OK Number 49 - If Tyres Could Weep

While Xingke was in tears up on the podium, with the shot of him with his face aimed towards the sky, eyes closed, and hands paired behind his back immediately taking off on social media as race defining, Naoto was leaving the podium and would return to the briefing room of the Rebellion racing team, pleased with having gotten the podium, but knowing what would come.

When he arrived, on the floor above the garage with big windows facing out towards the track and blinds firmly, unambiguously shut, it appeared the whole gang was already here. Taizo Kirihara, team leader and manager. Olivia Reuel and Kaname Ohgi, race engineers for Tohdoh and Naoto respectively. Rakshata Chawla, designer and chief engineer of the Type-2/F20 Seiten. Tohdoh himself, of course. Suits, plenty of suits, likely stakeholders, with an intense interest in seeing their investment yield a return.

Well, that was just perfect. Naoto shook his head as he sighed and sat in the free seat closest to the door.

"Did I provide you with an invitation to sit?"

Naoto looked up and saw Kirihara looking across disapprovingly, though Naoto did not understand. He had busted his gut out on track, and was exhausted, not to mention drenched in sweat. Naoto could only look up through his fringe, having to take a moments breath before he could empty his lungs to reply.

"No, you didn't."

Naoto would not have given a tenth of this cheek in his first stint with Rebellion, however some time away from the sport to reflect on what could have happened if he had been more assertive combined with his frustration at not being pitted ahead of Tohdoh had allowed his spine to develop in tandem with his leg.

Of course, while Xingke was innocently asking about the pit fiasco, Naoto made a point of sparing the teams blushes, however he was still cross in private, and so provided no physical response to Kirihara's implicit request, summarily "Get out of that chair until I tell you to sit, boy."

As Naoto tiredly glared, slumped deep into the seat, Kirihara, clearly irked, adjusted his tie before commenting "So as I was saying, while there continues to be disappointment on the performance front, Tohdoh is continually regaining his former pace, and closing the gap not just to Naoto, but more importantly to the pack ahead."

"He was in eighth when you made that call to pit him ahead of me in first."

"Naoto, I know. But Tohdoh has a far better history of performing over a season, and to maximise our points, we must prioritise our strategy to maximise his potential to perform."

"But I was in the lead, I was ahead!" Naoto responded, almost lazily in its vocal intensity considering the content and context. "I've been ahead through the season, so much that I'm nearly twenty points ahead."

"So you want to go the route of your sister and try to assert yourself as the new big boss?" Taizo chuckled. "What, were you jealous at how easily she came in and took over? You yourself conceded that our priority should lie in facilitating Tohdoh when you first arrived at this team four years ago. You accepted it without question, because you knew then that Tohdoh was the faster driver. Or what, has Kallen stirred up a bit of spunk in you, and you want to take after her? What'll you be doing next, assaulting Tohdoh?"

Naoto was initially enraged, somehow finding it in himself to stand bolt upright in outrage, both in the characterisation of him as some sort of doormat, and in the subsequent comparison of him having now taken a stand to what his sister had done.

However, he backed off, and slowly sat back down. The comparisons would come too easily if he lost his temper, and he wasn't good enough to do what Kallen had. Nor did he want to.

"Heh. Good, good, you know what's good for you. We could always depend on you to be a reliable number two. Or at least, we did before. But today, you disobeyed an instruction to hold position. You were told to not overtake Tohdoh and hold him up, and yet you did. Why did you do that?"

"With respect, Taizo…" Tohdoh sighed, as uncomfortable as Kallen had mentioned him being whenever team politics came up, "He finished on the podium. He did not hold me up at all."

"While that may have been true in this individual instance, Tohdoh, you have a far deeper breadth of experience, and, at the time the decision was made, we had no way of knowing how your respective races would transpire from then on."

"But you did." Tohdoh replied. "He had kept Gino behind him for the entire length of the race and was leading the pack. I was fighting in the lower rungs of the points. The correct move was to give him pit priority, and not catch the back of the safety car."

Tohdoh had worked himself up into quite an uncharacteristic fervour, now standing in a similar fashion to how Naoto had, shooting up from a seated position, albeit less suddenly. Naoto himself wasn't sure how to think about all of this. He was cross about being done over by the strategy, of course, however he didn't want to make a fuss, or perhaps more presciently risk his seat by complaining quite as strongly as Tohdoh was.

As well, he wasn't anything like as self-assured as his sister had been when she confronted these team orders. In Naoto's eyes, her style had reached its natural culmination when she had battered Lelouch. Naoto was not nearly as confrontational, which was exacerbated by his internal fear of not being able to back up a potential request for priority with the pace that would be expected of a driver who was leading the team. Imposter syndrome or whatever, Naoto still didn't quite believe he was legitimately faster than Tohdoh.

However, while Naoto didn't believe in himself enough to assert himself, Tohdoh certainly did. Having calmed himself, the 2013 and 2014 world champion sighed and continued "I want this team to succeed, and it won't do that it we keep hamstringing the one driver doing a good job out there." "I don't know why I'm not on the pace. Maybe Naoto has gotten much better with his time spent away from the car, for which I can only congratulate him. I don't feel as if I'm much worse, which means that may well be the case. But for whatever reason, I'm not at the cutting edge of what can be extracted from this car. Our priority should go to the driver that is, not the driver who was when we were first teamed together."

Taizo laughed, responding "Are you saying you're now slow, that you've lost your touch? I don't believe that for a second."

"Or maybe Naoto's found his!" Tohdoh snarled. "I mean, for gods sake, form can ebb and flow. Kallen was okay in 2017, horrible in the first half of '18 and untouchable in the second half. The decision to make him the second driver was made before he'd turned a wheel, in both our first stint and our second. I won two titles for you, and you assumed I was at the peak. When Naoto arrived, you leapt straight to assuming he was less skilled than me, without any comparative testing. You did the same with Kallen, which was nearly one of the greatest missed opportunities of this generation, regardless of what you think of what ultimately came of her."

"How noble of you." sneered Taizo, sceptical about this entire enterprise. "So what, do you just want us to hand over the advantage to whoever's in front, and waste points? Favour him one day, you the next, and then him again and then you? There's no reason to what you're saying."

Tohdoh nearly exploded, at least if one judged by the colour of his face and his clenched fingers forming not-quite-fists. That being said, reactor four had just about been kept cool enough, and Tohdoh, tried to explain his thesis as calmly as he was able to.

"If you took the times Kallen finished in front of Lelouch and the times Lelouch finished in front of Kallen and added them together, you would have stomped the WDC last year. Kururugi wouldn't have had a chance. There's no issue I can see with favouring the faster driver with strategies once you're far enough into the season to work out who that is. But you went into this season already having chosen who you would favour, and aren't adjusting to the facts on the ground."

Taizo fell into something of a fluster, likely embarrassed at being contradicted by his lead driver, replying "What are you saying?"

"I'm sure Naoto will agree." Tohdoh responded firmly. "He's almost at twice my points, and while I will go hammer and tongs to get as many points as I can, right now Naoto is our best shot at the WDC, whether you, or me, or the sponsors, or Shinji from marketing likes it or not. If a team isn't adjusting its priorities and approach when the situation changes, that team is not going to win championships, and it's not a team I want to be a part of. "

Taizo looked absolutely terrified as he whispered "What… are you quitting?"

"No, but I want to be in a team that wins, which means a team that adapts quickly. Naoto has been faster. He's much closer to Xingke than I am. You hired him to be fast, now let him be fast."

The manager blinked several times, completely thrown off his momentum before clearing his throat awkwardly, trying to hurry past Tohdoh's berating of him by moving on to "Well, that is taken care of I suppose, unless Naoto has anything more to say. Do you?"

"No sir, I don't."

"Right. So, Rakshata, to the technical report."

The meeting carried on with something of a hush, as the entire room quietly returned to work, no one wanting to acknowledge what had happened. They left without exchanging goodbyes, as Naoto walked awkwardly down towards his trailer, not entirely willing to make eye contact with any of the people he passed, who could well be furious with him. However, he didn't find out before arriving at the trailer, before dipping his head into the sink to try and clear away the built up masses of sweat

He took a moment to look into the sink, however he was interrupted by a knocking on his door, followed by a faint voice explaining "It's Tohdoh."

Naoto sighed, before responding that he could come in. It was indeed Tohdoh, who made his way over to the side and sat on the stool opposite the sink. Tohdoh looked aside, before clearing his throat, taking the initiative, and starting the conversation.

"Hey there."

It wasn't much, but a little momentum could go a long way. Naoto looked up from the sink, and simply responded with a blunt "Evening."

"I could tell you didn't want to say that, so I thought I'd take the heat." Tohdoh nodded, before adopting a stern, almost fatherly look. "You should stand up for yourself."

"What are you, my sister?" Naoto chuckled, though he was only smiling on the surface. Naoto inside was terrified. For half a decade, Naoto had watched Tohdoh eat the grid alive with a muscular grouchiness, and upon arriving, this message had been explicitly reinforced. There was a clear message; Naoto was not as good as Tohdoh. Shaking his head, he allowed his smile to fade, before he finally opened up.

"I'm not… I haven't won titles, you did. Why did you say those things about me? Why did you puff me up? You were the one who stood to gain?"

"That last part is easy." Tohdoh immediately responded. "I want the team to do well. I don't much mind who's making them do well, just so long as it's done. If I can lead the charge, I'm over the moon. If I'm needed to play second fiddle to safeguard it, then I'll be the best number two in the world. The team is bigger than me, and I can't be selfish."

As Naoto basked in what was pretty unambiguous selflessness, which was definitely a first for Tohdoh as far as Naoto had observed and leant towards the conclusion that the decision to prioritise Tohdoh came far more from Taizo than the driver himself, Tohdoh continued "As to why I believe you could do it… well let's look back. You did one year at Densō-Sakura, a backmarker team, and were seriously impressive given the machinery you had under you. They wouldn't have hired you if you weren't impressive. Then, as soon as you were hired here, you were immediately the second driver. You haven't won a title because you haven't had the chance to, the team hasn't allowed it."

Naoto frowned at the floor. Doubtless, it wasn't just him that had been affected by Kallen's stint at Rebellion; doubtless, being thrown off his perch would be quite humbling, and the time away might have contributed to a less self-centred view of the team. In either case, Tohdoh continued "But the thing is, for whatever reason, you have had the measure of me this year, and our WDC, if we're to fight for it… it lies in your hands now."

So no pressure then, Naoto chuckled internally. He tried to breathe out, however the air came out shaky. Could he live up to the trust that was being placed in him? God, Naoto wished he could be an ounce more confident in saying yes than he was.

Tohdoh didn't seem to notice this however, as he continued "Though I must ask… why are you faster? Where have you found the pace? You're a much better driver now."

Naoto didn't answer initially, only able to stare back for a good ten seconds, before having to look away, hiding a self-directed cringe. Now that it was all laid out, he knew why, and it was grossly pathetic, not befitting a driver at this level, let alone one charged with leading the teams hunt for a title.

God he was so weak.

"I… I didn't know I could. I was just so dispirited. As I became your teammate, I didn't, couldn't believe that I was as good as you, could challenge you. It became self-fulfilling, and I just internalised it. I just internalised that I was the number two driver, that I was to toe the line and support your fight. I stopped enjoying it, I was just so discouraged, I never reached anything close to that first season again. I never believed I could. I would have quit if I hadn't needed to support Kallen. Although look where that ended us, heh."

Tohdoh looked horrified, whispering in sudden realisation "Oh god, why didn't you say something?"

"What good would that have done?" Naoto replied, snapping back and for the first time losing his patience. "Rebellion realises they've got a mental case on their hands and drop me like I'm hot water? I couldn't…"

Tohdoh paused to allow Naoto to shake his head, and gather himself into some more appropriate shape than a shaking mess, before asking "Why did you come back?"

"I don't know. Maybe I'm a masochist, heh."

But Naoto did know. As much as he despised Kallen now, wished her nothing but the worst of fortunes for what she had done on such a mild provocation, he couldn't deny reality. Seeing Kallen make Tohdoh bleed on track, beating him over a season with two less races, it did present Tohdoh as less of an unbeatable titan, revealing him to be vulnerable to attack given a certain set of inputs. It defeated the illusion of the Tohdoh that was beyond reach, and presented a new one of him being within reach, whether that was ultimately true or not.

Kallen had shown the way, whether he liked it or not. But, while he couldn't deny reality, he didn't have to admit it openly either.

"So what are you going to do?"

Naoto sighed and looked down. No. He didn't have Kallen's verve. He couldn't match what she had done, let alone what Tohdoh had done. He let out a sigh, before confessing the truth.

"I'm not as fast as you, Tohdoh. I'm so sorry, I'm just not. I've lucked into the results I've had this season, I'm… I'm sorry to let you down, the team down, you've just put all this on me, and… I'm not as fast as you. I'm not the one who should be leading this team, I'm not good enough."

Tohdoh, for some reason, chuckled at this, nodding "No, you're not as fast as me."

Naoto's head snapped back up, eyes blinking furiously as Tohdoh moved towards the door, pulling out a cigarette to get a bit of relief once he left. As he opened it, he looked back and smiled.

"You had an emotional handicap when we first matched up, and I was only just ahead of you. Right now? With a bit of confidence, and the team properly behind you? You're not just as fast as me, no chance. You're even faster."

Tohdoh's words, whether true or not, seemed to have borne fruit, as in the Canadian Grand Prix Naoto managed to qualify his Rebellion on the front row, qualifying four tenths behind Xingke to start second, and retained that position from lights to flag, getting his highest finish of the season so far in retaining that second. From his perspective, it had been a dull race; the importance of traction zones out of turns two and ten out of the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve meant that Xingke's tyre advantage contributed to him falling behind, and yet the car was agile enough through the chicanes, particularly that of thirteen and fourteen, to not be troubled by the chasing pack. However, the stranglehold on the podium held by Xingke, Gino and Naoto, having occurred in three out of five previous races, was unsettled, with Gino being displaced by his teammate Kallen, who took up the bottom step in third.

The Rebellions, with their first major upgrades of the year, finished fourth and fifth, Suzaku from Rolo, for their highest cumulative points score in a single race since their incorporation as they picked up twelve and ten respectively. Gino had been running fourth for a time, until he had a blowout that dropped him to sixth as he pitted. It took all his skill to not slam into the wall out of turn nine, which raised concerns about tyre safety once again.

These discussions were not dampened by the next race in Austria.

It started off reasonably well; it was an all Kōzuki front row, Kallen from Naoto, with Xingke having to be satisfied with third, as the track was far shorter and faster, with throttle modulation and acceleration being far more important out of the incredibly short radius corners, as opposed to the long radius corners that could not be taken flat out where Xingke made up the bulk of his time over the competition. For the first twenty laps, Kallen managed to hold off the attack from behind, however the nature of the track was such that slipstream and DRS mania was the order of the day, as they switched and swapped places, as stuck together as glue.

And then Kallen's tyre blew up.

It was not undramatic either; her front left would have given a hand grenade a run for its money in both the fragmentation of the rubber and terrifying bang. Helpless, Kallen could only brace for the wall out of turn eight, pressing her crossed arms over her chest as her nose streaked into the Armco at racing speed. She was unharmed, protected by the safety cell, however what nobody realised was that this was just the start.

The next to bite the dust was Kyoshiro Tohdoh, losing his right rear tyre and spinning uncontrollably off the track and lodging his rear spoiler into the tyre barrier after turn four. However, it was not until Xingke lost his front left out of nine and flew over the sausage kerbs as he speared out of the grip limited double apex set of downhill, cambered corners, running headlong into the Armco past turn ten barely twenty meters from where Kallen's car came to its final resting place that the first safety car was brought out to bring order to the track and extract the stranded cars.

It would not be the last safety car.

With both Xingke and Kallen out, Naoto looked set to win the race, being the only car left with the pace of the front runners, which would confirm Tohdoh's faith in him. However, while the Asian's faith in Naoto's driving may or may not have been well founded, his faith in Naoto's tyres was a bit optimistic, as they blew out with twenty laps to go, twelve laps after they had first been strapped on.

With Naoto stuck in the turn four Armco, another safety car was called out to ensure that the marshals could retrieve the car. However, even this reduced pace did not save the tyres, as the lead car of Suzaku would discover, after watching his front right tyres self-destruct at what was practically walking pace. This would force him to pit just as the pack had bunched up, and would drop him to stone dead last.

This promoted Albert Darlton to the lead of the race, and given how many retirements had been happening, teams were taking no chances, pitting almost every ten laps to ensure no sudden failures. However, even this caution was not enough to save Albert Darlton from crashing out of the lead with a tyre failure, nor Luciano Bradley or Shinichiro Tamaki, as they all had sudden delaminations which prematurely ended their race. The upshot of which was that Gino Weinberg, on an eight stop strategy, won the race, stopping an average of once every nine laps. Second, earning Schwarzenritters first podium, was Rolo Lamperouge, a podium which was celebrated as if the team had won the world championship.

These were the only two drivers to finish on the lead lap. While Suzaku's efforts were noble, he was only able to climb from fifteenth to eleventh, out of twelve finishers. While it wasn't as bad as Hungary had been the previous year, clearly something was amiss, with Schwarzenritter being the only team to celebrate much of anything. Even Gino looked displeased at what had been a farcical race, complaining in post race interviews that the tyre manufacturers had "completely lost the plot".

While a meeting of the GPDA was scheduled immediately to determine where the drivers union stood on this, the championship implications were dramatic. Gino, with his first win of the year, took the lions share of the points, leaping up to one hundred and seventeen, putting him far ahead of Naoto's seventy three and within twenty six points of Xingke's hundred and forty three point total. Rolo, with his second place, was the only other major driver to make a big stride, moving from forty six to sixty four, which put him within six points of Kallen's seventy point tally.

So at this stage, it was Xingke leading at a hundred and forty three, ahead of Mister Consistent Gino Weinberg, who had been on the podium in every race except Canada, where he was sixth. He was at a hundred and seventeen, from Naoto at seventy three, from Kallen at seventy, from Rolo at sixty four, from Suzaku at forty four, which cemented this as an undeniably dismal title defence from the champion so far.

~G1ll3s