Chapter 429: A Dilemma

Horner, under the grandstands of Monaco, looked around at the Ferrari mechanics who were singing the Italian national anthem, being played as a constructor’s national anthem for AlphaTauri’s race win, as if it were their own team that had won.

It was not too surprising that they would sing it with such enthusiasm when the people had been booing him during his national anthem. After all, for Ferrari, following the controversial 2019 season, they only heard their national anthem play once in the 2020 season, at the Italian Grand Prix in Monza after Gasly won. It had been the same for the 2021 season, having not been played for a single race until now, so they gave it their all despite hating the one who had provided them the opportunity to sing it.

"Once this is done, we need to talk," Horner said as he turned to Helmut, who was next to him, focused on watching Fatih’s wide smile as he stood at the top spot on the podium.

Helmut didn’t say anything and just nodded without taking his eyes off the two drivers he had raised, standing side by side on the podium, albeit in the opposite order from what he had expected.

He could guess what Horner wanted to talk about, but he wasn’t that stressed about it, or at least the joy of the podium containing two of his selected drivers had pressed the stress down.

When the two national anthems ended and the time for celebration arrived, Fatih took his non-alcoholic sparkling juice, shook it vigorously, and tried to douse Verstappen, only to be met with three people pointing their champagne at him.

As someone who had just won his first career race, it was normal for the other drivers to focus on him in the celebration. With James, his racing engineer, there to receive the constructors’ trophy joining in as well, Fatih had no way of countering it and couldn’t help but remain on the top spot of the podium as he was doused by three different people, his mouth shut since he couldn’t drink the wine, but a smile was still on his face.

The feed then changed to showing Yuki Tsunoda, who was among the AlphaTauri team members at the podium, showing him with a smile on his face, albeit one veiling sadness under it. It was now clear to anyone that Fatih’s pole, race win, and Grand Slam had affected him the most among any other drivers, since it meant the chances of him being called back due to Fatih’s underperformance were lower than the chance of Haas getting a race win this year.

.........

"The Verstappens need to know about our agreement with the Yıldırıms before it becomes mandatory for us to promote him and create a mess," Horner said to Helmut when the team was done with all the official events at Monaco.

"You think he is going to have another race win in the following race?" Helmut asked.

"No, but considering the level of talent he showed, he might only need Verstappen and Hamilton to crash into one another, and the window will be wide open. You think Jos will appreciate it if we only notify them that we have to promote Fatih because of some clauses in our contract, out of nowhere?"

"Are you even going to go ahead and promote him?" Helmut asked with an amused smile, knowing that was nearly impossible to be done this season.

"Honestly, no. I won’t promote him, as he has already shown himself to be a loose cannon," Horner said as his thoughts went back to the race that took place today.

"What do you mean?"

"He is someone who, on his own, threw away a gap for a comfortable win in order to take risks to squeeze the top teams to ensure he got a Grand Slam. Do you think he will accept team orders when he is leading the race and let Verstappen through?"

"....." Helmut went silent for a moment as he thought about things clearly, and this time, with the renewed information of what Fatih was capable of, having exceeded all of the expectations anyone had of him during his arrival at Formula 1.

The only reason they had put those clauses in the contract, along with the steep penalty that started at a million dollars and doubled for every following race weekend if he was not promoted to the main team despite meeting the agreed conditions, was because, having looked extensively at the team’s history, they were confident that there was no way someone could achieve it.

The two-win condition was set there because the entire team itself had only two wins throughout its entire existence. The four-podium condition, which could also trigger his mandatory promotion to the main team the following race, was also set there because in the entire team’s existence, they only had four podiums total.

To meet any of those two conditions to trigger his promotion, he was needed to double the team’s results in that category. But now, he was only a single race in and three podiums away from triggering it. It didn’t look so impossible since a freak incident like the 2016 "Brocedes" crash could happen at any race, and just as Verstappen won that race, Fatih could also secure a win in that way as well.

They also knew that promoting Fatih at any time in this season, when two teams were fighting so close to one another, was never going to bring anything good to the team. After all, they were all in on ensuring that Verstappen won the drivers’ championship this year, and to do that against Mercedes, they needed a compliant driver to move out of the way for the main driver and not steal points from one another.

That’s why they brought in Checo, who was basically a carbon copy of Bottas; at least, that was what the team was looking for when they brought Checo to the team. Having met all their requirements, he was an experienced driver capable of race wins, but at the same time, desperate enough to accept being a number two for a team that would be fully focusing on Verstappen.

To bring Fatih into a team that had finally settled and was fully aligned on the goal, along with the clauses in Fatih’s contract that demanded parity in software and hardware, meant that other than the two stealing points from one another and benefiting Mercedes, they would also have to delay some car upgrades in order to produce enough parts for both cars to use at the same time, doing the opposite of what they usually did by putting them on Verstappen’s car as soon as possible and upgrading the second one whenever the new parts were available.

"Let’s say he wins the next race and we don’t promote him. By the end of the season, how much are we going to have to pay?" Helmut asked, wanting to see how much the doubling of fines for each race was going to total at the end of the season.

"A billion dollars by the Turkish GP; in the next race, two billion, matching the team’s valuation, and by Abu Dhabi, it should be about 65 billion dollars, double the valuation of the Red Bull company," Horner said, and with each amount, his expression was not good at all. He knew this clause, put there by Helmut as a means to motivate a driver, risked backfiring on them on a scale that was unimaginable.

Upon hearing the number, Helmut couldn’t help but rub his forehead.

"The easiest solution is to promote him if he meets the conditions we set for him. They were impossible anyway, so if he meets them, he should be rewarded for it," he said shamelessly.

"....." Horner was so surprised and angered upon hearing the response that he bit his tongue to remain silent and not say something that would kill the already fragile relationship they had and make Helmut a thorn in his side more than he already was.

"You know that can’t happen, right? This year we are already fighting for a title, and you want to introduce instability and kill the chances for something we have been building up to? You know we have a longer contract with the Verstappens than with the Yıldırıms, right? We need to keep the status quo at the moment and fight for the championship, not discuss disrupting the lineup," Horner said after about twenty seconds of silence as he tried to explain the obvious.

"So you are going to pay the penalty?"

"We just have to deal with it before it becomes a problem. I’m sure you don’t want to wait until the headquarters calls us to deal with the mess. After all, if it explodes, it will not be only my problem but mainly yours."

"You were there when we negotiated it," Helmut said, reminding him they were both on the hook for the mess, enjoying the reaction on Horner’s face before he added, "but why are you nervous about something that has almost no chance of happening?"

"Because we are already on the hook for a million dollars for his win that we didn’t expect to pay for this season when negotiating the contract. If that can happen, what stops the other one from happening?" Horner said, and although he tried to suppress it, his displeasure was still laced in his tone.

Now they found themselves at a crossroads. If Fatih met the conditions, promote him to the main team and risk the drivers taking points from one another and handing the title to Mercedes, delay Fatih’s promotion to next year and be on the hook for billions of dollars, or try to renegotiate with the Yıldırıms on the contract terms related to promotion while being on the weaker side to ensure he remained there until the end of the season. But now the Verstappens needed to be made aware of it. True chaos was heading their way, and they needed to find a way to survive it.

The source of that dilemma, on the other hand, was in the middle of receiving the system rewards for his race win.