OK Number 73 - No Quarter

Four, five red lights… and gone.

As soon as the lights flicked out, all twenty drivers immediately rushed to respond, instinctively beginning the fiendishly busy process of starting the race. Too much throttle, too sudden or immediate in lifting off the clutch, then the wheels would spin up and not give purchase. Not enough throttle, too hesitant on the release of the clutch, and the car would simply crawl forward. The ideal balancing of the clutch and throttle would punch the car forward, like a swimmer kicking off the wall to bounce out in a sudden explosion.

Hold the revs in the power band, let off the clutch not in a snap, but moreso a pull. Kallen's start was not electric, but it was certainly more electric than Naoto's, who with the harder, more slippery Medium tyres, as he span up the wheels ahead off the line. An early short-shift into second and a second short-shift into third calmed the tyres, but the sluggish momentum away from the line allowed Rolo to build up speed while the polestarter stalled and pull alongside into turn one.

Downstream, Gino, who shared the second row with Kallen, had dropped back, sharing Naoto's medium tyre woes, however as opposed to Rolo, whose average start on softs had seen him draw alongside Naoto, Gino had been swallowed up completely by the one man who had had an electric start, with his throttle traces rehearsed down to the micrometer, one Suzaku "Mister Consistency" Kururugi. Suzaku had cut harshly across Gino, who he was able to eat up with a punchy start that allowed him to pick up beastly momentum from a standing start.

And, sure enough, the winner of the last four races cut through and was rapidly gaining on Kallen. Eager to make sure she retained the position, Kallen made a knee jerk move to the inside, however Suzaku's momentum meant that he was enough speed drawing up to the first corner to pull alongside, and stick around Kallen's outside into turn one.

Meanwhile up the front, Naoto and Rolo seemed to be replicating this dance, with Naoto around the outside of Rolo. Rolo, with the grippier tyre, was able to shift to the outside and try to hold the longer, wider route with the superior traction. However, he wasn't far enough ahead to fully crowd out Naoto, and with a front-end deficit, Naoto's nose was sliding wide on approach to the apex, and drifting into Rolo's path. The French rookie was forced to pull out or have his nose cut off, and, eager to not be out at the first corner, wisely decided to pull out, and file in behind the leader out of turn two.

By contrast, Suzaku and Kallen were on the same compound of tyre, and while Kallen was uncomfortable with how vague the front end continued to feel, Suzaku was known for how much he set his car up for rear end stability at the cost of front end grip, and so, ironically, they were just about able to match each other through the turn, and keep side by side through the first part of the Ess, before it switched back, and ended with a kink out into a straightline blast down the Reta Oposta. While Kallen was not present to commentate, she would while rewatching this moment wince as her front end slewed out towards Suzaku, an issue that was hardly helped by the weight of 105 kilograms of fuel, that would only burn off towards the end of the race. However, burdened with as much fuel and an understeering setup, Suzaku slewed out towards the far side of the corner equally as much, and they were able to tiptoe around each other and begin the race, still neck and neck down the secondary straight.

However, there was trouble ahead; having filed in behind, Rolo, with the better tyres, was able to punch the throttle much earlier and get another great run up behind Naoto, but this time he had the space and the time to pull alongside and get the run.

Ahead, Kallen could see Rolo pull to the outside, pull alongside, pull just a bit ahead, and dive in around the outside as the pair broke into Descida do Lago, just as Suzaku and Kallen concertinaed up behind the leading duo.

Rolo, now just ahead of Naoto, broke late and swept around the outside, however he miscalculated, and, with Naoto's front right tyre still just about in profile with Rolo's left rear, they made contact just as their lines reached a dovetail into the apex.

With the gentler, smoother swoop, Rolo's car, under lower lateral loading, was able to swing around Naoto's outside, or at least it seemed so, until the Frenchmans left rear tyre, jutting out just beyond the silhouette of the chassis, hooked onto Naoto's front right tyre in the space between where the tyre ended and the barge board began. Rolo's car, loosely strung and with the tyres not approaching any limits of load thanks to the wider, gentler line, was not unsettled too greatly, the rear tyres simply jerking to the side under the sudden moment of static friction. Naoto was not so lucky.

Given the more intense lock that Naoto was applying to the wheel, and the more intense tyre loading that came with it, Naoto's Rebellion was, at that point where the cars made contact, entirely grip limited, unable to cope with any new forces.

As soon as the front right corner of Naoto's car became hooked, there was no excess grip to resist the uneven force pulling forward on that tyre, and the car entered a slow half spin, settling just off the kerb at a right angle to the racing line.

All this, while Kallen and Suzaku were rushing up to the scene, Suzaku just half a cars length back from being completely alongside his countrywoman.

Kallen, having been boxed down on the inside, hurriedly realised she was in a two hundred mile per hour collision course with her brothers sidepod, and had to find some way out.

To the grass or to the outside, to plough straight ahead would lead to a t-bone collision. Instinct, turn away into the more open space around the outside. Kallen jerked the wheel to the right to avoid ending her race at turn four.

However, instinct was rarely well thought out or considered, and instinct had here neglected the presence of the number seven Rebellion, who, while not fully alongside, Kallen was not fully clear of.

"And Rolo has the run out of the exit of the Senna Ess, can get on the loud pedal that little bit earlier, and now pulls to the outside down the Reta Oposta. Then it's Kallen, then Suzaku, side by side, they just about avoid contact, then it's Gino, Darlton, but look at the front, Naoto is defending from Rolo, who pulls alongside, Suzaku is just falling back a little bit from Kallen, but she's not clear of him fully, she can't move all the way to the outside for Descida do Lago, and- oh, oh there's a collision ahead, Rolo and Naoto, Rolo saves it but Naoto is into a spin and, and here comes the seven and the eleven!"

Diethard had to stop for breath, just as events unfolded. Kallen's car suddenly rushed to the right hand side to avoid her brother, however just as Rolo's turn across Naoto had led to contact, Kallen's muscle twitch had not taken into account Suzaku.

In turning across Suzaku to avoid destroying both herself and her brother, Kallen wiped off her countrymans nose, ripping his left hand mainplane clean off and mangling his front left tyre.

This was repaid with interest as the shard of Suzaku's shattered wing broke through and destroyed the sidewall of Kallen's tyre rear right tyre, which jerked her car violently to the side, just as it had Naoto's.

However, while the move did succeed in its operating objective, if an instinctive twitch could be described as having such a thing, of avoiding ploughing dead into Naoto's cars centre of mass, the move was too late and the gap was too small to avoid clipping her brothers rear left tyre with the left hand mainplane of her own front wing, twisting the whole body across its mounting point, until it completely tore off.

As the chaos ensued, Jeremiah tried to take over commentary from the stunned Diethard.

"Unbelievable!" he roared, "Naoto spins from contact with Rolo, and trying to avoid him, Kallen hits Suzaku and now all three of them have damage! All three damaged! Naoto with a right rear puncture, Suzaku with a front left puncture and wing damage, and Kallen-"

Before Jeremiah was able to complete the statement, Kallen, who was already spearing away from the racing line with the momentum from her hasty evasive jerk out of the way of Naoto's stricken vehicle, suddenly faced the reality of the imbalance of grip and resistance that came with having twice as much rubber at the front as the rear. As soon as Kallen tickled the power, the car completely swapped ends, as all the power concentrated on the one inflated tyre.

Diethard, having recovered, summarised.

"And she's spun, Kallen has spun as she goes off the track and onto the green run off! No front wing, no rear tyre, no grip! She'll have a worldly of a time trying to make her way back to the pits, as Naoto is finally able to spin turn back onto the racing line, but it's too late, Rolo is away, streaking off into the lead of the Brazilian Grand Prix, it will be a long road back for Naoto now. Suzaku has gotten going, Naoto has gotten going, they'll all need to make a pit stop, and Kallen, Kallen has to wrestle that all the way back to the pits as well, though she'll need to be careful…"

Diethard then winced as Kallen was, while many other things as well, emphatically not careful. She used the unstable rear to pivot the car back around to the right direction, before emphatically stamping the throttle. Taking the onboard camera, the pair of commentators watched as Kallen, revving out the engine in third gear, kept her Camelot on track with aggressive hacks and tugs and chops of the wheel, like a logger trying to chop down a tree. This pugnacious treatment of the steering did succeed in keeping the car faced in the right direction, despite its freneticism and aggression, however it came with risks.

"God, she has to be careful not to damage the floor." Jeremiah grimaced. "She's going flat out, but she's got damage, and she to be careful to not aggravate the damage. The carcass of the tyre is flailing about, it might damage the floor and compromise the downforce and the rear suspension."

The risk, of a delaminated tyre ripping apart the floors, was very real, however it seemed to be of no moment to Kallen, who was wrestling the car around the circuit on two wheels, with the right front aloft in the air without a counterveiling prop, and the left rear shredding rubber and sparking with the pavement, wildly trying to badger the car back to pit lane.

However, the tyre was merely collapsed, and not wholly torn apart, and so there was no wildly flailing lashes of rubber that threatened the integrity of the aerodynamic package around the rear of the car, and Kallen was able to slither her car up through the curves to Juncao, by which time, even as aggressively as she was driving, she was third from last, with only Naoto and Suzaku, who were driving more cautiously, preventing Kallen from being last.

"So, to recap as the pack finishes the first lap of the Brazilian Grand Prix, it's Rolo, from Gino, from Albert Darlton, from Glinda, from Bradley, from Nu, with Naoto, Suzaku and Kallen, all title contenders, and all back to the pits, it's gonna be a long day for them today. Further back, it's a bad start for Li Xingke, who dropped from tenth to thirteenth off the line, he's been bumped back up to tenth, but he'll want to be moving up to at least seventh if he wants to take this championship, but he's got seventy laps to get there. So much action in the first lap, so don't go anywhere."

As soon as the television screens broadcasted the crash at turn four, the whole Camelot crew sprung into action, just as, up the way, the Rebellion crew did. Nigel, Kallen's radio engineer, was not part of the stop crew, but they could tell this was going to take a long time to fix, upwards of forty seconds, given the deformation of the mounting point of the wing at the nose, and so he was sent out to have a word in person with Kallen while she was stationary.

Twenty-one people; three for each tyre, so twelve overall to facilitate the change onto the hard tyre, two to raise either end off the ground with mounts, two either side with mounts, four to replace the wing, and Nigel, would be needed for this pitstop. Each one knew their job inside out and upside down, and assembled around the box, correct to the nearest millimetre, before there was even a hint of Kallen or her car.

Sure enough, as the main pack of cars from positions one to seventeen were making their way by, the sideways snaps and hasty, brief yelps of a provoked engine, prodded on with a cattle fork by an even more provoked driver.

In the first glimpse they caught of Kallen, the car was sideways, with the number eleven pilot applying full opposite lock to keep the car travelling in a straight line, before she slid it into her box, nailing the entry in spite of her impaired control authority.

Immediately, everyone set to work, however before the tyres could be changed, the chassis would need to be suspended off the ground. The back hinge around the diffuser caught readily, with the level principle applying to allow a single mechanic to raise half of an 850 kilogram car, filled with racing fuel. However, with the front nose not only broken but twisted, there was no longer a stable mounting point that could sustain the weight of the front half of the car. Nigel swore

"Alex, we need to lift the nose, get the longer jack! There's a point underneath the barge board, the skid plate!"

To enforce the mandatory minimum ride height, there was a standardised magnesium plate that would, if it contacted the road, wear away. If it wore away beyond a certain amount, it would be found that the car rode too close to the ground. To achieve this, it was affixed to the foremost point past the crash structure, and could sustain the weight of the car as a mounting point.

Nodding, the front jack man ran off to get the longer, hydraulic jack, just as Nigel heard the snarl of the Sakura motor of Suzaku Kururugi, who was nursing a punctured front left tyre and a shattered front wing. Unlike Kallen, the wing was straightforward to replace once the car was mounted, and it was only as Suzaku had his new set of boots fitted and was leaving that the jack man was returning.

Nigel watched as Suzaku drove away. Hard tyres, Nigel nodded. As slow as that compound might have been, the Rebellion crew were able to service Suzaku in less than ten seconds. The choice to go onto hard tyres was predictable, with a view to taking them to the end of the race, just like the Camelot team were trying with Kallen, as much as she might not have appreciated the task she had been given to eke life out of this hardest of compounds.

"C'mon, get me fucking going!"

The roar came from Kallen, who had been stationary now for almost fifteen seconds, and was only now being raised and having her front wing replaced. To compound the pressure she must have been feeling, Naoto was now coming into the pits behind her, with the Rebellion mechanics immediately setting to work.

Suddenly realising what this all might mean within Kallen's internal mindset, Nigel turned down to the pilot and yelled "Kallen!"

She didn't respond initially, her knuckles tensed white around the blocky steering wheel, and it took Nigel roaring it again over the noise of the tyres being swapped out, with the stop now approaching the twenty second mark, for Kallen to snap her head to the left to acknowledge him, before she met his yell in her reply.

"What?"

Wincing around what he would have to say, acknowledging how it would feel to hear this, Nigel explained "You're gonna be almost a lap down, you're so far back. I know you've got a championship, but… just, take it easy out there!"

Kallen was still for a moment, as Naoto finished his stop and moved out of his box behind them. Keeping her face locked forwards, Kallen finally replied with snappy sarcasm "What are you saying, I should just give up?"

Nigel shook his head, and exasperatedly tried to make his plea more clear, sighing "Just… come back in one piece. Don't take any risks. Just remember, there's always next year, no matter what, if you lose this one you can come back and fight for it next year. There'll always be another chance, there's always next year."

Kallen turned her head to face him, and the look she then gave Nigel in response would go on to haunt him for decades. Even after Kallen, who would go on to die several years before Nigel, did ultimately pass away, the hollow glare Kallen gave him, at once detached in grimly accepting horror and terrified, seeming to be contemplatively envisioning some grave future.

Her eyes met his, and yet Nigel could only see depthless glass behind Kallen's sheer and apparent dread that Nigel had wrought with whatever it was he had said.

Indeed, it was so remarkable that Nigel almost missed the front jackman yelling as he dropped the mount and fled out of the path of the snarling beast Kallen was piloting.

"Clear, clear away!"

Kallen immediately turned her head away from Nigel, and barked some vile Japanese expletive that he did not understand before she slammed her helmet lid down with the heel of her hand. The engine let out a crisp, brusque snap, before Kallen drop kicked the clutch, and the car span up its wheels as it rushed out of the box.

End of Lap One

First - Rolo Lamperouge – 229 (2 wins)

Second - Gino Weinberg – 226 (1 win)

Tenth - Li Xingke – 224 (5 wins)

Nineteenth - Naoto Kōzuki – 214 (1 win)

Eighteenth - Suzaku Kururugi – 211 (4 wins) (2 seconds) (2 thirds)

Twentieth - Kallen Kōzuki – 211 (4 wins) (2 seconds) (1 third)

There is no certainty of a next time. The only certainty is now, which Kallen is determined to seize.

So it's Rolo and Gino up front, Xingke is out of the title spot, and Kallen, Suzaku, and Naoto have fallen to the back. Everything to play for. Leave a review, and see you next time!

~G1ll3s