OK Number 11! - Dance Like You Want To Win

While Kallen was tickled pink over being third on the grid, Tohdoh was not amused at being relegated to fourth, and made no secret of it in the intervening day between qualifying and the race. Even as they sat on the grid, waiting for the five red lights hanging off the marshalls gurney to ignite the two hours of mayhem that awaited them, Kallen liked to think that she could feel his annoyance wax up her back from behind like a wave.

The strategy going into the race was complicated by the prospect of rain in the final third, however up until that point it seemed a simple transition from Options to Primes, staying on those harder tyres until the weather came.

Kallen heard a sudden swell of engine notes, before noticing the red lights beginning their countdown. One by one, they lit up, before finally switching off at the exact same moment, beginning the race. Sliding out the clutch to minimise wheelspin, Kallen got a fair start, not gaining much ground on the Camelots ahead but not losing much to Tohdoh behind as they approached turn one. From a standing start, the corner was easily flat, however as Kallen moved to turn into the corner, she spotted a flash of blue coming up her inside, the Lancer of Luciano Bradley who appeared to have gotten a monsterous start, already having dispatched with Tohdoh and now seeming to be having a look up the inside of the first turn.

Not wanting to get punted, Kallen left a gap on the inside in case Luciano did anything silly, taking a slower, outside line to the corner, which the ginger Briton exploited with a lunge to her inside, which turned to the outside as the track moved to the left through Farm. Kallen kept one eye in the mirrors as they approached the first slow corner at Village, watching Luciano file in behind her. Braking at the hundred meter board for caution, she decelerated into the corner, ready to smoothly transition at the apex before feeling a significant shunt from behind.

Immediately, the car pulled hard to the right, forcing her to fully apply the wheel to one hundred and eighty degrees to restore balance. As she trundled back onto the track, cars now whizzing past, the problem persisted, as she was almost unable to turn left. Trying not to swear again on the radio, she sighed "Oh for… damnit, I think I've got a puncture! Right rear, someone's after hitting me in the right rear!"

She shook her head, as she hauled the car back to the pit lane, with almost three quarters of the lap to do on three tyres and next to no speed. She could feel the time ooze away from her, as the pack zoomed away at full chat. By the time she made it back, slotting the car into her pit box for the engineers to replace the tyres, Cornelia was already completing her second lap, and once the team was finished she reentered the pack a lap down and in the midfield to boot. This was a disaster.

She had her work cut out for her to get points, let alone beat Tohdoh. The only advantage she had was a set of Hard compound tyres, even more resilient than regular Primes, that would last from lap one until the rain period, allowing her to push without having to worry about another pitstop halfway through the dry stint. She put the incident, which reportedly was caused by Luciano's front wing swashing wide and slashing up her tyre, behind her, and set about putting herself back in the race with consistent, quick lap times.

Priority number one was finding some clear air, away from the traffic so she could set about her return to the lead lap. She had to get ahead now, or else she would be blue flagged and placed even further behind. The marshalls couldn't be allowed to think she was holding the others up, and so she had to build a gap. In her mirrors, she saw Lelouch, who was in ninth place, sniffing up her inside, making the crisis more immediate. Flipping her engine to use a richer mix of oxygen and fuel, she tried to burn as much petrol as possible to escape the clutches of the marshalls.

Fortunately, the Ashford lacked any degree of straight line speed, and so she was able to continue with her own race. It seemed unlikely she would encounter anyone else, or even know where she would eventually wind up finishing after the race settled down, until near the end. What was needed now was pace, and a bit of luck.

The former was quick in coming, as while the orange-walled Hard tyres were by no means fast, them being fresh and durable meant Kallen could put the hammer down, zoning into the circuit to simply pound away at the lap times. While her tyres' grip left much to be desired, the clear track in that gap between Xingke and Lelouch allowed her to simply drive the car, without having to battle other drivers and lose time. She was in a race of her own, and simply had to do laps of the track alone, and wait for it to pay dividends.

Initially, progress was slow, as she was able to regain time on the backmarkers, and rejoin the lead lap. Now, rather than being over a lap behind, she was simply really far behind within the same lap of track, and her tyres had not significantly degraded. Her lap times stayed at around a one minute thirty two seconds, which was fairly competitive for the tyre she was on. However, it was unlikely to prove sufficient to catch up to the backmarkers and climb her way through the pack.

Fortunately, luck was on her side, and not on the side of Shinichiro Tamaki, who she was just beginning to catch sight of, the follow Japanese driver in second to last place, before he had a moment in the braking zone into Stowe, wobbling as his rear tyres were suddenly relieved of significant pressure. He seemed to recover it as he pushed the car towards the outside kerb on exit, however he had been unable to slow enough in his shimmy, and skewed out onto the grass beyond the track limits, which was where things really started to go wrong.

Rather than backing off the throttle to regain grip, Tamaki, in his infinite wisdom, elected to keep his throttle welded to the floor, sending the car skating across the grass, before it span back across the tarmac and into the wall at the far side. As far as Kallen could see from about a hundred meters behind, it was a race ending incident, with his front left tyre breaking off on impact. She could almost hear his cries of "Damnit!" or "Why is it always me?" as she coolly cruised past. While it was satisfying to no longer be last, this event took on a new relevance when her steering wheel flashed yellow.

"The Safety Car is out, the Safety car is out. Watch your delta times, slow down and catch the pack."

The Safety Car was indeed out, which could really save Kallen's bacon in this race. Immediately, she announced to her pit crew that she planned to box for Option tyres to run until the rain came, and moved to enter the pit lane. Not only would she get a fresh set of tyres to push on, but behind the Safety Car all the cars would amass at slow speed, allowing Kallen to catch up to the back of the grid. Granted, most everyone would likely take the opportunity to pit, but if all Marianne Zi Britannia did by holding up the grid was equalise it, it was a bargain Kallen would be enthusiastic to take.

One smooth extraction and replacement of the Hard tyres later, Kallen rejoined the track again, and proceeded to catch up with the other cars, who were now slowed up so as not to endanger the marshalls attending to Tamaki's wreck. They took three laps to complete their work, with Marianne signalling to race control on lap eighteen of fifty two that she was returning to the pits and that the racing would resume. At this point, Kallen was last of nineteen runners, but all nineteen were condensed to a small area of track. All she had to do was overtake, and quickly.

Fortunately, that was something Kallen had a fair amount of prowess in.

Her charge began as the green flags permitted the drivers to resume racing. She bit into her new tyres at Brooklands to pull off a well managed dive up the inside of a backmarker, wrenching at the wheel to hold the line before finally turning in. Using the superior grip that the second best car on circuit delivered, she then crept up on the next backmarker through the long, grueling right gander at Luffield, springboarding off the exit to sweep up her mark at the entry to Copse. There was an immense moment where she placed the car on the inside of the fast kink, and for a moment they were side by side, with only Kallens bravery keeping the car in that incredibly precarious position, where the slightest twitch could send both cars into a collision course.

However, the driver on her outside yielded, and for her efforts Kallen was awarded seventeenth place. Picking up two more positions under braking as they lost time squabbling with one another, Kallen ended the lap in fifteenth.

"Rain appears to be coming in fifteen minutes, fifteen. Your tyres should make it to that point with pushing."

Ohgi's information, delivered with deliberate clarity, gave Kallen all the license she needed to continue her push through the field. Using all the grip provided by the fresh Softs, Kallen hurtled through the grid. As she reached the upper echelons, just below the top ten, she began to encounter drivers she was more familiar with, such as Lelouch, whose one stop had not paid off and who was now languishing in thirteenth with very little grip, and the two Chinese Geely drivers whose low downforce setup was not agreeing with the circuit.

However, the cars ahead of her as she climbed through the field were increasingly fast, and increasingly spread apart, and the pace of her progress began to slow, even as she saw the first droplets of rain begin to settle on the lid of her helmet.

Deciding to play it safe until the rain became dense enough for Intermediate Wet tyres, Kallen eventually pitted on lap thirty, seeing Suzaku make his pitstop just up the road and deciding to mirror his strategy. Her second pit stop of the day was both swift and uneventful, with her yellow-walled Option tyres being replaced by green-walled Intermediate tyres. Wet tyres came in two flavours; these green Intermediates, which were for moist or damp conditions such as at the Japanese Grand Prix, where Kallen and Lelouch had profited from starting on them, and full Wet tyres, indicated by blue markings on the sidewall, which were for heavy rain. Pushing on the fresh rubber as she exited the pit lane, Kallen felt the rears slide slightly as she returned to the track, still quite dry, however after she pulled some heat into them, she was back to the task at hand; climbing up the grid.

However, as there were less and less overtakes to make, each one proved more challenging. Suzaku, who had beckoned her pit stop, had genuine pace on the Intermediate tyre, and even as she approached, she doubted it would be easy to overtake the Rosenberg as they approached Abbey, Kallen filed in behind the light spray of Suzaku, which cleared a methodical path for her to follow. It was still drier than the tyres ideal operating window, and yet too wet for dries, and so most drivers were busy trying to balance grip and heat. Driving in Suzaku's wake, with the water being actively scooped up off the road in front of her, was beginning to cause significant issues for Kallen as her tyres continued to heat in the presence of the dried track. She was even forced to weave out to the right under braking on the way into Vale as she locked up the brakes and proceeded to plough on in spite of Kallen's efforts. As Kallen wrestled the car back under control, she swang the car back around, moving off line away from the apex, where no one else had been driving.

It was perfectly understandable why no one drove off line; it was geometrically slower, required more braking, and was a longer route by meters. However, as she moved off the line to avoid ploughing into the back of Suzaku, she suddenly felt the grip return, and her tyres begin to cool. Puzzled, she returned to the line behind Suzaku. Initially, the grip was retained, however it quickly returned to the dire status quo, where her tyres began to boil in their casings.

It took Kallen until they reached Abbey on the next lap, where she attempted a move on Suzaku's outside and found an unusual amount of traction, communicated in the rigid pull on her hands as she wrenched the wheel to the right, to work out what was happening. Suzaku was acting as a rainplough, literally clearing the track of water as he drove, making the racing line more dry, and thus making it less grippy for Intermediate tyres, which required some surface water to function properly. For now, the faster line was in fact the line that had the most standing water, which was the line that was least driven.

To win, she had to drive like an idiot.

She took some satisfaction in shocking Suzaku on the approach to Brooklands, where after pulling out of his slipstream, she was able to match him under braking driving on the dirty side of the circuit. Switching back as the corner extended, she had the grip to stay with Suzaku on the outside, driving parallel to him as they moved towards Luffield. Suzaku, now on her inside relative to the apex, had the shorter run, but Kallen, on the wetter section of tarmac, had the grip to keep up her wider arc without falling behind, keeping stuck to his side like a glue.

Grinning, she gunned the throttle as her outside wheels crested the rumble strip lining the outside boundaries of the circuit. Suzaku, who could not use the full width of the track on exit without hitting Kallen, was now compromised under acceleration, allowing Kallen to pull ahead into Maggots and Becketts, completing the move into Chapel when Suzaku was forced to back off the throttle or else career off into the grass as Kallen held her line.

Seventh was hers. She was pleased to get past Suzaku, who remained a significant threat in spite of his marginally inferior machinery. His practice made him a master of careful delicacy, with a deliberate mastery over his vehicle. Not to mention that he was fast, perhaps even faster than her if all other factors were removed. However, these ingrained processes made it hard for him to adapt, and so he had no response when he saw something he wasn't used to.

Of course, inferentially, this meant very little; Suzaku would undoubtedly learn from today and arrive at Belgium with a full capacity to combat this harebrained tactic. However, for now, she had taken the position, and she had lots of lead track ahead before she would encounter Odysseus, ahead of his fellow Rosenberg driver for the first time this season. As she put in more and more laps, the track continued to get wetter, the rain continuing to slowly soak the track.

By lap thirty five, it was clear that the rain was here to stay, if not grow in intensity. However, even as Kallen put in good lap times, she came to realize that she was running out of time to reach the upper echelons of the grid. The Lancers had bolted away since the Safety Car, and there seemed little hope of bridging the gap.

Hoping for some potential way of gaining time through strategy, as there was still a possibility that the Intermediate tyres would not last to the end of the race, she asked Ohgi what was happening with the weather.

"It appears as if we may transition to heavy rain quite soon, the rain looks set to intensify."

This seemed to match with Kallens observations, as she noticed the levels of standing water continuing to increase. As the laps pounded away, the water began to approach the workable limits of the tyre. Fortunately, Kallen had a good head for wet conditions, which served her well as they approached the forty lap mark.

Unfortunately, it seemed Gino Weinberg would not see forty laps, as Kallen passed by his car on the run off area on the exit of Stowe, stranded and still, though without visible damage, parked off by the side of the road.

Curious, Kallen inquired further, learning that the unlucky Briton had suffered a second engine failure in two races before a second Safety Car was announced so that Weinberg's Camelot could be retrieved from the awkward spot in the run off area.

As Kallen slowed the car down to match the delta, she realized she now faced a decision. This was a golden opportunity to pit onto the full Wet tyre and have the advantage of the grippier rubber going into the final stint. It was a gamble that if lost could take her out of the points entirely, however she was sorely tempted by the opportunity to have the pace to catch Tohdoh once the Safety Car ended.

"I think we should pit for Wets, we can gain-"

"Negative, negative." Ohgi quickly responded as Kallen crawled around copse. "We need to cover off Suzaku and protect sixth, and hold this position to the end."

Kallen briefly considered this line of logic, before rejecting it. Even if playing it safe gave a better chance of points, it gave a lower chance of achieving the overall goal of beating Tohdoh. Sixth! A guaranteed sixth, or a slim chance for a win. Kallen knew which she wanted.

"I did not come to this race to finish sixth!"

"But-"

"I'm coming in for Wet tyres now, whether you give them to me or not is up to you."

After shouting her instructions down the radio, she pulled off into the pits before Club, driving into her box and having her green tyres replaced by a set of blues. She could almost perceive her crews reluctance in their uncertain movements, dubious as to the rationale behind this strategy. Undeterred, Kallen rejoined the pack in tenth as they formed up behind the Safety Car, as the only car on Wets.

She wanted to win this race, and this potential advantage was her only chance of doing so. She had the pace, so she aimed high. It all depended on the British weather, which was not something you traditionally wanted to be putting faith in.

Marianne released them ten laps from the end, cutting off the blinking lights on her roof to tell to pack to prepare to return to racing speed. As they all formed up to resume racing, Kallen peered up, praying for the clouds to have darkened, however results were ambiguous. As the Safety Car peeled off at Club, Kallen stamped on the throttle once the green flags waved to test the grip and did not find it wanting, having good purchase in second gear. However, the busy pack ahead was slow, as she realised that they were now pitting for Wets, as they realised too late that conditions were changing, and were forced to pit at the worst time; the pack was moving at regular speed, and was all bunched up; they would lose so much ground.

Kallen cackled from within her cockpit, watching the four or five cars head into pit lane, as the rest toughed it out in the wet conditions. Suddenly, as they pack pulled onto the pit straight, she realised that she could be in with a chance for a win if the Camelots couldn't catch her in ten laps after pitting and losing twenty seconds. She just had to be less than two seconds per lap slower. She could hardly believe what she was seeing as she was able to carry the line around the outside of Abbey, overtaking Nu's Lancer by sticking to the wetter line and carrying a far greater quantity of grip through the corner.

As the laps counted past, the Intermediate runners all either capitulated to the conditions or were passed, and with five laps to go, she was in the lead, having been a lap down at the start of the race. The Camelot's were catching, gaining almost a second per lap, however this was a fifty two lap race and not a fifty three lap race, and so, soaked to the bone and absolutely over the moon, Kallen rounded Club, and eyed the checkered flag as she approached the finish line, and raised her arm out of the cockpit triumphantly.

She had won the British Grand Prix.

"YESSS!" she cried into her radio, on the verge of tears. "HOLY CRAP, AMAZING! WELL DONE EVERYONE, HAHAAHAHAA!"

"Well done, brilliant drive." Ohgi cheered, clearly delighted himself. "Pick up rubber, and head to Park Ferme. Well bloody done!"

Kallen wasn't listening, simply waving her arms wildly out of the head surround in virulent jubilation. She was in the fight, she could win this. She could fight.

As she pulled into Parc Ferme near the pit lane, every movement felt like an explosion, every twitch felt like a sudden release of a great weight, as she hurled off her head surround and chucked it into the great unknown as if she was flinging weights that had been strapped to her shoulders like an Olympian. Everything felt fantastic, with even the slightest of everyday functions and movements that took place as Kallen stood up in her moulded carbon seat, arms raised over her shoulders in celebration, felt like the most heroic of achievements, worthy of Homer.

She climbed to the nose of her Type 2 Seiten, which extended out to a stub above the front wing, standing triumphantly on top of the front crash structure, pumping her fists wildly from atop her castle. She had won, and won in style; from a crash on lap one, with a long stint on Hards to cleaving through the track on Softs, and then again on Wets. The first win was always special, but it took on several new dimensions with context.

Her first win in karting was still etched into her mind like a carving on a stone wall, a dank affair in an indoor centre that smelled of spilled oil and sweat. She had driven all day in carts designed for people twice her age, and she could barely stand out of both tiredness and excitement, a drunkenness that had her grinning like an idiot as Naoto ruffled her hair for the sixteen billionth time.

Her first win in Asian Formula Renault four years later had been a similar affair, if moderately more professional in conduct, with open air facilities and a proper podium, though no less vigorous or emotional. Though Naoto was in GP2, racing in Italy, on that particular day, Kallen had not let that spoil the fantastic moment, as she hollered her lungs out from the top step, overjoyed, before giving a filthy, sweaty hug to the woman in second place, who had since gone into motoring journalism. That moment held within it such a charge by virtue of it being her very first step, her first victory along the road to the top. Every exhaustive gesture was ingrained for its wonderful, joyous representation of her success, and every cheer was etched into long-term memory for the pride it whirled through her lungs, turbocharging her breaths in a new freedom.

"YESSSS!"

Please be sure to review to let me know how you think the story is going, and what and who I can bring in to improve it. Thank you, and stay safe.

~Eth0