Chapter 431: Chase

"From what we gathered, it is something that started on the Dutch side, and everything else spiraled from there," Natasha, Rümeysa’s secretary, updated her about the investigation they had done on the source of the rumor and how it had propagated.

"Who started it?" she asked as she slid her fingers across her eyebrow, placing the tablet in her hand to the side.

"Since it is based on off-the-record information, we can’t say with confidence, but considering that it originated from the Dutch side, we suspect two possibilities."

"Which are?"

"Either it is the Verstappens who, having learned of the deal, want to put pressure on the team, or someone wants us to think it is the Verstappens who leaked it."

"Like Red Bull themselves?" she asked when she heard the second possibility.

"Yes."

Upon hearing the answer, she thought for a moment, trying to deduce what both sides might be attempting to do. The best way to look at it was to follow how each side was going to benefit from the news coming out at this time and in the current framing to know who was most likely the culprit who leaked it to the media.

For the Verstappens, they had to make it as noisy and difficult as possible for such a thing to go ahead if Fatih met the conditions for promotion, since he most likely would not be as compliant as Checo currently was. At least, that is what she believed her son was capable of.

On the other hand, for Red Bull, it was more difficult for her to pinpoint any other reason other than the chase for the championship they finally had the opportunity to go for, and they didn’t want any sort of problem to get in the way.

But for both of them, the current chaos and noise seemed to be a deliberate attempt to try and bring public pressure into the equation to force them back to the negotiation table to renegotiate some of the clauses.

After all, Max Verstappen’s fans, who finally saw him having a title shot, were not silent at all. With each new article, they started getting more and more anxious, and they made that felt by targeting both Red Bull and Fatih, but mostly Fatih, whose social media manager was receiving a mountain of abuse and death threats in his place.

Having experienced the lengths people go to from the early period of Fatih’s career, she didn’t leave out any possibility, and now she had the resources to make sure she had all the context and could do something about it.

"Look further into it, and also look at it from the angle that this might be a coordination from both sides," she said when she saw that the incentives for both sides had aligned, opening the possibility that they were cooperating.

"And start coming up with response strategies for when the situation escalates from what it is at the moment." Although she might not have influence on the Dutch media, she had full confidence that she could match it through the Turkish media, together with many F1 media companies that had people she had previously employed in Fatih’s former F1 media company, and she still had a good relationship with them.

...

While his social media manager was receiving abuse and death threats in his stead, Fatih was currently in the middle of enjoying himself with Seraphina on the karting track they owned.

"I’m going to the left," Seraphina said over the radio to Fatih as she tried to distract him by making the move on the opposite side. At least, that was what she tried to telegraph, as it was a dummy move to fool Fatih into moving to cover that position and using his one-move limit, per the rules they were playing by.

Fatih fell for it as he moved to the right, and with a smile heard on the radio, she moved to Fatih’s left just as they arrived at the right-hander. With Fatih having the inside line, he tried to send her the long way while deliberately pushing her into the dirt, only for her to expect it and take the corner slower, trying a switcheroo by moving to the inside line.

She mistimed her throttle input from excitement and lost traction for a moment before catching it, but it had surprisingly worked for her as Fatih had to abort his re-overtaking attempt to avoid hitting her, losing about two-tenths of a second. As they arrived at the start-finish straight, it turned into a drag race to the line.

Seraphina leaned forward while doing some frog-jumping motions to try and reduce as much drag as possible while also gaining pace against Fatih, who was behind in her slipstream. As the start-finish line approached, Fatih left the slipstream, trying to make a move, but it was too late as Seraphina crossed the line ahead of him, immediately raising both her hands in the air while pointing at the large timing tower in the middle of the track that updated with her name on top of Fatih’s.

"Who would believe me when I tell them I’m better than an F1 driver?" she shouted on the radio, full of excitement as she celebrated with full support.

"Sure, sure, sure. Want to go another 5 laps? I will give you a ten-second head start," Fatih said as he chuckled, quite happy at how her strategic racecraft had improved. The brutal practice she had gone through by having to fight and defend against Fatih since she started karting had exposed her to the most difficult level from the get-go, and it had borne quite the fruit in her previous KZ2 season, where she finished third.

"Why would I race with a loser and waste my time?" she said, immediately avoiding another fight as she wanted to end it with the high of besting him, since it was as rare as summer in the North Pole.

Fatih didn’t force it since he was just joking. It was getting darker, and although the floodlights were on, both of them had somewhere to be tomorrow.

"When is the second round?" he asked as they entered the pit lane, heading all the way to the garage that had its door open.

"June 12 at Snetterton," she said just as she came to a stop in the garage.

Fatih, now armed with a mountain of money, had gone ahead and founded a driver academy of sorts to support drivers he knew were talented but couldn’t fully support themselves in the money pit of motor racing.

At the moment, he had already recruited twelve drivers into his Conqueror Driver Academy: five women and seven men. Seraphina was among the female group, along with Abby Pulling, Alisha Palmowski, Doriane Pin, and Ella Lloyd, whom he had managed to recruit to motorsport a year earlier than she had in her previous life.

Having started racing after she was invited to a session by her father, who was a friend of a former rally champion, she had impressed so much on her first time in the car that she was recruited in the same year. This time, he had made that move happen earlier, and with her skiing experience, she had transferable skills that made her rookie season in karting go incredibly well.

On the men’s side, he had already completed the recruiting of Isac Hadjar, who, if he had waited, would have been snatched by Red Bull next year; Franco Colapinto, before Fernando Alonso got in the picture; Gabriel Bortoleto, Rafael Câmara, Richard Verschoor, Freddie Slater, and Oleksandr "Sasha" Bondarev.

All of them were at the moment recruited as academy drivers and had their entire racing careers fully funded out of Fatih’s pocket, removing the single worry that had, at some points in their careers, almost made them unable to continue the pursuit of their dreams. But to retain that hunger, after two seasons with the academy, every driver would be individually evaluated, and if they didn’t improve, their positions in the academy would be at risk. If they continued delivering results, the academy would continue to fully support them.

As a result, Seraphina at the moment was competing in British F4 along with her fellow academy driver, Abbi Pulling, both under JHR Development to form a junior team, as he was still in the middle of establishing his own team.

"I will be on a break, so I will come and watch you," Fatih said, making calculations in his head. It became clear that the Snetterton race would be happening the following week after the Azerbaijan GP.

"Really?!" she asked, surprised by what he said.

"I have to see this talent that says she is better than an F1 driver," Fatih said with his hands on his hips, but he couldn’t remain that way for long because Seraphina had jumped on him, forcing him to balance himself as he held her.

The usual shy Seraphina was nowhere to be seen; only the excited one, though it was a side only Fatih and a few other people could see.

As he held her, he just made a mental note to make sure he attended that race no matter what, so as not to disappoint her, knowing that he would see her very few times during this period as he needed to head to Milton Keynes for simulator sessions and his other Red Bull commitments.

.......

Now that he was back at work, he fully focused on his upcoming race, but with each passing day, the rumors kept getting more and more outlandish as new details kept being leaked from one side to another.

To the Yıldırıms’ suspicion, Red Bull made no statement to clarify the situation, and as a result, both the Verstappens and Yıldırıms had remained silent, observing the situation, which only resulted in it growing more and more on its own.

It wasn’t long before the drivers and the team had to travel to the capital of Azerbaijan, and seeing the opportunity, a more than usual number of media joined them on that trip, as they knew it was going to be their best opportunity to have both the drivers and the team principal in a position where they had to answer all their questions. As for the fans, depending on the side they supported, they waited for the response with eagerness, either with nerves or with high expectations.