OK Number 52 - Bat Out Of Hell

"Now, as we begin the count up to five red lights it's Kōzuki, from the older Kōzuki, from Tohdoh from Kururugi from Lamperouge from Weinberg. Four red lights, to the British Grand Prix, five lights… and they are out and the race is green, and it's a great start from Kōzuki- erm, Kallen, not Naoto, who wheelspins a bit, but not as badly as Tohdoh, who normally loves this track but he is just swallowed up immediately, as Gino has a good getaway, Naoto can only thank his lucky stars as they all ride into turn one that his teammate also had a bad start, or else Suzaku would have gotten the pair of them!"

Diethard took a breath, allowing Jeremiah to take over excitedly, as he contemplated the potential divergences in strategies arising from the legal quirk that had arisen.

"I mean, what do you do if you're in the 2019 spec cars? You have such an immense pace advantage over the 2018 cars, even with the tyre wear. Do you go easy and nurse the tyres, running just ahead of the 2018 cars and hope you can go tit for tat with the stops, or… or do you just shrug and go hell for leather?"

Diethard smirked, before stating the obvious, replying "Well we know what Kallen's doing, she's already built up a few seconds advantage over Naoto. We can see, she is not waiting around, she is just pinning it, just yelling 'Go go go go go!', but just remember, whenever she builds up a gap, she'll have to stop again, and again, losing a lot of time while everyone else can stop a few less times. Who will win, tortoise or hare? I can't wait to find out, but it's Kallen, from Naoto from Xingke, from Suzaku from Gino from Rolo. Championship leader Li Xingke is down in ninth, this was his worst qualifying all year. Was it the rain or the new tyres? We'll find out, as Kallen comes around to complete the first lap and we go onboard."

The camera switched to an onboard shot of Kallen busy hustling the car along, and Diethard was surprised. Her movements were not flighty, or light; they were firm, definite, with made with force into the wheel with an affirmative intent. It was definitely still snappy, the wheel never still or static, barely going a moment without microadjustments, but they seemed far more… solid. They were done with purpose, the result of a positive decision as opposed to animal instinct, or a trained instinct. It was conscious, and more importantly, it was fast, visibly fast.

"Jeremiah, look, she's now just over two seconds ahead of Naoto after just one lap. She's flying."

"She may be flying, but what's that doing to her tyres? We came into this weekend worried about tyres, and now we're going to see how far Kallen can get on them. It's a fifty two lap race; how far will she get on this level of aggression with this car?"

The answer was not very far. In fact, as Kallen was storming up on the end of lap nine, the Camelot crew were already assembling, ready to receive her. Skipping Vale, she straightlined the chicane and entered the shortest pitlane on the calendar, which cut out the last and first corners. If there was anywhere a strategy like this would work, it was at Silverstone.

"Of course… big, multi stop strategies have worked for Kallen before at this track, she's won here twice and on the both times she stopped three times over the race distance so… I mean, it could be on."

Absorbing Jeremiah's point, Diethard pointed out "Well, she'd need to maintain this pace. She's maybe twelve, thirteen seconds ahead of the big gaggle of cars, and it's eighteen to twenty seconds to stop. Her team seem to be preparing for a stop so… I don't know. She's going to have a lot of overtaking to do to get back into first after this stop, and then pull out a big enough gap to stop again. As well, if she's stopping this early… it's only lap ten… could she be trying the three stop?"

"She might even be trying the four stopper. If she's making her first stop on lap ten from softs to softs, lap twenty stop a second time for softs, lap thirty a third time, and then lap forty stop for mediums. It's… I mean it's ballsy and aggressive, two words that we do associate with the redhead, but wow, that would be something."

In either case, in to the box, soft tyres off, new softs on, and away. Jeremiah watched as she rejoined the track, narrating the scene.

"And we're watching the pit lane exit now and where it blends into Farm. Naoto has already gone past, there is Tohdoh. Gino passed Suzaku last lap, and they're coming through Farm line of stern. Then a gap, and then it's Rolo, Bradley, Darlton, and there's Kallen just as Nu comes through Abbey. Kallen's ahead, but Nu has far more speed, and on the run up to Village it is advantage Villetta, who has sped past and puts Kallen down into ninth as they slowww through the hairpin, Kallen has closed right up. She could just brake so much later, she was thirty meters back on the entry and now she's sitting on Nu's diffuser as she follows the South African onto the Wellington straight."

They both watched as Kallen pulled out of the slipstream and moved alongside, having picked up far better traction from the slow bottleneck and now having the overspeed to move past on the inside before the next braking zone, and Diethard quipped "I don't think… I don't think Nu will fight that one too hard."

"No, that's not really a fight she's in, she's just running her own race, and Kallen can just put on the anchors so much later. Her fresh tyres make her orders of magnitude faster, especially given that they're soft. It's worth noting that by the time she'd pitted, she had been pushing for nine laps and had built up something like a twelve second lead. Now she's on pristine tyres, fresh as a daisy, and soft, while most of the people around her are on mediums which are well into adolescence. She is going to be a hot knife through butter, there's no doubt, but will it be fast enough? Can she get back to first and build a gap again before these tyres lose their sheen?"

"The one thing she has going for is that she will always be on fresh tyres, or at least fresher tyres than the people around her." Diethard defended. "While other drivers will have to nurse tyres, she'll be pushing, and while other drivers will be lapping on stale rubber, she will be spending most of her race on tyres fit for a quali session. She will lose a lot of time in the pits, but she will have blistering pace compared to the folks around her. Her tyres will never be more than maybe ten laps old at any point, while other people will be taking tyres over twenty five laps through this race trying to make a two stop work."

Kallen, now in the clear air before the gaggling pack of Rolo, Darlton and Bradley, stuck together like superglue, closed up with thundering pace, gaining almost three seconds in a lap as they fought side by side, losing more and more time.

As Rolo and Darlton went side by side through Becketts and Chapel, holding up Bradley who was stuck behind them, Kallen was able to close right up, and get a monstrous exit. With Bradley having to hold off the throttle until Rolo and Darlton had reached a stage in the corner where they could accelerate in tandem, whereas Kallen could pin it as soon as she cleared the apex.

With a vastly superior exit speed, Kallen swept up Bradley like she was wielding a hoover, and was closing up at a rate of knots to the duelling Rolo and Darlton, too preoccupied with each other to notice the looming Camelot.

Rolo had just about squeezed ahead, finally returning them to single file which was normally required for the high speed Stowe corner.

Normally.

What they had not been expecting was a moody Kallen, on fresh soft tyres, armed with a 2019 spec chassis and driving it like she had stolen it. In a move which sent the commentary booth roaring, Kallen fully sent the car around the outside of Stowe, barely lifting as the two cars head comparably stood still, trying to conserve their tyres while Kallen actively tried to burn them. Sitting on the limit of traction, it almost made the brain hurt to watch the car so easily change direction with the perfect storm of driver, car and tyre.

"Ahaha!" Jeremiah screeched. "Absolutely amazing scenes! Sweeping past them, going the long way around, going the dirtier way around, it's incredible. Kallen just had no fear, sent it without hesitation. Just goes to show the difference in the grip in the tyres, the difference in the level of grip they were willing to extract from the tyres, and just the commitment. Incredible."

By this stage, it was approaching lap sixteen or seventeen, and the 2019 runners were now approaching the end of their tyres, painstakingly preserved though they may have been. This now swung the axis from the 2019 runners who were being conservative to the 2018 cars, though Kallen was still an unknown quantity, who took the lead as the frontrunners of Naoto, Tohdoh, and Suzaku pitted for the first time. However, Kallen would have to pit on lap twenty, which would put her not only well into the clutches of that male Japanese trio, but also the people who had not stopped yet, and would not be stopping until perhaps lap twenty five or thirty; the 2018 cars, who were much slower, but were not losing twenty seconds every ten or fifteen laps. As the laps counted by, the two men in the booth grew increasingly excited at the race ahead. Kallen was fastest, but would lose the most time. The Schwarzenritters and the Rebellions would be somewhere in between, while the others such as Gino would attempt to outlast the other cars, playing the tortoise to Kallen's hare.

"So, recap. It's nineteen laps past just now as Kallen just roars up the main straight, fully pinned, fully committed. Look at her, look at her, the back almost steps out-"

"Yeah, she is pushing like the clappers through Abbey, full throttle corner, full opposite lock to keep the car in check. Her tyres might be approaching their use by date, but Kallen is determined to wring every bit of grip she can out of their necks. She is visibly giving it everything, but the rubber must surely be getting hot. She only made ten laps on the first set of softs, so I would imagine she'll be stopping at the end of this lap. She'll be pitting from the lead, but where will she come out? She was a few seconds behind Suzaku, Tohdoh and Naoto before they pitted, and where will she come out once she's pitted? Will their fresh tyres have helped them extend the gap, or will Kallen's banzai driving have actually helped close it? She's, she's coming in, she's pitting! Now, where is Naoto?"

They watched the pit straight out of Club corner on tenterhooks, as Kallen broke into the pit box and allowed the crew to slip off the four well done steaks from her axles and slam on bloody rare cuts, barely a few moments off the cow before Kallen slammed the car out of the garage. However, as she rushed the car towards the end of the pit lane, the three other Japanese leaders loomed large.

"There they are, there they are!"

However, Kallen could skip the first corner, and as they were moving though Abbey, Kallen emerged on the right hand side of the Farm curve. It was amazing; she had spent twenty seconds longer in the pits than the Tohdoh-Naoto-Suzaku bloc, and yet she had come out just a few seconds ahead. On track, she had put in times almost a second a lap faster than those three, again, by virtue of her fresher and softer tyres. Diethard was dumbfounded.

"I think… I think she might win this…"

However, Jeremiah was sceptical. "She has just put on a third set of softs, that will only take her to lap thirty. Either she puts on hards on lap thirty, or she's doing a four stop, and it would take something special to pull that off, especially versus the competition. The other 2019 spec chassis all went from mediums to hards, and I assume they'll be taking another set of hards to the end, and the 2018 runners are a long way up the road. I can't see her winning unless she keeps up this level of intensity from lights to flag, which… well that would be a feat of stamina and concentration. She can't afford a single mistake."

However, as Kallen thundered down the track, it didn't seem as if any slip was soon in coming, as she continued the onslaught forwards, leaning on the tyres she knew would be fresher and grippier than those around her. With softer tyres than the Japanese men behind her, Kallen was now on the hunt for the cars ahead, stalking them like a cheetah might chase down its victims. Gino. Bradley. Darlton. Rolo. Nu.

"Kallen, now crosses the line, her first flying lap since she made… what was that, her second pit stop for softs, sets a one twenty six three, smashes the lap record, which is just going to tumble down as her fuel load slowly depletes and she keeps changing to fresh tyres. She is fully switched on, and wants to catch the 2018 cars by any means necessary."

A pause, and then "Well, Jeremiah I do think it's happening as she's reeling them in by a few seconds. The tyre's these 2018 cars are running, though Rolo is in a 2019 chassis, have been on them since the start of the race, they're trying to make the one stop work and the tyres are now looking decidedly second hand. Kallen's on fresher rubber, she's on softer rubber, and she's in a faster car, a much faster car, and I think it's just a matter of time as they fall into Brooklands, watch that brake marker."

Indeed, Kallen was now so close, within the same camera shot even, that Diethard could watch and compare how late the leading cars broke to how late Kallen broke. She just had such faith in that car, it was her rock, her parachute, which bled off the speed before she hit the ground and turned in, having made up almost half a dozen car lengths in one braking zone.

"Absolutely incredible, she's almost on them as they all ride through Luffield, now a gang of five has become a gang of six, but I don't know how long it's going to stay a gang of six as Kallen gets far better traction out the loooong Luffield, you need to hold the car, hold the car until it's ready, and unleash! It's a good exit for Kōzuki, it's a great exit for Kōzuki as she… she pulls alongside Nu in the outside of Woodcote, it's side by side into Copse, they're not going to take Copse side by side are they? Not at full throttle, surely?"

They were, and Diethard almost had to close his eyes, unable to watch, as Kallen carried the speed and the grip around the outside of the corner, which was just barely flat out even on the conventional line if God decided he was going to be nice to you today.

And Diethard didn't hear Kallen lift.

Jeremiah meanwhile was not fretful, he was ecstatic, jumping up and down as Kallen kept the throttle pinned and bullied her way into the space of track on the exit of the corner, such was her overspeed on "She just drove around the outside like she was in the overtaking lane on the motorway, it was so casual, that confidence she has in the chassis and the tyres. She just breezed around the outside like Nu was standing still! Incredible! She doesn't fear anyone, or anything!"

That set the tone, as Kallen had a chassis which was roughly a second a lap faster, tyres an entire compound softer, and twenty three laps younger. She hounded them through Maggots, set up a wider line through Becketts so that she could cut in and move around the outside of Chapel, blocking off the best run, and giving her the best start of the two immediately in front of her, and sure enough, she had the grip to finish the move before they even reached Stowe, which ultimately amounted to the final nail in the coffin. Bradley came the next lap, into Village, with Gino intentionally moving aside so as not to obstruct her. He may be the first driver, but they were on different strategies, and under no circumstances could either be allowed to hold the other up.

Now, Kallen had the lead again. Diethard noted that all the one stopping 2018 cars she had just breezed past would make that one stop on lap twenty six, which was only a few laps after Kallen passed them. Kallen now had an entire pit stops advantage over them, and to win out over them at the end of the race, would only need to get twenty seconds in twenty six laps, which given the car was quite a bit less of a challenge than it sounded, so long as Kallen sustained the otherworldly pace.

And so, the focus shifted back to the other 2019 cars. Rolo was effectively out of contention for the win, and so it was a question of how big a gap could Kallen pull out over the Japanese trio. Like the drivers of the 2018 chassis had done to accomplish the one stop, their conservative strategy necessitated one more pit stop to complete the two stop. Kallen would also have to pit on lap thirty, which was deficit neutral, however now it looked inevitable she would end the race on mediums following a fourth stop, and lose twenty seconds. However, she only had a few seconds in hand as she went to pit for the third time.

Kallen silently came to a realisation; she would have to overtake Suzaku, Tohdoh, and Naoto to win after her last pit stop. She wouldn't even be able to abuse her far faster chassis and aerodynamics, which the three drivers ahead shared with her; the only advantage she would have, again, would be fresher tyres.

This was going to be lairy.

Kallen took a deep breath, before unleashing the spring again out of Luffield. She had not backed off of full tilt since the five red lights had faded, and she didn't intend on starting now. She would not build up a big enough gap in this penultimate ten lap dash; she could just try and reduce the work she would have to do in the last stint as much as she could.

And so, she just held her breath, and pushed, and like it had done at Monaco, the circuit seemed to fall into a ribbon, an open air tunnel through which she was a bullet train glued to the road no matter how hard she tried to unstick it, no matter how much lateral force she tried to force through the canvas. The car was strawweight, with most of the fuel having burned off, and so it was stickier, it changed direction like a moth, and Kallen was in her element. She could have driven like this for weeks if tyres and fitness permitted, but the tyres were to never be allowed to overheat if this strategy were to work, and Kallen was actually getting tired, such was the intensity with which she had been charging, like a dog at the races, like a bull at a matador, she saw the red of her pit light, saw the white of the medium tyres which would take her to the finish, and saw, on her steering wheel, the magic number.

Forty. Twelve laps to blitzkrieg this circuit, overtake three cars, and win the race.

Piece of cake.

While this creed was silently sneered in irony at how casually she contemplated such a feat, there was a genuine element. She believed in herself, which was all she needed.

Well, almost. While she was confident self-belief would seal the day, she always felt more comfortable with a bit of insurance. During her third stint, the three amigos of Suzaku, Tohdoh and Naoto had stopped for the last time, five laps before Kallen had. With how fast the tyres were wearing on the 2019 chassis, five laps could make the difference.

Holding nothing back, Kallen felt a charge, a surge of energy as she contemplated the excitement ahead, just as she caught view of the rear spoiler of the Rebellion of Tohdoh, streaking out of view.

She licked her lips, set her internal compass, and leant her head down, looking up through her brow as her head was buffeted. She had the pace to win, and with perhaps six laps to go the battle was joined.

Kallen cackled madly as she first felt her helmet cloud up with the heat and oil from Tohdoh's car. She was close, she was so close, so close she could see Tohdoh's suspension rise and fall, extend and compress as the tyres loaded up and were relieved as the mass shifted from the front under braking, to the side under turning, to the back under acceleration, and she could see the tyres themselves, in incredible detail.

And they were graining, heavily.

With a sharklike grin, Kallen finally struck. With far fresher tyres, and with a far greater willingness to lean into and take chunks out of them, she placed her car on the inside on the entry to Maggots, forcing Tohdoh to lift off and surrender the position. Kallen couldn't even take a moment of satisfaction, as she was a very hungry caterpillar, and, after eating Tohdoh, she was still hungry.

With three laps to go, she sized up Suzaku, whose squat Schwarzenritter shared Tohdoh's tyre wear. She was still fighting, still looking for any moment of weakness, and she seized it coming up into Stowe, hollering her soul into the kerb as she committed every inch of vocal chord she could muster into clearing around the outside, braking as late as she dared, even unsure herself whether she would make it, but she did, it was through, but it was not enough.

The last lap was about to start, and the very hungry caterpillar wanted another meal.

Ride the kerb like a skateboard through Abbey. Watch Naoto be defensive through Farm, and again into Village, be wise to it and try to make the outside line work as he shallowed the angle for himself in an attempt to block her off. However, he just about moved his car from apex to the far side of the track in the right way to block her off, neutralising her exit onto Wellington. Only a few corners to go until the chequered, and Kallen gritted her already gritted teeth. Out of Luffield, watch Naoto's blistered, pathetic rubber, perhaps only a meter away from her face, shred itself to pieces trying to find some desperate purchase. Fake to the inside, then move to the right, before Kallen took a deep breath and kept the throttle pinned around the outside of Copse.

Naoto likely hadn't expected Kallen to have enough tyre life to do it, and likely had little tyre life himself to defend, and so he was helpless as Kallen made the pass, made the final pass, was helpless as Kallen streaked ahead, jubilant, ecstatic, euphoric, on the verge of exploding, around the last corner to win the British Grand Prix!

Kallen's first words were not safe for work. Then came a pause, and then her second words were shouted through the radio, similarly not safe for work.

A series of celebratory expletives followed from her race engineer. The reply from Kallen was not safe for work. The race engineer laughed, before Kallen continued to roar swears, this time in Japanese, as she waved her arms up, banged her head and continued to hoot and roar. It felt orgasmic, and more important than that, earned. She couldn't take it anymore, and, too excited to drive all the way back around, parked the car on the left hand side of Abbey and jumped off the nose, before running up to the crowd stands and going over to embrace the crowd with the Japanese flags. She fist pumped, she jumped, she did anything to empty this adrenalin from her body.

Kallen had been asked many times over the last six months what it was she wanted, why she raced. Winning was nice, but it was somehow more straightforward than that; pushing, the pleasure of driving on the limit, driving as fast as she possibly could for an entire race. No conserving fuel, no conserving tyres, just a two hour sprint race, with short, lightning stints of her just attacking the track as fast as was mechanically possible.

A race like that. To more races like that, amen. Bloody amen.

"The scenes were quite incredible; an all Japanese podium, the second one of the year after Canada, with more Hinomaru than Union Jacks in the capacity crowd, with the noise of air horns louder than the cars as the throngs of fans cheered. A victory then, not only for Kallen, but for the endeavour of racing as being that essence Gilles Villeneuve described; charging, all the time. It was also a victory for Camelot at home, which caused the factory to celebrate until the wee hours of Monday morning. Kallen was delighted, being seen to partake in the celebrations, and saying this to our interviewer after the race in Japanese, subtitled for your benefit."

"I feel… Peace. Like… the whole weight of everything has just gone, boof. I don't think I left anything out on track, you can go back on check if you want to, I'm certainly to tired to. But, yeah… just the sense of… victory. That was my best race, my most complete race that I've done so far. If I were to be forced into retirement tomorrow, I'd look at today and just say 'Yea, it was worth it, all of it, to be able to do that, even just the once.' To have a race like that… races like that are why I do this. It's such a feeling of… just calm, washing over you."

"This joy was shared with her brother, who here answered a question about whether he ever expected to be racing again after Japan, let alone to be doing so well."

"Did I expect… no I didn't. I tend to take doctors at their word, and when they said I'd never drive again… I did believe them. But I would have use of my legs, and so I just tried to build them up, slowly, by the end of 2017 I was in a good place with the strength, and I spent most of 2018 nailing down the precision. I still do need a crutch from time to time but that's more for the knee than the ankle. But… I didn't ever believe it could happen until… maybe halfway through last year, and even then it was always… nah, that couldn't happen. I'm still not quite over the fact that I'm back, not just back but doing well, from 'You'll never drive again' to 'You're driving faster than a two time world champion.' I'm still in shock."

"In terms of points, Xingke drove from ninth to sixth getting him eight points, moving his tally to one hundred and fifty one. In second in the standings remains Gino Weinberg, finishing in fourth, the highest of any of the 2018 chassis. He sits on one hundred and twenty nine points. In fourth and fifth are the siblings of Kallen and Naoto Kōzuki, just four points apart with ninety five and ninety one points respectively, having finished the race first and second in that order. Just behind is Rolo Lamperouge with seventy four points, fifteen ahead of the reigning champion Suzaku, who in spite of getting his first podium of the season sits on only fifty nine points and a lot of questions. The next race was in Mogyoród, held since before the end of the Cold War; Hungary, with Xingke fading, the Schwarzenritters seeming to rise, and, with brand new tyres, the championship being blown wide open."

"And so it was, though few expected the race that emerged. Kallen looked a shoo in to win from Pole, however there was a hitch. With rain on Friday, and the track so waterlogged on Saturday that Qualifying had to be moved to the Sunday morning, no one had any idea of how much fuel would be needed to make the end of the race. With ten laps to go, Kallen received urgent instructions to conserve fuel at any cost, even position, as they had vastly underestimated consumption. The second placed Tohdoh overtook, before running out of fuel himself and not finishing, while Kallen at least salvaged fifth with heavy fuel saving measures. Kallen's team mate, Gino, looked set to win after the leaders all started to fade, however he then ran out of fuel as well. But the winner, moving from fourth to first on track, and on the top step of the podium for the first time in two years, was Naoto Kōzuki, and to say that he was happy would be an understatement. However, his joy was short lived."

Dun dun duuuuun! What transpires in Hungary? Find out next week, and, in these trying times, a review, much like an egg, is always appreciated.

~G1ll3s