OK Number 10! - Don't Lose Your Way

That twenty one point deficit to Tohdoh was closed by Kallen to eighteen in Austria, where Kallen had retained her third place in Qualifying even in the wake of considerable pressure from Tohdoh in the second phase of the race, taking her second podium in a session plagued by light rain. In spite of it being a solid drive, neither Rebellion driver had an answer for the blistering pace of the Camelots, who headed up the podium, with Cornelia taking the win by four seconds from pole, restoring the regular order of things after two poor races for the British marque. Interestingly, Lelouch was the last of the finishers, having switched onto dry Prime tyres to jump ahead into the points in the vain hopes that the rain would dissipate, in what Kallen considered the downside of his doctrine.

Hungary closed this gap by another three points, however due to Gino suffering a rather spectacular engine failure on the main straight, both Kallen and Tohdoh made it onto the podium in second and third respectively, both over ten seconds behind Cornelia, who had by now retaken the lead of the championship from Suzaku, who had finished fifth in both races in what was a return to the status quo, which absolutely thrilled Rakshata Chawla.

The European leg of the season continued into the United Kingdom two weeks later, home turf of many drivers and teams alike, with Silverstone, the circuit buried out in Northamptonshire on the site of a retired Royal Air Force base, being the test bed for many of the cars that currently raced, such as the Camelots Sutherlands, or the Lancers Glastons. Throughout Free Practice, Cornelia and Gino had traded the top slot on the timesheets, and had locked out the first two positions in Qualifying sessions One and Two. As the team prepared for Q3, hopes of starting on the front row were slim. However, not all was quite so fatalistic or dire.

"Great job!"

Naoto, wrapped up in casts and balanced up against the wall for a momentary reprieve from his metal crutch, waved across the garage to his sister now that he was finally out of the hospital, with a peaceable smile as she climbed out of the cockpit of the Type 2 Seiten, removing her scarlet helmet, HANS and all, and sighed.

"Still behind Tohdoh in that session." she rued, shaking her head as she moved towards the laptop on the desk to the left of the car. "One minute twenty seven point four, two tenths ahead of me. Damnit."

"Hey, still early days. After all, none of those laps will matter, it's only the laps in this session that count towards your grid slot."

"It's indicative." she replied shortly. "Long and short of it is that he's been putting in good lap times all weekend, and I need to see why." She tapped on the keyboard of the team computer as Naoto, not mobile enough to lean over to look, could only listen while she examined the delta as she watched back Tohdoh's lap. Noting that his lap was immediately green relative to her, she observed "He's gotten a better run off of Club, more speed onto the front straight."

Watching the relative times, it did seem as he approached Abbey that he had more speed, however it was interesting how this affected him, as he was forced to lift off the throttle on his way into the seventy degree corner, more so than the slower Kallen had done, bringing their delta's back into line. This was likely impacted by Kallen's downforce setup, which she had heard from one of the mechanics helping her was a little higher than what Tohdoh liked to run. She would gain time through Maggots, Becketts and Chapel, and lose time on the main straight. However, this didn't explain the two tenths deficit in lap time as the video replay of Tohdoh swapped across to Farm, his arms swapping from fully one way to another in a swift action, dragging the car onto the inside kerb on the limits of grip, with speed and steering angle perfectly measured. With his wheel lined up immediately as the car skated out of the high speed sweeper, it was a short run up to the right-left chicane at the Arena section. He decelerated very late, seeming to rotate the car under braking, placing both right wheels over the kerb and beginning to pivot out very early towards the Loop, allowing for a rapid exit at the expense of a slower entry.

Kallen looked at the Deltas, and saw that, surprisingly, he was two tenths ahead. Village and Loop was the slowest section of track on the circuit, and the slightest motions there were amplified due to the slow speed, however it was still strange that he had such an edge. Comparing to her own video, she saw herself experience a lot more understeer under braking, running wide on the exit of Village and compromising her approach onto Loop.

She shook her head, resolving to sort out that corner on her next run out as the tannoy speaker called out the beginning of Q3. She had ten minutes as of that moment, and refused to waste a single moment of it. She called out that she was going for a run, and wanted to be fuelled up as soon as possible. Naoto, still leaned against the wall, echoed this request for the benefit of the pit crew as Kallen moved to restore her balaclava. He took a breath through the fabric, before breathing out, and in, and out, clearing her head. She saw the corner rush up in her minds eye, and moved her toes, using her ankle as a pivot, down slowly, increasing the pressure on the fictional brake progressively, allowing the cylinders to slowly squeeze down on the brake discs and decelerate the car in a smooth, controlled manner. She felt the pedal tighten and shake as she sensed the shift in tarmacadam where it had been resurfaced in 1996, taking it as her marker to turn in. The rubber bit in more firmly here, and she again sensed the infetismal stiffening of the handling, before a vast shaking reached her biceps and shoulders, indicating she had crossed onto the kerbs and had the clearance to mash the throttle towards Loop.

She shook slightly, letting out another breath as the car was fettled by the engineers next to her. A slight mist escaped her lips as she allowed her uncertainty to fly into the air, indicating the typically British cold. There were millions of factors going in to one lap time. Brand new soft Option tyres, which would do one lap before never being touched again, two point eight kilograms of fuel ready to be obliterated in the name of high tech one upmanship, and so on and so forth. She slotted her HANS device in behind her neck, before placing the helmet on, completing her seal.

It was immensely interesting how much certain touchstones impacted ones performance. Naoto often mentioned how feeling his steering wheel between his hands, moulded to fit his fingers to the millimeter, always seemed to suddenly zone him into the task at hand. For Kallen, it was her helmet, which was the lens by which she used to managing, tackling, wrestling the controls of the car. It was cognitive association, and sharpened her focus on the central point in the distance.

Stepping over the B-pillar, she fell into the bowels of the car, surrounded by its high cheekbones. She was ready. She breathed faster. She was ready to bloody kill this lap time-

She shook her head. No, she had specific tasks. She needed to nail the corner, and that required focus, precision. Not passionate anger. She strapped herself in at the belly, the five point harnesses holding her torso rigidly in place. She placed her hands at the control, deciding to roll back the brake bias to induce more turn in under braking with one of the many dials littering the tiny, rectangular wheel before she finally heard the all clear from Ohgi.

Flicking on the pit limiter, she rolled the car out into pit lane, following the narrow track up to the outside of Farm. With cold tyres and limited fuel, only enough for one flying lap, she didn't push on the entry to the critical corner, only tentatively sniffing at the apex, as if to scour at its scent and examine it, before the first full speed run when she came back around.

It was a delicate business, warming the tyres with fast swipes at the steering wheel, hard braking events to warm the calipers, all while fettling the engine's fuel mixture so that the Seiten could deliver blistering, unparalleled pace for about two minutes before it overheated its wheels.

Towards the end of the out lap, the temperatures began to stabilize, as Kallen built up mental momentum for the lap ahead. She took a slow entry into Vale, winding the car up through Club, accelerating, accelerating, just winding it up like a spring, so she could rocket the car on exit, smashing the throttle, allowing the rear wheels to transport her forwards with the acceleration of a fighter jet.

She crossed the line. The lap began.

Slight lift into Abbey, a slight dip of the inside wheels onto the kerb to pull her around the corner. She felt the lateral forces on her neck, bobbling her exposed head about as the car switched direction at some three hundred kilometers per hour. Switching lanes for Farm, she hugged the inside of the long sweeper like it was a family member, as Village approached.

She breathed in. She needed to get this right, so she took a chance to focus. She needed to turn in early, perhaps even under braking, using the front suspension to pivot the car. She examined her sight lines, inspected the brake bias, and prepared her biceps to hurl the car into the corner. She breathed out. She envisioned the motion ahead of her, with stern preparation and cold dispassion, so she could carefully pick out the best line consciously.

Taking in another breath, she leaned into the corner, carefully checking her lines. Holding it in tight, she suddenly felt the rear beginning to give way. Fighting her instincts, she followed the geometrically correct line, however suddenly she felt the rear end begin to slide out, and before she could apply opposite lock, the car swapped ends, as she spun out onto the grassy run off area.

What she said next was emphatically not safe for work, however once she had finished a profuse and emotionally charged volley of swears, she roared into the radio "Aborting lap, coming back in. Damnit..."

She continued in much the same vein as she spun the car back around, livid. Not needing to complete a flying run, she blazed her way back into the pits on the same lap, as there was no way she could claw back the ten seconds she had lost in the spin. Better to hurry back to the pit lane to lick her wounds before taking another run.

She returned swiftly, parking her roasting Seiten into the Rebellion garage before bursting out of it, shaking herself as if her anger might join the slight particulate matter in hopping off. It did not, and she could only shake her head as she ripped off her helmet.

"Bloody hell, bloody hell..." she muttered, as the engineers stood around the car in a sort of limbo, unwilling to go at the car without prompt, particularly in light of Kallen's anger. She shook her head, before replying "Fill her up, I'll see if we can give it another run."

She sighed as the engineers moved to restore the car to Qualifying spec. She could certainly take the corner without spinning, but she would qualify behind Tohdoh on one of his favourite tracks on the calendar unless she could nail that corner. She had to brake, and follow the line that she had planned. It was academic, and yet as soon as she thought about it in that capacity, it all melted away as she became overloaded.

Chugging a bottle of water, she watched over the clip of her spin. It was clear that she hesitated under braking, seeming to have to think about the line, before committing to it half heartedly and having more speed at the apex than the car was ready for. How in the hell was she supposed to beat him when she couldn't even think her way through a corner?

"I swear-" she began, before Naoto called her aside to have a word. Begrudgingly, she walked over, expecting some manner of aloof, sarcastic comments which, while normally welcomed in good humour, she was not in the mood for. She moved across, and asked "What is it?"

He took a moment to prop himself up onto a desk, relieving him of the need for his crutches, strapped to his cast, for just a moment, before he chuckled, and spoke.

"You're really in a huff over this aren't you?"

She frowned, and replied "Just a slight bit jackass, if he gets track position on this track it's over!"

"I recall you saying you were faster than him though, that the great Kallen Kōzuki drove better than Tohdoh?"

She frowned, and replied "Of course."

"Then why aren't you driving like Kallen Kōzuki?"

She stopped, and made a face. She didn't understand what he meant, before he raised his bandaged arms defensively and replied "Hold on now, hold on. Have a look at your styles. You held the 'ideal' line religiously, thinking your way through it. Suzaku does it that way, and fair credit to him, he does well for himself. However, the sum of all humans who can think fast enough to do that is limited to him. You're trying to do geometry and drive at the same time, and you're overthinking it and getting muddled. You didn't get as far as you have like that, and that's why it's jarring."

"So what do you propose I do?" she asked, rather nonplussed.

"Don't think about it." he replied. "Just focus on the lap as you do it, and leave the rest be. All that context, that detail, is probably more distracting than anything else. Just do what you're good at; go really bloody fast. Don't even think about Tohdoh, just focus on the inch of track in front of you, then the next and so on."

Kallen chewed on this. Perhaps he was right. She had spent the whole lap trying to separate herself from the road, to view it clinically to try and compensate for her lack of precision over one corner when her speed came from the exact opposite, from immersing herself into the grains of the tarmac and funnelling her passion into the wheel and through the axles.

She took in a deep breath, sucking in the air to enrich the blood which was now firmly pumping through her veins, allowing it to take hold. She was going to demolish that lap time.

Turning around, she saw a small crew assembled looking on at the conflab between Naoto and her, seeming ready to go. She took a moment, and built up a resolve, before smirking and standing tall.

"Let's go get him."

This was met by a chorus of emphatic enthusiasm by the surrounding engineers, which certainly enthused Kallen. At first, she had been concerned that in light of how antagonistic she had been towards Taizo the pit crew might be reluctant or uncertain, however Naoto, who knew them all well, had apparently spoken with many of the ones who were no fans of Tohdoh and his more dismissive attitude and corralled them.

She would fight for them, and their faith in her. Fight, yes, that was the right word, she felt.

Drunk on oxygen, she pulled her helmet on, and once again sunk into the car, this time consciously making herself a part of it. The wheels were and extension of her hands, the axles, her legs.

"Ready to go Kallen." Ohgi alerted, before adding "Rip him to shreds out there."

Delivering a nod in reply, Kallen released the clutch, operated by her ring finger, to slide the car out and onto pitlane. She took in the sensations of the track, while not thinking about any of it. She glided through the Loop, slithering about the track to both warm the tyres and ingratiate herself with the ground below her. She felt it in her feet, now melded with the pedals and extending down to the degrading rubber. She felt flakes of the soles of her feet peel off against the tarmac and skating off into the grass as she swung out of the final part of the Arena section and down towards Brooklands.

"Kallen, be advised, Tohdoh has just completed his final flying lap, one minute twenty seven point four. That's your target."

Kallen by now hadn't the faintest idea what Tohdoh's original time was, or what this new one meant for her, but, as she braked into Stowe, nursing some temperature into the tyres with a cadence movement on and off the pedal, she replied "Don't speak until I've completed the flying run, I'm almost at the start line."

Indeed, now it was the time to focus. Vale was her last chance to heat the brakes, and while she had not yet begun the lap itself, everything up to the line was acceleration, and-

She shook her head again. Don't think about it, just squeeze the car into the apex at turn sixteen, and rocket away. She planted the throttle some ways into the lithosphere and held on as the car began to wind itself up around the entry to Club, a long, right hander. She felt the tyres begin to struggle to hold onto the inside line with the lateral forces which now began to push against her neck, however she held the wheel in place with a genuine exertion from the arms, literally keeping the car in place with her own input. Holding the line, she eventually released the wheel on the exit to allow the energy of the car to strike forwards, shifting all the way to the outer limits of the track, as she crossed the line to begin her flying lap.

The car flew past the expectant engineers standing at the end of the pit wall, before Kallen hurled the car into Abbey with reckless abandon. She felt her stomach lurch as she clipped the kerb aggressively and managed to keep it within the track lines without lifting off, meaning that she carried all the speed into the corner that had proved so challenging all day.

She broke aggressively, shaking the car slightly to wiggle it into place as she felt was right, before hurling it into Village with a vigorous and emotive twist of the wheel, fuelled by a determination. Not waiting for the confirmation from her line of sight that she had made the corner, she trusted in the slight shaking of the throttle pedal that she had sufficiently rotated the car, and immediately switched her hands round, swivelling the wheel from right hand down to left hand down in an instantaneous flick, hurtling the car towards the end of the Loop and accelerating out towards the Wellington straight. She was through.

The car, willed on by half a garage, shot forwards into Brooklands, another heavy braking zone, where Kallen speared into the corner with an aggressive line, hinging the car on the apex and allowing a swift pivot towards Luffield, a long right hander similar to Club. The line was nothing if not bellicose, and ate at tyres like nothing else, however she was only doing one lap.

Kallen had a gentler approach to Luffield, mandated by the importance of a smooth exit, however smooth did not mean slow, as even at this curving section of track, Kallen kept her throttle applied, allowing some slip at the rear to save the front tyres from the hell of a wide radius corner. As soon as she felt traction return at the exit of the corner, she launched the car forward, using all the power the six cylinder engine, augmented by electric generators, could deliver over about twelve seconds, filled with noise, drama, thunder, and acceleration exceeding that of an aeroplane.

This acceleration was interrupted through Copse, where even Kallen in all her determination lifted slightly as she crested her right tyres over the apex, before the daunting Maggots, Becketts and Chapel complex, for which complex was a very applicable term.

Kallen braced herself, tensing up her muscles to resist the force that her aggressive pursuit of time would have on her arms, as she catapulted the car into the fast, yet winding ess section, staying flat out through Maggots, dropping a gear and a few miles per hour through Becketts, before picking them both back up again on the approach to Chapel, launching the car off the exit of the corner to spear it as far to the right as she could. The shallower her change of direction, the more speed was retained, and she had retained a lot of speed as the car careered down the Hangar straight, reaching two hundred miles per hour with DRS deployed before Stowe corner began to rush up.

Treating Stowe and Vale as two parts of a chicane, she decelerated at the last moment before springboarding off the apex of the latter onto the keerb of the former, leaping across the track like a rabbit, seemingly unencumbered by the seven hundred kilograms of carbon, aluminium, and flesh.

Having saved her front tyres earlier, she now unloaded the entire mass of the car onto them, braking using all her might into the second to last corner, taking a shallow line and only turning in fully at the slowest point in the corner. Now, it was just acceleration all the way to the finish line.

She gritted her teeth, as she felt the tyres at the ends of her legs begin to struggle as she dragged the car kicking and screaming through Club corner, fighting the understeer the long corner presented, holding in the throttle. It seemed to take forever, it seemed to drag on, but she would drag it forwards, she would force it over the line if need be, and she was there! The corner finally ended, and the line presented itself. Kallen welcomed it with a healthy squirt of the throttle, seeing her over the line at some one hundred and fifty five miles per hour.

Kallen finally breathed. It was over, the rope was cut. Nothing more could have been done. If she was below Tohdoh, then there was nothing she could-

"Holy shit! Kallen, wow!"

Kallens brief euphoria was interrupted by the sudden eruption of her radio, as Ohgi cheered "You did it! One twenty six point nine! Five tenths of a second faster! Ahaahaha! Well done, well done, that's P3 behind the two Camelots, lining up Cornelia and Gino. Well done!"

Don't lose your way! In your mind! We have to be as one, Don't be afraid, my sweet heart; This is the way to be more strong!

Mark that down as another song I'll never get out of my head, but it's mightily applicable. It may as well be Kallen's theme at this point, and it certainly served as an aural mood board for the latter section of this chapter.

Join us next time for the British Grand Prix. Stay safe, and please review!

~Eth0