourn eventually pulled in, the attention stayed on her.
This was weird.
In a breach of all press protocols, a female TV presenter scrambled over the barriers and came charging over, thrusting a microphone towards her. Sabatino hadn’t taken off her helmet yet – and wouldn’t until she’d weighed in – but she still managed to catch some of the questions yelled at her over the noise of the crowd.
‘What does it feel like to be the most successful woman driver ever?’
Another journalist appeared.
‘How does it feel, as a woman, to have come that close to winning the World Championship?’
Whether she wanted it or not, Sabatino was being dragged out of her post-result sulk. She couldn’t believe it. These people – the TV, the press, the crowds – were projecting an entirely different outcome of the race – the season, even – from her own interpretation.
They were not saying: “You’ve been beaten”, “You came second”.
They were not commenting on the result at all.
This realization hit her even harder when she stepped out onto the podium. From two storeys up above the track, it offered her an extraordinary view. She looked out on a sea of faces stretching off for hundreds of yards up and down the Interlagos pit straight in each direction. It seemed as if every spectator from all round the circuit had congregated below. Even at that distance she couldn’t fail to get the message – it really couldn’t take long for it to dawn on her fully.
Paddy Aston may have won the race, and snuck the Championship from her at the very last minute, but the predominant colour over the heads of this massive Brazilian crowd was a clear surprise.
It was turquoise.
Turquoise!
For her.
Any vestige of doubt was then dispelled completely, as the crowd began a rhythmic chant: ‘Remy, Remy.’
She was given no chance to dwell on what might have been in this race or the Championship. This acclamation snapped her right out of that.
Sabatino’s standing in the sport was being hailed – unmistakably.
Moving to the front of the podium, she registered her appreciation of the moment. She beamed a large smile – and gave the crowds a two-handed wave. A crescendo of support came back in retur
n.
Paddy Aston, trying to revel in his triumph having achieved the pinnacle of any motor racing career, couldn’t miss the centre of gravity of this crowd. Not only that, he was aware of the iniquitous – even life-threatening – interference his principal rival had suffered during the season. He couldn’t – and wouldn’t – deny he had benefited unwittingly from Sabatino’s misfortune. Technically, with his tally of points, he was unquestionably this year’s winner but there was a part of him – articulated by the mood of this crowd – that felt his standing, even legitimacy, as World Champion was suspect.
Realizing these factors, Aston walked across the podium to Sabatino, offered his hand, and then raised their hands together above their heads. Aston shared the remaining moments of his triumph with an arm across her shoulders. He made her feel just as much a champion.
Perhaps, somewhere in the crowd, Dr Chen was watching and shaking his head, again, at his continued incomprehension of the English.
After the race, Quartano and Straker were hosting Quartech’s and Mandarin Telecom’s guests within the Ptarmigan hospitality area in the paddock.
The room was crammed with people. Straker was able to catch glimpses of Quartano as he worked the room, introducing himself, introducing others, clearly buzzing with the possibilities of each conversation, each new relationship.
Straker gravitated towards Nazar, Backhouse and Treadwell – keen to enjoy their moment of triumph at the end of a remarkable season. To be Constructors’ Champion, when, a year earlier, the team had been in the hands of the receiver, was an achievement worthy of some celebration.
Having witnessed Quartano’s engagement with their guests, Straker was surprised the tycoon soon came looking for him. ‘Matt,’ he said turning gently away as a cue for Straker to follow him. In a relatively quiet hole in the throng, he said: ‘Well done – truly. Another outstanding assignment. Without identifying, purging and eliminating the saboteur threat, Ptarmigan wouldn’t be Constructors’ Champion – and Remy wouldn’t be such a phenomenon. Worse,’ he said with a gesture around him, ‘we’d have lost this relationship with the Chinese. Three organizations here are looking to put a payload into space in the next six months, and I’m having the conversations. None of this breakthrough with the Chinese would be happening without your fiendish coup,’ he said and looked Straker directly in the eye to reinforce his compliment.
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