OK Number 56 - Battle Again
However, once affairs such as marathons and upper management were finished, attention returned immediately to the race ahead. The drivers gathered briefly before the national anthem of Belgium to acknowledge Tohdoh, and wish him well in his recovery before they rushed to their cars for the start.
With the freeze on development over the break enforced by the FIA for cost saving, the teams went into the weekend at the Circuit de Spa Francorchamps with the same fundamental choice, between 2018 and 2019 chassis. In the wake of Kallen's success in Britain, her proximity to success at Hungary, and the fact that the car which had stolen the win, her brother Naoto's, was also running a 2019 chassis, Geely, Vanwall and Lancer were switching back to the new chassis, with the expectation that a late season update around Japan or Korea would solve the tyre challenge.
And so, while Kallen sat on Pole position for the sixth time this season and the sixteenth time in her career, as she looked up to the two, three, four, five red lights, she knew she would have it all to do to keep it.
Eyes shut, and she flexed her fingers around the steering wheel. They were still rubbery, painful to move, however she was not thinking about this. She was not thinking about anything. She was thinking about the first, dipping hairpin of La Source, riding the camber up to Eau Rouge and Raidillon, rising ten stories to brake into Les Combes.
And the last light was… out!
It was a good start, with minimal traction losses, however Kallen could only watch as behind her, Naoto and Gino dove to the inside. Naoto was close enough to brake later and pull off the move, slipping into that section of road that grooved in towards the apex and slingshotting around, getting ahead and leading the race, just as he had had to lead his team.
Certainly, he seemed to be doing just that as he led the pack up to the spine tingling Eau Rouge.
Kallen meanwhile, was battling with Gino, who had taken a similarly inside line to Naoto and they were now side by side on the approach to the flat out corner, grip limited and with extreme elevation.
And Gino had the far better line.
At some point, Kallen had to surrender the position, or else they would crash, and so from Pole she crossed the end of the first sector of the first lap in third. However, after the heavy braking zone in Les Combes, there were few opportunities to pass more as a function of the fast, undulating curves than the narrowness of the track itself, with its more smooth flow definitely not gelling with Kallen's 'point and squirt' attitude. However, she kept harrying Gino through Pouhon and Blanchimont, not quite close enough to try and force an error, but a constant reminder, a constant presence, and sure enough, he did make a mistake into the bus stop chicane, locking up his front right tyre and significantly losing retardation into the slowest complex on the circuit, allowing Kallen to nip up the inside and reclaim second place. With Naoto having built a slight gap, it was now time for Kallen, no longer hamstrung with the need to avoid hitting her teammate, to put the hammer down.
The two second gap to Naoto at the beginning of lap two had fallen to just half a second by lap five's inception, however as Kallen set up a move out of Raidillon and over the long Kemmel straight, her sterring wheel lit up yellow, as her radio chatter explained.
"Safety car is out, full course caution. There's an Ashford, Rai Lubie, stopped at La Source, we think it's engine related."
Kallen breathed briefly through her nose, before barking into her radio.
"I'm going to pit for mediums, pitting for mediums at the end of this lap."
The two stop of softs to mediums to mediums would be too slow, and require too much conservation. Kallen knew from free practice that the strategy of softs to mediums to hards, even if it was possible on this track in the 2019 cars due to the light tyre wear of Spa, was painfully slow, with the hard tyre emphatically not being up to the task of delivering the pace. Even if drivers would not have to conserve as much and be more able to push to the limit of their tyres' potential, there was only so much you could polish a turd.
If the race had allowed, she would have stayed on the only tyre she felt had any pace or grip, those being the soft, for all forty four laps, however rules required her to use at least two different compounds, and so she would take this chance to pull off the bandage and get the medium compound out of the way. Into the box, a slick stop onto mediums, and release, funnelling out in seventeenth. While it did look bad, the lap was so long and the safety car had been so early as to have the pack already bunched up quite close. Once the front runners made their stops under green flag running, she would be in a good place.
Moreover, because the lap was so long, it only took one more full rotation for the lights on top of the safety car to go out, and for the pack to get ready. Kallen kept behind the car ahead, that of Shinichiro Tamaki, as she was required to, but she made no secret of keeping immediately behind him, sitting on his rear diffuser and ready to pounce as soon as she was let out of her cage, which was as soon as she cleared the Bus Stop chicane.
Snarling and hissing, her car shot out, leaping over Tamaki's Denso and diving to the inside just like Naoto had on lap one, and began lap eight already charging back up the field. Getting the tow up Eau Rouge, Kallen then carried the overspeed to Les Combes and, with the benefit of the slipstream of a whole gaggle of cars, was able to slip up the inside of another before the braking zone
For the next seven laps, as the closed up gaggle, bunched up by the safety car, fought away, Kallen was at liberty to pick her way through them, especially as they slowed each other by going two wide into corners and compromising their exits, leaving them easy prey for Kallen, who had not been compromised, to just breeze past. By lap fourteen, she had crawled her way back up to tenth, with the tenth placed man, Luciano Bradley, being true to form; rather troublesome, weaving across the width of the track.
However, she dispatched of him around the outside of the first part of the Bus Stop, which let her skirt up and hog the inside for the second part of the right-left chicane, and now, as they crossed over into lap fifteen, people who started on the mediums were now pitting.
With the pack still relatively bunched after the safety car, and the green flag meaning that pit stops were more costly than under full course caution, she grinned from ear to ear as the position indicator on her wheel shot from ten, nine, seven, and six to finish it off.
This had seen the cadre of drivers who started on mediums and would be ending on hards now having completed their only stop. With a softer tyre than everyone who had not yet stopped, the rest of the people ahead having started on the hards, it would be a happy hour ahead as she closed in, now in clean air for the first time all race and finally able to stretch her legs.
Immediately, like Suzaku had done in the marathon, she immediately ramped up the pace, now having the freedom to take many corners flat out, particularly in the third sector, where being around and close to other cars would have prevented her from doing that. Such was the pace difference between the mediums and the hards that she was up into second place by lap twenty three, when another radio message came up.
"Another safety car, big crash up Raidillon, three cars involved."
"Okay, box now. I'm going onto softs."
There was a pause, before the engineer asked again "Are you sure?"
"Just have the softs ready."
And so, with the pack at a reduced pace, Kallen dove into the position, hoping her hunch was right as she committed to the three stop.
The softs, at least in the style Kallen drove them, would not make it to the end without losing extreme pace. However, the medium, while better than the hard, was still a disproportionally slow tyre against the benefit of one fewer stop. It was better to do two softs than one medium, and she would spend far more of her time on tyres that were much younger as all the people around her were hustling aging rubber.
At least, that was the theory. Kallen could only hope it would pay off, as she filed out of the pits, trying to get a sense of where she was, and, as it turned out, ninth was the number, with many of the people starting on the hards having stopped at the same time as Kallen to switch over to mediums, meaning she lost surprisingly few places. However, she had only been perhaps six seconds ahead of the people who stopped early in the race, and even with the reduced pit lane delta, she fell behind them. However, it could be worse; everyone in front of her but one were taking their hard tyres to the end, and at lap twenty-five when the green flag flew, with nineteen laps still to run, she was grinning.
Dive into La Source. Get the traction down, find some scrambling purchase while everyone else slid about under acceleration, kick off the side of the swimming pool to launch away from the corner, and fly up to Eau Rouge. Watch Marrybel Glinda on the inside, replacing Tohdoh, as Kallen did to her what Gino had done to Kallen, taking the outside line and trying to hold the grip around as she had the slight advantage heading up to the elevator.
However, Marrybel didn't concede the place, and it was only from Kallen's soft tyres giving supernatural grip that she did not career back across the track and into the path of the Rebellion.
But she was through, and her better exit off of turn one was still paying dividends, as she reached her redline much earlier than the pack ahead, which combined with the simply hideous slipstream that came with having the front seven machines all on one straight after a safety car made her an absolute weapon down one of the longest straights on the calender. With the cars ahead punching a hole through the air, she had comparatively next to no drag, and sped up behind them, and, as they squabbled and jockeyed for position into Les Combes, she was lining up to put her soft tyres to good use.
Diving out of the slipstream at the last minute to avoid rear-ending the cars ahead, who had to brake incredibly early with their hard, slippery rubber, while Kallen could put on the anchors almost at the apex, using the brakes to rotate the car on the inside line and slipping ahead of some five or six cars in a dive bomb worthy of Junkers JU 87 Stuka. She didn't celebrate quite yet though, not until she was able to slow the car out of the first apex and into the second, for if she simply flew beyond the limits of the track the whole effort would be for naught, however, with a little bit of lateral inertia braking, she felt her left hand side canvases just crest onto the kerb before she stopped the car's lateral movement. It had cost her a bit of get-up-and-go out of the corner, but it had moved her from P9 to P3, so it was a fair trade as far as Kallen was concerned.
It did, however, take a lap to build her momentum back up and chase after P2 and P1, who were Suzaku and Rolo. It seemed Naoto and Gino had faded, and the new chassis brought in for Schwarzenritter this race after the mid-season tyre change unintentionally levelled the development curve seemed to be doing the job, that being of combining 2019 speed with 2018 tyre wear. However, they were, either way, on the hard tyre, and for Kallen, on fresh softs, it was a matter of shooting fish in a barrel; Suzaku into the Bus Stop, and Rolo into La Source.
Lap twenty eight. Seven laps until she ditched these softs. Seven laps. There was one directive, and that was to attack the track. Seven laps to take everything out of these tyres. Push every mechanical and aerodynamic element of grip, from the tyres from the suspension from the chassis from the wings from the floor, push the limits of grip at every apex, run the track limits of every exit kerb, everything that kept the car glued to the road, kept the four wheels on the deck, kept the rubber in contact, kept it going round as fast as was materially possible. If the tyres left a corner not squealing in pain, she knew she had not run them ragged enough. This was it; this was where the hard work, the very un-Kallen behaviour would pay off, and she would fly, like she felt like when she imagined her car shooting off the edge of Raidillon if it were not stuck down by two metric tons of downforce, or at the end of the airport runway that was the Kemmel straight.
It was like Monaco, or Britain again; a tyre bumped over the kerb on entry, fly over the apex, before the car naturally snapped to attention like a rifleman, knowing that disobedience would incipit immediate reprisal. The car just operated on telepathy; it just did what she wanted as naturally as her arm would do as she wanted while reaching across a table for a cup of tea. The chassis was just an extension of her spin, the tyres of her legs, and she was running, running as hard as she possibly could to pull a gap, almost as easily as she would on her own two legs on a treadmill. Just unconscious. She may as well put on her headphones and zoned out, if it weren't for the need to keep in the loop with her radio regarding lapped traffic and pit stops. She just pulled the gap, like a thread around a loom, and she just kept on pulling, the resistance light but the string neverending. The car was impossibly synchronised with her will, it would have almost scared Kallen if she was in any sort of frame of mind that could register or digest fear, or indeed any emotion that wasn't aggression.
Lap thirty five, into the pits again. Final set of softs. All of the other people in contention for the win were on twenty lap old hards, she would be on softs, smoother than a babies rear end, and about as old. It was hunting season, and Kallen, taking no chances, was coming armed with a fifty calibre rifle.
She emerged in sixth, with nine laps remaining. She was maybe seventeen seconds behind the leading car.
And Kallen grinned. This was this sort of situation she relished.
Immediately, she not only placed the hammer down but threw it, hurled it towards the floor as she flew out of the pit lane exit almost sideways, with immense purchase propelling her up Raidillon and giving her momentum up to Les Combes. The car was on fresh tyres, and with three quarters of the race already run, she was only weighed down by the fumes that would cough her across the finish, and, unencumbered, she shot into corners, literally feeling her face tear away under the huge g forces comparable to a fighter jet in the horizontal plane. Somehow, beyond expectation that it would not stick, beyond expectation that it would follow the course of its momentum and slew off wide with the speeds she was entering at, the rudder continued to keep the speedboat on the straight and narrow as it closed up on the ferries and yachts.
Her first victim was Li Xingke, one for whom the transition away from the rubber they had started the year on had not been at all kind to, was in fifth, and she sent him down to sixth clean around the outside of Bruxelles, able to have enough grip to maintain the speed and the traction on the longer, dirtier side of the track, not just keeping side by side through the wide, long hairpin, which she already had no right to do, but in fact pulling a bit ahead, far enough ahead that she could swoop back across before turn eleven and complete the move, having the grip to keep all the speed up and wrestle the muddy pig by the neck around to the side as it snorted and tried to hurl its weight about the track, but Kallen was in no mood to tolerate this, and so began the cavalry charge down towards Stavelot.
The fourth placed Gino by contrast did not put up the resistance, knowing that his teammate was running a completely different strategy and needed to push as hard as she could without impediment, and so, after giving Kallen a draft through Blanchimont, gave way under braking into the Bus Stop, offering no resistance and wishing his teammate well on her charge.
In third place was Albert Darlton, which was initially quite confusing, however Kallen was quickly able to piece it together. He had started the race on hards, dumped them on the first stop under the lap five safety car, and had tried to finish the rest of the race on mediums with the lower tyre wear of Spa, and while he had found track position, his tyres had not quite managed to keep all the way to the finish, and he was losing pace rapidly, slower now than even the hard runners. Passing him was a straightforward affair out of La Source under acceleration, and Kallen suspected that would not be the last place he lost before the flag, which was looming more and more as the race wound to a close, with vanishingly few laps remaining, only two now, with four seconds between her and the two Schwarzenritters, running within a second of each other as they sat two abreast going into Les Combes.
Kallen was too far back to attempt the dive, however she broke early, giving her the best drive through the second part of the chicane and into turn nine, as she closed up closed up closed up came so desperately close, she could almost reach out with her arm and grab their rear wings, but they took defensive tacks through Campus and Stavelot, driving in the middle of the track, before using all the track and more to rebound up to Blanchimont, and Kallen stiffened her lips, and silently tried to summon all the bravery she could as she moved to the outside and made it two wide through Blanchimont, two wide through a corner, travelling in parallel at over two hundred miles per hour. Every fiber of Kallen's being screamed for attention, screamed that there would be a collision, but she ignored them, believing there wouldn't be, and it was so; she had glimpsed the valley, and come out in second, just behind Suzaku, who in all the commotion had gotten ahead of Rolo.
She was ready to dive to the inside of the Bus Stop, but Suzaku, on rubber that was past its use by date seemed to squirrel, which put off Kallen, and allowed him to keep his position as they began the forty-fourth and final lap of the race. She had far better traction out of the second half of the Bus Stop, however, on approach to La Source, he hogged the inside line and as Kallen tried to make the move around the outside, Suzaku crested past the apex, allowing his car to move out further and further towards the exit kerb without turning across, cutting any momentum Kallen could have picked up on the exit, before he finally turned and planted the power, which got him a major edge over Kallen, who, stuck behind Suzaku's deliberate obstruction, had to wait for him to go before she could plant the power down herself, however, as they moved up to Eau Rouge, Kallen quickly realised who this had played into the hands of; Rolo, who was the only one of the three to get a conventional line through the corner, and had easily the best exit, and so as they streaked along the Kemmel, Kallen could only watch as Rolo swept past her, and then past Suzaku and into the lead of the race, with half a lap to go, however neither Suzaku or Kallen were taking that lying down.
Suzaku closed up as they moved down towards Bruxelles, however he didn't have the grip delta to try to sweep around the outside, and while Kallen did, she was only able to move alongside Suzaku, not quite having the overspeed to complete the move. Down towards Pouhon now, and desperation was now setting in for Kallen, as she tried to go around the outside, however it was too much, and Suzaku's right rear tyre forced her into an off track excursion, meaning she would have to close back up to attempt another move.
Meanwhile, Suzaku himself was not reticent to moving up in the world either, as he sniffed around Rolo's diffuser, looking for a door, and opening, a crack, and the Frenchman did not seem to be leaving any room, however, into Campus, he covered the inside, which was his mistake.
Suzaku dutifully kept to the outside, as Rolo scrambled to slow down enough to make the second half of the corner, having a desperately shallow line and allowing Suzaku to bound out of the corner and pull alongside into Stavelot, side by side through the acceleration zone as they followed the curves and crests woven into the Belgian earth long ago home, both squabbling side by side, neither wanting to give way, each racing for the Bus Stop, the last chicane, for the end of the lap, for the end of the race, as only one left-right complex separated one of them from Schwarzenritters first ever win.
However, in their fighting, they forgot Kallen.
Kallen, who was the only one to get a good exit from Stavelot, not having to try and find a line while side by side with another driver, repaid Rolo the favour he had taken at La Source, and closed up rapidly as the tow Schwarzenritter drivers continued side by side through the flat out, grip limited curve of Blanchimont. They were intensely focused on one another, and, as they rushed up to the Bus Stop, they were still fighting away, with Suzaku on the inside as the apex approached.
Just like he had with Kallen at La Source, Suzaku tried to hold wide to his line, boxing off Rolo's approach to the finish line, however he only realised too late his mistake, as Kallen swept from the outside edge of the entry kerb across to the apex.
Suzaku, upon seeing her nip by on the inside, immediately jerked his wheel in towards the corner, however Suzaku had a standing start, and Kallen was already ahead and travelling much faster as she swung through the final corner to win the Belgian Grand Prix!
Bonus chapter, as today is the day I've finally finished the story draft. From now on, it's just releasing my backlog, making sure it's all up to scrutiny.
~G1ll3s