OK14 - The Only Way Out Is Through

As the last car passed by the pit lane exit, Kallen was released from the safety box, and she wasted no time, welding the throttle to the floor down the Reta Oposta, not wasting the opportunity to cleave her way back up to a position that would see her win the bet. Even now, as the engine shot and popped with concerning irregularity only a few hundred meters into the race, she had a hunger to drag the car to the end. She felt a kinship with it, in all its newfound idiosyncrasies and character and crackles when changing down the gears, its slight shaking at the top end, and its heroic return from death at the dying moments of the prelude. It was human in its anger and hunger for air, fuel and glory. It was like her, as they roared along like lions chasing down prey; it was a fighter.

She couldn't have asked for more appropriate equipment to finish the job with, to see the season through.

And the job was not insubstantial; for the second time this year, she needed to claw her way up from the back, and this time in a car put together moments before the race began. Luckily, she didn't necessarily have to win, only to finish sufficiently ahead of Tohdoh.

But that required a lot of overtaking, which she was prompt with. The backmarkers, in spite of their on track advantage, were still over a second a lap off the pace, allowing Kallen to close up into Pinheirinho and follow up to Junçao, where she claimed one position under braking, managing to block off the car on the inside, and the a second on the long Subida dos Boxes corner, a banked curve that wound up to the pit straight progressively, allowing Kallen to slingshot past on the outside down into the Senna Ess. The chase was on.

Except it wasn't, as she came to grips with her tyres and probable strategy, which was thrown together in a panic at the last minute by a team that was simply concerned with making the start of the race. She was on white Prime tyres, the second hardest set available, which ruled out aggressive strategies like the three-stop of Options-Options-Options-Primes, which many of the front runners planned to avail of for maximum on-track pace, however it did rule a few things in, such as a two stop of Primes-Primes-Options, or even an audacious one stop of Primes-Hards. The latter could save forty seconds in pit stop time, but whether that would compensate for lowered grip would have to be seen to.

Curious, as she completed a second lap of seventy three around the very short circuit, she asked what the situation was with lap times, and how viable a one stop actually was. After a moment's pause, Ohgi responded with news from the front.

"Cornelia and Tohdoh are leading, and battling heavily, two abreast into the middle sector. They're losing a lot of time cutting into one another and battling. Your pace is consistent with theirs, and they are both on Options, pitting in around eight laps. Keep up the good work, just conserve the tyres and stay out of trouble."

Indeed, while her now probable strategy of avoiding pit stops to make up time had vast potential, there wasn't much excitement to be had in passing by a pit lane as everyone else stopped to change tyres, a bonanza which began for the Option tyre runners around lap twelve, with Tohdoh and Cornelia rushing to get new sets of Options on. All Kallen had been doing up to this point was passing by more backmarkers such as the ever pleasant Shinichiro Tamaki, who had nearly run her off the road at turn one as she moved to claim sixteenth.

The two leaders emerged just in front of Kallen after their first stops, with perhaps three seconds in the difference, however Kallen had not pitted, and would not pit for some time. This put her in third, albeit a highly unnatural third borne of a temporary intersection of pit strategies that was unlikely to last for the time being. Comfortable in her own race and safe in the knowledge that she just had to look after herself and not lose time in battles, she had a prime seat to watch a titanic battle between two Champions just up the road. They weren't holding her up, their new tyres mitigating the time lost in their pitched combat, but their fight was simply epic to watch. Cornelia had a slight advantage, ahead but on the outside under braking into the Descida de Lago corner, with Tohdoh just about able to slip his car through the gap with a later braking point, however Cornelia rotated her car faster and had the edge under acceleration.

Kallen couldn't help but egg on the British woman from her viewing seat, as in holding Tohdoh up now she was helping Kallen, who would need as large a gap as possible to Tohdoh when he came out from his third stop. Unfortunately, they began to pull away together, however that was okay, just so long as the gap wasn't too extensive.

However, as the laps piled on, the tyres began to fall more and more off in terms of performance. Twenty laps of Interlagos would make any tyre weary, and while the Primes were almost as tough as they came, only beaten by Hards, even they were showing the strain. Braking zones became increasingly fraught tap dances, sniffing out patches and puddles of grippy surface with a cadence movement of the foot to avoid locking up the tyres. It was like dancing the ballet with an MMA fighter, every movement was cautious and terrifying, as one mistake could take miles out of a tyres life before it reached puncture territory.

By lap twenty five, the tyres were long past their expiry date, the thin canvases being all that separated the tarmac from the rest of the car. Under-rotations abounded, as Kallen continued to struggle to manage the increasing lack of grip under braking, under turn in, and under acceleration. In essence, every change of direction was met with a sudden wrenching of the wheel, with the car both sliding wide and swinging round of its own volition. It felt like directing a hovercraft, directing feeling far more accurate than driving, which implied a significant degree of control.

However, through great adversity and much shimmying under acceleration, she kept her lap times within the confidence interval with every ounce of talent she could muster. The rapidly changing grip levels and challenges required more than any practise that could be mustered; she was driving by the seat of her pants, in her mind barely inches ahead of her tyres, taking the track one centimeter at a time. Every corner was new, like a rally course, which was certainly how the skidding, low grip conditions made it feel. She poured every inch of her soul into holding the car to the circuit as tightly as she could, hugging it with extensive doses of opposite lock and steely eyed determination.

Tohdoh was far away now, almost fifteen seconds up the road, and approaching his second stop, with Ohgi keeping her distracted with his times and delta. She shook her head; she would not be discouraged. She was stronger, she was faster, and she would beat him. Believing otherwise was a self fulfilling prophecy, but he would also have an extra pit stop towards the last third of the race, whereas she was only stopping once.

She had the fortitude, she had the will. She didn't imagine, had never imagined, ever wanting something quite so dearly and quite so desperately as the simple desire to stay on the track, to guide the car around one more corner, to just hold on. It wasn't conscious, nor aspirational; it wasn't like her desire to enter Formula One of months earlier, or like a drivers desire to win a World Championship. It was deeper, more primordial, a fight or flight instinct that simply consisted of "Just get around this corner. Now this one. Nurse the car around this one. One more."

For the ten lap period where the tyres slowly killed themselves, she fell into a tunnel, where the black tarmac sucked her up and absorbed her, and she was simply a passenger, her arms simply acting as an agent to get her from point A to B. She was alive, the engine was alive, and they were ready to maintain the fight even as the grip failed.

After five more laps, she was offered a final relief from her misery and pain as the pit window opened. The engine was beginning to show signs of its wear, with occasional misfires on cylinder two, the one that had been recently repaired. She capitulated on lap thirty two, finally diverting off the banking final turn and peeling into the pit lane, locking up all four tyres to slow the car in time.

Barely avoiding a speeding penalty, she engaged the pit limiter, rolling the rubber caracasses to their final resting place in the pit box, where she was elevated by a pit crew that had already lifted her so far. They replaced the old tyres with a new set of Hards to run to the end effortlessly, dropping her down back onto the tarmac and sending her away. The smooth process betrayed none of their hours, with her new tyres arriving with no drama. She saw in her mirror their celebrations of a job well done, with fist pumps and high fives, as they withdrew with the shreds of rubber that had dragged her this far back to the garage and smiled. They had done all they could, and had not put a foot wrong, but it was all down to her now.

She took in a breath, and blasted the throttle down the pit exit, unleashing the torrent of power down the Reta Oposta, swallowing the air and charging it into speed with explosive immediacy. The new grip was a godsend, but she had to preserve it, not wearing down her treads, as they were to carry her to the end in forty five laps.

The time taken to pit was made up for within two laps, as the three stoppers such as Cornelia and Tohdoh stopped for the second time onto a third Options before their Prime stint at the end. With an undercut of two laps of fresh tyres, Kallen was able to close the gap to the two leaders by a few seconds, but her newfound spirit of conservation meant that she wound up behind them both by about eight seconds.

Behind Kallen was Gino, quietly plugging away at his two stop and beginning to look like a dark horse contender for victory if the two leaders were held up in traffic, and Lelouch, who was nursing Hards on a one stop identical to Kallens. Another pit stop for the leaders would put them directly behind Lelouch, giving them that three car buffer to clear to win, but they would be going orders of magnitude faster, and would use those new tyres to cleave through the pack, at least in theory.

However, as she continued on, continuing her own race as she had been doing, external forces intervened, as Gino, with a faster Prime tyre, descended on her like a bird of prey, bouncing across the Senna Esses and hounding her exhaust down the straight that followed, before attempting a pass down the inside.

Kallen ultimately held the outside line and swung the car onto the exit kerb, preventing Gino from properly winding his Glaston up on the exit, however this action cut into the tyre tread, eating at its shelf life from the overexertion and stress. Her first instinct was to ignore the wearing, the disintegration of the rubber under a compromised line, as they stayed side by side down into Descida de Lago, however as the braking marker came up, Kallen hesitated.

Her goal was to beat Tohdoh. Would fighting Gino help her achieve that?

Of course, her initial instinct was to reply that of course it would. Having track position over the leaders would separate her from them, and place her higher. However, as she pressed on the brake pedal, easing the car into deceleration, she remembered Lelouch's advice.

"You don't go with what you think is the fastest, you only go with what clears the task at hand."

She wasn't racing Gino. Fighting him could work to stay ahead of him, certainly, and she might be able to finish ahead of him, however this was not the goal. The goal was to beat Tohdoh, and getting into a fight would lose her time relative to Tohdoh, just as how his fighting with Cornelia had slowed him down earlier in the race. Furthermore, wetting her gunpowder at this point if Tohdoh was going to ultimately catch the both of them.

Reluctantly, she slowed the car just before the apex, and allowed Gino to carry the outside and move past on the way up to Ferradura. He took off, bolting away towards turns eight and nine. It hurt to watch, but she consoled herself by contemplating the time she was saving by not getting caught up in attempting to barricade the circuit to him.

And the time that had been saved would prove critical, as after fifteen more laps caught in no man's land, Tohdoh and Cornelia had made their final pit stop, coming out with Primes for an eighteen lap sprint to the finish about ten seconds behind Kallen, and five behind Lelouch. This was far more preferable to them being right up her diffuser, however as she received this news, she did some maths.

Tohdoh was seven points ahead of her, and she was in second. The points gap between second and third and fourth was three points and three points. If Tohdoh beat either Cornelia or Lelouch, then he would finish ahead in the championship by a point.

However, it appeared she was in luck, as based on the reports from Ohgi, Cornelia was ahead of Tohdoh, and was approaching Lelouch at a rapid rate, eventually overtaking him up the Reta Oposta. However, for now, things were looking up.

But of course it wouldn't last. It never would. After all that had happened, it was ludicrous to even begin to believe that that would be anywhere near the end of affairs. As if on cue, Ohgi's voice came over her radio, and read out the death sentence.

"Kallen, your engine is only firing on five cylinders, injector two has failed. Box this lap... we... we need to retire the car. I'm sorry mate, I'm… sorry."

Ohgi choked on the final apology, clearly disappointed that this would be the end of their weekend which had been filled with such potential. But Kallen wasn't disappointed.

Kallen was angry, and Kallen didn't have another scheduled pit stop for them to force her to retire in.

"Sod that! Honestly, sod that! You can take that idea and sod right off with it! I'm not retiring until this car has caught fire! Let's go, we're not stopping!"

Furious, she flipped down the gears to engine brake into turn one, leaning on what was left of the engine to slow her down for the left-right corner, as she worked things out. Cornelia was rapidly approaching, however Tohdoh was stuck behind Lelouch.

With a gap of seven points, Kallen needed to finish ahead of Cornelia, and Lelouch needed to finish ahead of Tohdoh. For once, she was in luck, as she still had an ace up her sleeve.

"Shift set one, shift set one."

Kallen spoke out the command hurriedly, with most of her attention still fixated on pulling the slowly dying car towards the finish, one braking zone at a time. She could only hope that the message would be received well by Lamperouge, who would undoubtedly have interests of his own. Now, she could only hope he would keep up his end of the bargain as she battled on.

The pink hues began to creep into her mirrors with fourteen laps to go, slowly encroaching on her position like a panther preparing to drop onto its prey. Kallen steeled herself for the coming battle. No matter what happened, Cornelia was staying behind her, even as the smudge grew to a roaring pink beast that consumed her rear view mirrors, before it suddenly struck, darting at her inside with a sudden ferocity. Cornelia was making her move.

However Kallen would have none of it, cutting across under braking into Bico de Pato, and squeezed every drop of torque from her now five cylinder engine to propel the car off the outside kerb, clutching what became the inside line through Mergulho like the handrails of a staircase, clinging to it to give some safety to her thrashing recklessness, not to mention that which would surely follow if she was to keep the position for fourteen laps.

It seemed as if she might not even keep it for one, as Cornelia, with the superior engine complemented by not being moments from seizing up and dying, held the speed around the outside as they went two abreast through the high speed sweeper. Kallen could only begrudgingly note that Cornelia was certainly determined to seize the position. However, determination alone would not put off Kallen, as although Cornelia was able to pull ahead on the drag down to the second to last corner a Junçao, where her engine had broken down in Qualifying. With a second death seeming as if it would be not long in coming, Kallen was immensely nervous as she broke down Cornelias inside, hugging the apex before rotating late into the corner, which kept her ahead on track. However, turning in earlier allowed Cornelia to preserve more speed through the bend, and accelerate faster up towards the start finish line. She pulled ahead through Subida dos Boxes, forcing Kallen to file behind into her slipstream through Arquibancadas, on the run up to the the finish line. Kallens engine woes were masked by the vacuum behind Cornelias car, which meant that she had much less drag on the approach to turn one in spite of her lowered power output.

With this momentum at the end of he pit straight, she bit into her brakes as late as she dared, diving towards the apex and spearing the car down through the Senna esses with reckless abandon, nearly sending her car off the track on the exit, but just about holding on, and reclaiming second place at the expense of precious tyre life.

So the race continued; with her limited ammunition, Kallen held off the oncoming horde with sporadic barrages of grip, digging into the leading edge of the track like a boxer might lean on their toes and the balls of their feet to become more agile and mobile.

Punch drunk, Cornelia would continue to pull ahead on the straights, before Kallen would again dive into the slightest of gaps, eating at the rubber that was quickly running out as they entered the final lap. As they passed the finish line for the penultimate time, now two abreast, Kallen squeezed along the inside, barely inches from the pit wall as they broke into the first corner. Kallen locked up all four tyres to keep the track position downhill down into Curva do Sol, pinched between a wall and a pink place. However, she saw the better end of it, and rolled the car down and into the sweeper with no damage, and decent momentum, however the tyres were shot, withered down to canvassess, the grippy rubber having been dragged and deposited over the track to hold off Cornelia for one more corner, then one more, and then one more.

However, there were still another fourteen, and already Kallen could feel a wobbling in the steering wheel and an inconsistency in the track as it was related through the tyres and suspension to her seat in vibrations. Her tyres were out of grip, and could sustain a puncture at any moment.

As if that would stop her.

The braking zone into the double left hander at Descida do Lago was fraught and sent Kallens heart into her mouth, beating away as she barely slowed the car enough to make the turn, however in going deep she was able to switch back from the outside of the exit to the inside of the second part of the corner, putting her parallel with Cornelia as they approached the narrow, twisting part of the track. The pink Camelot had the inside line into Ferradura, however Kallen was able to roll the car in behind Cornelia to preserve speed, before getting on the throttle earlier on exit.

The Japanese driver got a kick of oversteer for her troubles, though with a healthy dose of opposite lock, an instinctual correctional jerk of the wheel, she was able to drag the car forward and up to Cornelias level. Just a few more corners, only five to the end. Ripping and tearing at the fabric of the treads, ripping them off as if they were restraining, four left with a pulling and jerking away, the car simply unwilling to turn without titanic effort. Three, a long sweeper, with the rear end sliding out at over a hundred and fifty miles per hour. She was driving on ice, but she was the most elegant of skaters. Two, braking like she had hit a brick wall, depositing all the rubber that remained on the apex before blasting up towards the finish.

Cornelia had been held, but- ach! The exit was poor, with low rear end grip, and her acceleration was dampened. Kallen was ahead, but Cornelia was faster in a straight line. Kallen could see her in the mirrors, but then she moved into her blind spot, but then she was gaining on the run up to the line. It would be so close, two hundred meters, one fifty, oh God, Cornelia was pulling alongside-

And across the line! Even though the race was over, Kallen kept the throttle pedal open for some time after crossing the line unconsciously, as if to ensure she had in fact made the finish. Her foot felt heavy, and alien, refusing her command to ease off the throttle as she ploughed off the track and onto the grass. It wasn't her controlling her body, her body had been controlling her. Eventually falling through the gears, Kallen came to a controlled stop some ways into the run off area.

She hadn't the strength to continue. Everything, every element of car, body, and soul that could have been used had been. She was finished. She sat still in the car as Ohgi anonymously narrated what had been going on around her.

"Fantastic job, you finished second place from last place, what an- oh, oh my word! Aha! He's done it!"

Hearing the sudden shift in her engineers tone, Kallen paid attention as he announced "Lelouch has just about held on! The madman has actually kept fourth! He beat Tohdoh at the last corner, which means you're ahead in the championship tally by a point! He just crossed the line there, you did it!"

It didn't register, at least not cognitively, until Kallen watched Lelouch drive past her down the Senna esses, his hand waving victoriously and vicariously out of his cockpit as if he'd won the race. Tohdoh followed after him moments later, passing by her static field of view forcing the point to sink in.

She had beaten Tohdoh. Not just in the race, but in the championship. By the skin of her teeth and then some, but a victory was a victory. Breathless, she raised her arms above the head surrounds, and roared ferociously for some time.

"Is that Glock, is that Glock holding up Tohdoh, it is! Oh my goodness me...!"

That was a little close for comfort, but everyone came together and pulled through the challenge, scraping by on the skin of their teeth. Man alive, that last section where she leaned on the last fragments of rubber was absurdly intense. Thank you everyone who has been reading up to this point. I'd really love some reviews if that's at all possible, they really help me gauge whether I'm steering this ship in the right direction. Thanks again, and stay safe!

~Eth0