OK Number Twenty Three - For The Love Of Money
There was quite the wholesome moment on the podium as Lelouch brought his siblings up to join him on the top spot, with Rolo standing behind his brother while Nunnally rested just below the stand. With Suzaku, who was well ingratiated already with the three, and Gino, who was the friendliest man in the known universe, was swift in introducing himself. Nunnally and Gino engaged in a competition to discover who had the biggest smile, with Prince Albert II of the city state judging, before he handed Lelouch the winners trophy. The two were already acquainted, with Lelouch having been a legal citizen of Monaco for some time, and many years ago dominating the carting scene in the area, and the Prince was delighted for him.
Lelouch himself was as happy as Suzaku had ever seen him, and he even partook in the spraying of champagne, almost making Suzaku want to forget the rather aggressive defensive driving that nearly cost him his front wing and put him in the wall. While words would be had, it seemed wrong to deny him his moment, the second of the season in what was turning out to be altogether very strange. Who would have assumed Lelouch would be leading the championship by seven points over Suzaku, almost doubling his teammate. Certainly, luck had played a large role, but it was still a strange sight. Lelouch joined Riccardo Patrese, Olivier Panis and Jarno Trulli on the dubious list of People That Really Shouldn't Have Won Monaco.
Not that Lelouch would care about the nature of the win; for him, a victory was a victory, and even after he left the podium, he and his family were over the moon, celebrating together at the pool before heading out to their home in Languedoc to celebrate. Doubtless, this spelt only good things for him.
However, Suzaku was internally frustrated. The win had only come due to Suzaku being pitted under safety car. As the pack slowed, the time difference between the on track speed and pit speed would be reduced, which would allow Suzaku to come out ahead of Lelouch. However, someone had bungled the maths, at Suzaku's expense.
Which was why, after the podium ceremony ended, Suzaku did not stay for very long. He wanted an explanation as to what had happened, and knew he wouldn't be able to stop thinking about it until he did.
It was the three percent that separated a ninety-seven from a full grade in school, and while the stakes were greater here, the principle was the same; Suzaku never stopped pushing the envelope, and he always needed, almost pathologically, to know where he was losing ground. It was a hunt as vicious as any race, and he was as aware of it as anyone.
The entire length of the podium process was a taxing experience in this sense, as Suzaku itched to find out what had gone wrong. Naturally, he was cross for having lost the race, but he had lost races before, and to lose sleep every time he finished off the top step was masochism beyond even Suzaku's pale. However, in each instance he had made sure he would never make whatever mistakes that had led to that loss again.
For example, during the British Grand Prix in the previous year, Kallen had mugged him in the wet conditions, using the wetter line on the outside that, though normally unused, actually served her far better than the racing line. He remembered the moment clear as day, and was wise to it.
Speaking of Kallen, it was perhaps appropriate that the one person less pleased with proceedings than Suzaku was her. He had seen the wreckage, with the rear wing buried in the Armco, suspension snapped and wheels hanging on by the tethers, front end facing towards the circuit. It was abandoned but for the crane attempting to remove it, with its driver nowhere to be seen. Indeed, the driver was nowhere to be seen, as the international press sought to interview her. She had now not scored in two races, which Suzaku imagined wasn't doing her confidence any good. He'd heard the radio exchange from someone who wanted his thoughts as a driver, and his initial impressions were poor. She had sounded absolutely miserable, almost speechless and audibly in tears. He knew better than to comment, but it bode ill for her form.
And, to borrow Lelouch's hat, it bode well for their championships.
However, no championships would be won by losing first place to a strategy mistake, and so as Suzaku walked down the length of the paddock towards his garage, he put this personal drama out of his mind and moved down towards the white and gold striping. The front area contained the car, being dismantled and packaged for the journey to Canada, with the Grand Prix in two weeks. He gave a courtesy nod on his way through to the mechanics, before moving towards the back, below the VIP booth and down towards the strategy and IT rooms, all part of the area rented by Charles Zi Britannia and leased by him to the teams.
Suzaku, having been part of the team for a year, had long gone past knocking on doors under entry, and so pulled at the knob and stepped inside, hearing the ends of the conversation already underway.
"…and so while there-"
Suzaku's intrusion was the death sentence for that paragraph, as the room, all gathered around the central table, stopped to look at the young driver. Present were Schneizel, head of the teams main financial sponsor ASEEC, Lloyd Asplund, Cecile Croomy, and the senior management of the team, to name but a few of those present.
Though, interestingly, no drivers.
Cecile sighed, and, cutting across the table, said "Suzaku, why don't you sit down?"
Uncertain, he paused like a deer in headlights before snapping back to his senses, and moved towards the seat in the corners. All present looked immensely uncomfortable, an ironic solidarity with Suzaku, who had no idea what was going on.
Shaking his head almost imperceptibly, Schneizel continued.
"As I was saying, while there is a significant amount of success within this unit, and a great deal of potential in its assets, it is no longer a financially viable investment, and so my associates and I will be withdrawing our sponsorship at the end of the season."
Lloyd, as exasperated as Suzaku had ever seen him, responded "Look over there, Schneizel! Look at that young man looking dopey on that seat! The Jap! Take a look!"
The room turned to Suzaku, who, in spite of taking umbridge at being described as dopey, and certainly more than a little cross at Lloyd's unconscious slur, was far too invested in the point to contest its presentation.
"That young man is driving one of the sharpest cars on the field to wins and has a shot at the championship! Surely you'd want the ASEEC name on its nose when that happens!"
"Your recent pace has not eluded me, Asplund." Schneizel replied. "This has nothing to do with that. You could be dominating the grid and this decision would stand. It is simply not financially viable to continue supporting this venture."
"I don't understand." Lloyd pleaded. "This team is as efficiently run as it can get! This Formula is demanding, yes, but as a consequence its exposure is immense! No other association gets this many eyeballs on its sponsors."
"That may be, but return on investment is about more than income. At present, the rules reinvent themselves almost every year. In this season alone, a new engine layout was mandated, requiring us to scrap all the research done into the previous model and dumping millions of Euros into a new engine. Every year a new car must be researched, designed, and manufactured to a new, arbitrary standard, with new components and new design processes, all of which may be redundant in two years when the next regulation change occurs. This means that the costs for me to continue my support of this team are inflated enormously. I'm sorry, but at present there is no way for me to justify the cost of this venture."
"We can see about reducing costs, anything-"
"I'm sorry, but this is my notification, not a meeting wherein an equitable arrangement is to be negotiated. We will withdraw at the end of the year, and my presence here is to simply alert you to that reality. Good day."
With that, Schneizel moved to leave the room, with Lloyd in too shocked a state to intervene. Suzaku had watched the scene unfold from his chair in silence, and found himself in a similar state to Lloyd. The problems he had come to complain about were suddenly minimised as it dawned on him that the team was about to face significant issues regarding its continued existence.
Schneizel, with significant interests in military contracts, had been the title sponsor of the Rosenberg team since its inception, using it as a vehicle for aerodynamic research. His group was responsible for over sixty percent of their sponsorship income, and without him, the team would not be able to make it to the grid unless a new sponsor was found.
Suzaku looked down at the floor as Lloyd went off, presumably to try and find some way to deal with the news. Cecile seemed eager to try to restore order, ordering people back to their posts to try and get people back to work as the news sank in. Slowly, mechanics and accountants were ushered back to their absentminded duties, all clearly plagued by other concerns.
Once the room was moving once again, Cecile turned her attention to Suzaku. Suzaku knew that she would be concerned about him, being one of the two main focal points for the teams performance, and keeping his morale high would, in her mind, be of the highest importance. Knowing this, Suzaku could guess at the gist of what she would say.
"Look, I know it looks bad, but chin up. Just because he isn't renewing doesn't mean that his existing contract will be annulled. We're still sponsored till the end of the season, and while we won't get his funds after Brazil, that's in six months. We'll find a sponsor by then. We'll just need to cut back on expenditure to tide us through the off season. It's going to be okay."
Cecile smiled, putting on a brave face, and for her sake Suzaku nodded, but he knew that the situation was far more tenuous than she presented.
Of course, it was not as if he would have to change. It was ironic that the solution for Suzaku was to not change, in spite of his earlier notes. If he put in good drives and worked hard, results and sponsors would follow. Success would follow from endeavour like night followed day.
And that was something to smile about, as Suzaku did not lack the capacity for endeavour.
Indeed, in placing his car in P2 in Qualifying two weeks later, lining up immediately behind Kallen on the Circuit de Gilles Villeneuve, he felt that he was maintaining such a capacity. Although he lost pole position by a tenth of a second to his countrywoman, who by this point had collected every pole start but one so far in this season, he was closing the gap to her bombastic one lap pace, and, as the saying went, the points were given out on the Sunday, and not the Saturday.
As to the woman herself, she had indeed disappeared off the face of the earth for a time following Monaco, however she had collected herself after a few hours and arrived at Canada publicly acknowledging she had it all to do. Looking at her pole lap to find potential gains, Suzaku could not see any hints of hesitation or lift that would indicate a change in approach.
She barrelled into turn one at over two hundred miles per hour, braking unfathomably late and carrying much more speed into the corner itself. She loaded all the forces and momentum of the car onto the front wheels, and used the lightened rear to slide the car far faster around the corner than it had any right to. It was inefficient, ballsy as all hell, and required perfect execution, however she had just squirmed the car round the bottleneck, and found the time needed to snatch pole at a circuit that marginally favoured the Rosenberg.
Lining up behind them was Gino Weinberg in third, desperate to get his season underway, Marrybel in fourth, and Lelouch in fifth.
Not that Lelouch cared, Suzaku noted. The championship leader was still on a visible high after winning what was, to all intents and purposes, his home race, and arguably the most prestigious at that. For Lelouch, it was a dream come true, however more importantly it was mission accomplished, for reasons that were, for Suzaku, initially unintuitive.
The media at large shared in the Occitan's euphoria, suddenly realising his existence in a collective shock. Editorials positing him as a genuine contender emerged from out of thin air, wondering if his guile and Prost-like fixation on the maths of the sport could see him steal a championship out from under the noses of the two prodigies of his generation.
Suzaku did held a puritan view of gambling, but if he were to start, his maiden bet would be against such a possibility, and in all probability Lelouch would agree with him.
Lelouch had never been ambiguous in his goals, at least in private. Motorsports, as with everything in his life, was a means to an end. While he genuinely enjoyed winning Bahrain and Monaco, what was more important was what they did for him. Lelouch had been the centre of attention, receiving interviews, invitations, and personal sponsor offers, all of which would serve him when he left the sport and moved on to his next scam.
Perhaps that was too harsh a phrasing, Suzaku reflected. Perhaps it was better said that Lelouch had already internalised an understanding that he would not, in the long term, be a worldly driver, and in light of that was looking to see what he could spin this success into elsewhere, to see how he could adapt and use it to springboard a more successful venture elsewhere.
It was inherently his limitation, in Suzaku's view. In having calculated that he lacked the skill to win a championship, he no longer yearned for it, and his long term aspirations lay aboard. Not only did this serve his focus within racing poorly, but, as far as Suzaku was concerned, it was a self-fulfilling prophecy.
While a self belief would not make a slow driver fast, winning championships had an immense psychological component. One had to believe they had the ability to do it if they were to have the capacity to sustain a campaign, and Lelouch's approach conceded that belief from the get go. In trying to build an exit strategy, he was fumbling the goal in the here and now.
Of course, this was Suzaku's perspective, and Suzaku wanted to win a championship. From Lelouch's perspective, his plan was going swimmingly. He and his brother had received unprecedented press, with the latter moving from a possible Formula 2 seat to a probable seat. With all the fees and commissions he was undoubtedly receiving, Nunnally's healthcare would now shrink to a minor financial concern. Lelouch was achieving the goals he had set out, even if they were not what Suzaku would consider the goals of the sport.
Of course, while Lelouch would lack the psychological drive to push to the margins to win at all costs, as a championship did not lurk in the depths of his subconscious as a driving force, he was still ahead of Suzaku in the points standings, and his pace could not be discounted.
Four points. Four points and Suzaku would have regained control, would be setting the pace. There was few things Suzaku desired more, which would be why he would win. It would fulfil itself.
"Alright Suzaku, ten second board is out, ready for the off. Temperatures are good, all signs are nominal, all set to go. Good luck into turn one, and we'll see you at the first pit stop."
Suzkau's eyes raised from his cockpit, and abandoned all thought. Many drivers noted that there was a moment during the build up to a race where any thoughts unrelated to the drive flushed away, and the driving became everything. For some, it was when they put on the gloves, for others, it was when they gripped the wheel between their hands. Suzaku's moment was always when the ten second warning board was dangled out over the edge of the pit wall, drawing attention to the red lights, now lighting in sequence.
Suzaku took a deep breath, and focused his eyes on a point in the distance, the lights in his peripheral vision. He let the air out, and was empty.
Anyone who suffered through For Hearts And Minds will be familiar with my propensity to analyze character motivations, and this is not helped by my recent diversion into legal studies, which requires more than a small amount of direct speech and elaboration. I hope you can humour me in this capacity, as my tangent here is in service of plot threads that will unfold in later chapters.
Of course, some of this is invariably more obvious than other elements. Rosenbergs future is in one sense already written, however there is a sting in it. The other is less immediately apparent, however suffice to say things are moving substantially within this championship and beyond.
This fic is not dead, and, given that I have planned out its entire course to conclusion it is unlikely I will ever be in a position to declare it dead before its completion, however my progress has been demonstrably stunted by my studies, and so, while this text is never outside my thoughts completely, its writing will be undertaken whenever convenient, which may not necessarily lead to consistent uploads. At the very least, this serves as an object lesson that my previous approach was better in that there was no such concerns when I wrote in bulk.
In any case, don't call it a comeback, and please, please review. It means a great deal, and gives me immense drive.
~Eth0