OK Number 77 - The Right Stuff
"As Rolo crosses the line now, there's just five laps to go now, and if things stay as they are, Rolo Lamperouge will be the world champion, however Li Xingke looms large in eighth place, if he moves up one place he can absolutely wreak havoc with Rolo's day!" Diethard gleefully commentated, hardly able to contain his excitement at this intense finale, with the four main combatants split over three different sections of track, and the championship in the balance of the most minute of surges or mistakes.
Continuing with his rapid-fire announcing, Diethard summarised "Naoto has only been able to rise up to ninth in this race, he hasn't had the aggression today, he's not in this title fight anymore, but Suzaku and Kallen have soared back up through the field through the field over the last sixty laps, they have been so combative and aggressive, and if they can get into second, they would play themselves in, but right now Xingke's trying to see if he can surge at the eleventh hour, back into seventh, back into the championship position, it's all come down to this, don't go anywhere!"
Diethard gripped his microphone with white knuckles, taken by the tension that seemed to be surrounding him like a musk, deep in his skin like the sweat that drenched him. What would happen in the next five laps? Part of him wanted to be told, immediately, to be put out of his misery, but another wanted to see it unfold with virgin eyes, to see what plot twists would unfurl at the tail end of this insane season like a monkey's paw.
Sure enough, just as the camera followed a Lancer, he noticed something, with the stream of consciousness that was his commentary following his train of thought; "And Nu is- there's yellow flags out in Sector One, let's try and get some video feed on why that's the case, and-"
"Is that Alfred?" Jeremiah cut in, as the camera cut suddenly to a BAR, spun off just past the first complex of curves. By the looks of it, the rear end had snapped away, and the car had slid backwards into the barriers. Diethard paused, and squinted at the screen. The T-cam just above the roll hoop, black for Edgar, yellow for-
"It is, it is, Alfred has gone off!" Jeremiah announced, having arrived at the same conclusion as Dietard from examining the colour of his T-cam. "He's spun out of the Senna Ess, he's slid backwards into the barrier, he might have just lost the rear end getting on the throttle, and this is huge for the championship!"
Diethard nodded, eager to rattle off what this all meant.
"Xingke is up a spot from eighth to seventh, putting him back in that championship spot at 229, putting him back in the prime spot for the title. Albert finally gets going again, but he's now fallen back to twelfth, everyone up to that place has been bumped up a spot, including Xingke. But Suzaku also moves up into second place, Kallen into third, and this means that Suzaku is provisionally tied with Rolo and Xingke! All three men have 229 points, and while Xingke retains the win advantage, if Xingke loses seventh, the title would not go to Rolo, it would go to Suzaku! Unless something spectacular happens, Rolo will not be champion! What's happening with Xingke, is he under any threat, or can he hold onto seventh?"
The pair paused to scroll through their feed of data, trying to see if Xingke was out of danger in his seventh position, and, to their surprise, returning to the fore was an unexpected participant in this title fight, who had made his way back in after sixty laps of fighting, let alone the prior seven years of fighting.
"Let's see… Rolo, Kururugi, Kallen, Glinda, Nonette, Weinberg, then it's Xingke… Naoto? Naoto, Naoto! Naoto, less than five seconds behind Xingke! Oh my goodness me!"
Naoto had not been as fast as his sister or Suzaku when it came to recovering from the lap one incident and pulling back to the front to put himself back in position to win the title, a title that looked set to be his at the start from pole position and second in the standings, however he hadn't been resting. While his ascent was not as dramatic as Suzaku's and Kallen's, partly because he wasn't in a prolonged, pitched duel during it, instead just gently floating up like an atomised balloon. But he was closing in on Xingke, and stood ready to undo his hard work.
"Naoto… let me look… has been catching Xingke at about a second per lap. That's less than Suzaku or Kallen caught him, but five seconds in the difference, five laps to go, Naoto might catch Xingke before this race is up!"
End of Lap Sixty-Eight
Seventh - Li Xingke – 229 (5 wins)
Second - Suzaku Kururugi – 229 (4 wins)
First - Rolo Lamperouge – 229 (2 wins)
Third - Kallen Kōzuki – 226 (4 wins)
Fourth - Gino Weinberg – 220 (1 win)
Eighth - Naoto Kōzuki – 218 (1 win)
Kallen was too far back to see Albert go off initially, however she saw his car, sat backwards on the afternoon grass as he tried to get it back into gear, likely having shifted down too quick and too far, abusing the gearbox to the point where it had snapped back and bit him. Kallen, breathless from having fought for so long and with such commitment, had to draw several long gulps of air before speaking into her radio, tangentially appreciating her exercise for preparing her for the sheer physicality of this duel.
"Is… huhh, is that it? What does that do for the championship?"
There was a pause, before Nigel delivered an answer.
"Kallen, Xingke is still the provisional champion, however Naoto is close behind. Rolo is now a non-factor. If you get ahead of Suzaku, you will be tying with Xingke, and if he falls behind you will win the title, but only if you can get ahead of Suzaku within the next four laps, push hard now, everything you have! Use the best of your talent, we know how big it is, four qualifying laps!"
Kallen didn't need to be told twice. With her offside thumb, she flicked up her fuel-to-air mixture to rich, beefing up the fuel flow to deliver the maximum power, before cranking on her energy recovery system to deliver the most powerful deployment possible under acceleration, with the most aggressive energy recovery under braking. She was now wielding full power, marshalling all the forces contained within the ten square-meter frame to squeeze past by any means necessary.
She darted around, sniffing around for a look into any possible passing spot, however Suzaku was placing his car perfectly, and Kallen was nearly pushing, was nearly bumping his rear diffuser. She felt like she was pushing up against a window, all her limbs pushing against the panel glass and yet Suzaku always had his car exactly where it needed to be to counter Kallen's endeavours.
Their fight had devolved from a duel to a brawl, as Kallen swiped and jabbed in looking for any way through, while Suzaku responded in kind. Now, with the second position potentially now being the championship slot, neither could afford to give an inch. This was Kallen giving it everything, versus Suzaku giving it everything.
Nothing except a win was acceptable. All there was was the fight, and only one of them would prevail. Win, or lose. Fight, or die.
"And another fastest lap from Suzaku, followed up with a fastest lap from Kallen, their fuel is burning away, their cars are getting lighter and they're getting faster, but they have been on it for the entire race, they have just sat on the limit, setting purple lap after purple lap pretty much uncontested at the top of the timesheets throughout, and it's taken them up to second and third. They have been on it all day, they have fought all the way back to the podium positions, trading fastest laps throughout, but they have not made it all the way back up to the front, as the field spread out, as they rose through it, one man sprinted out of reach, one man who carries on the legacy that was nearly ended here last year, Rolo Lamperouge, several kilometres up the road, only a few more corners to go now!"
Diethard roared all of this as the racing unfolded. Naoto had closed in towards Xingke, Kallen was all over Suzaku, but the one constant of this race had been Rolo's domination, as he turned in towards Juncao, road the groove up along the top of the bowl, and where his brother was gravely injured a year ago, won the 2019 Brazilian Grand Prix.
Diethard let out a cheery cry. It seemed appropriate, a year later, Lelouch got his just desserts and got to see his own flesh and blood cross the line to win in a car he owned and ran. It would be bittersweet, with the championship slipping out from their grasp, however as Diethard commentated proceedings, he let such feelings seep into his weaving of the narrative.
"Rolo crosses the line, he has done everything in his power, he has done everything right today, he has won the Brazilian Grand Prix, the place where his brother lost the championship a year ago, lost his career, his capacity, and in a different universe, in a different Brazilian Grand Prix that win may well have been enough to clinch the title, but with Xingke's dogged persistence, with Darlton's slight mistake, it's just fallen away from him today through no fault of his own, and today, though he is a race winner, he will not be the World Champion! And now we wait; who will take second place and match Rolo's 229 point tally; will it be Suzaku, or Kallen? They're side by side, barely an inch between them now! Who will cross the line in second place and take the points battle to Xingke?
End of Lap Seventy-One
Seventh - Li Xingke – 229 (5 wins)
Second - Suzaku Kururugi – 229 (4 wins)
First - Rolo Lamperouge – 229 (2 wins) FINISHED
Third - Kallen Kōzuki – 226 (4 wins)
Fourth - Gino Weinberg – 220 (1 win)
Eighth - Naoto Kōzuki – 218 (1 win)
"Okay Kallen, this is the last lap, you need to make it happen as soon as possible, only fifteen more corners to go until it's all over. If you have anything, you need to use it now."
She gruffly let out a sharp, raspy bark demanding silence. The last thing she needed at this stage was backseat drivers. She had to take Suzaku's position, and she needed to do it immediately. Everything beyond this was so irrelevant it may as well have been taken to not even exist.
Kallen dived late into the Senna Ess, planting her flag deep within the corner. The plan was, much in the same way as Suzaku had done to her at Spa on the opening lap before doing it again to his teammate on the final one, was to squeeze Suzaku, to pinch him out, however his front end control authority was enough to fully rotate the car, further, beyond the range Kallen had dived into and blocked, and was able to steer his boat around the obstruction.
However, this monstrosity of a car she had been manhandling for almost two hours now, if anything positive could be said about it, had a solid rear end that would not unstick for love nor money, and Kallen thusly planted the throttle in the mid corner, letting the hyperdrive take her out of the apex and out towards the exit kerb where it would switch back and turn to the inside of the next, sweeping curve. The natural understeer of the car might do a similar job to what was initially planned in her diving to the inside, to box Suzaku off on approach to the exit kerb
Suzaku tried to cut back across her and evade, however he had to pull out of the throttle, realising his arc wouldn't quite leave him clear of Kallen' rear right tyre. This brief moment of braking, not ever quite lifting out of the throttle just as he had learned from studying Kallen's driving, let Kallen get ahead on the straight leading into Descida do Lago, however the moment of revving allowed the engine to fully wind up such that when Suzaku let of the brake, it shot out with immense acceleration, accelerating out of the Curva do Sol, in Kallen's slipstream, catching, pulling to Kallen's outside.
From studying Suzaku's driving, Kallen knew one thing. Unlike her brother, he would not be intimidated. He, unlike his teammate, would not back out of a fight for love nor money.
And so, as they moved side by side into Descida do Lago, the site where of the first lap melee had unfurled leaving three of the title contenders down near the bottom, the site where Gino had had his floor ripped apart, and where Kallen had blasted around her brother, who had backed out of it, Kallen knew, there was only one thing that could happen.
As they rode into the curve, side by side, into the one groove turn where one would have to give way, Kallen knew that neither would.
Kallen dove down two gears, revving out the gearbox to try and keep the momentum while still keeping enough steering authority to avoid ramming into Suzaku's sidepod, and losing this championship on the last lap.
Lose this championship… she was so close… it was within reach.
She still hadn't absorbed it, hadn't internalised it. As she cranked on the lock of the wheel, she suddenly felt the three years of fighting at the top flight, let alone the ten previous years of scrapping to get there. It all hit her in centre mass, all at once. It was within reach, after all this time.
She didn't quite know what that meant.
It had been so brutal. The last three years had tested her in every way that she could have imagined, and several that she couldn't have.
It had been her most complete, all encompassing challenge, and it was only a few hundred meters from being over.
"Don't you fucking bottle it now." she silently commented to herself, forcing herself to focus in on the present. Suzaku was hanging it around Kallen's outside, but they were somehow going side by side through this most challenging of corners, ballroom dancing with blindfolds and yet, they somehow didn't make contact, neither trodding on the others foot. Somehow, in spite of the innumerable times that going two wide had led to tragedy, Kallen and Suzaku, with their respective skill and awareness, were able to both keep it in, at the limits of grip.
And they did it. They rode through the turn two wide, the first two cars to make it through that gap side by side all day. The lighter weight of the cars didn't hurt, but they were only a false twitch away from both crashing out and fumbling the title at the last gasp.
Kallen's shorter path had put her marginally ahead, however Suzaku's less severe change of direction had left him with more speed, allowing him to pull back to fully alongside Kallen, before getting perhaps half a wheels advantage over her going into the tightening radius of Ferradura-Laranjinha. Coming in from the inside, and just a nose ahead, Suzaku surely expected to try the trick Kallen had tried on him through the Senna Ess, to keep the car straight past the apex and block her out of any rotation before he had begun to accelerate away.
However, as he broke in what he would normally consider abnormally late braking, he was caught off guard. Kallen had seen it coming, and was in no mood to play his games.
Kallen waited until Suzaku had begun braking to even look at getting out of the throttle, braking well into the deceleration zone and getting her nose back ahead of Suzakus. Now with the right of way, Kallen turned as she continued the braking to keep her nose in the fight, and not be crowded out.
It worked, even if Kallen couldn't quite get the car fully turned in in time to avoid running well over the exit kerbing and having her left hand side tyres plough through the grass off the circuit. She used all of the race track and more to do it, but she had kept in the fight. No matter what it took, she was not losing to Suzaku today.
It caught Suzaku off guard, Kallen could see it in the poise of his car as she carried the mid-apex speed all the way around like a particularly long-stringed conker. Suzaku had a much more acute angle through which to rotate his car, and it was under low lateral loading as he began to pick up the throttle, and by that stage Kallen was hurrying out towards the last few corners of the lap.
Only… only a few more. Only a few more turns before it was all over.
Kallen gritted her teeth. No distractions. There may only be a few more, but these would be the best she had ever done.
And they would need to be. Anything less would not put off the 2018 World Drivers Champion, who was able to bolt out of his cage and hook his front wing just back alongside Kallen's rear tyre, preventing her from moving wide to exploit the full effect that the out-in-out racing line created in easing lateral loads, and hence preventing her from fully getting away. Even as he sat, clasping with one hand to the grip over the chasm of failure, the other hand was doing fierce battle with Kallen.
To have an opponent as tenacious as this was certainly satisfying, but Kallen wasn't entirely unconvinced that even if he were dead and buried that Suzaku would not try to reach for someone's ankle from underneath the ground to try and get back past them. Still, there was nothing to remedy it but stern medicine.
Kallen let the rabid, barking dog loose as the car fully rotated through Pinheirinho, though by the time she was fully lined up the damage was done; Suzaku, with his wider arc and higher peak apex speed, had bridged the gap, and was now back alongside.
Kallen would have swore, but she couldn't. Her hands were beyond bloody, the rich red seeping out from the cuffs of her gloves and staining her overalls. More than anything else, she was tired.
Matching Suzaku, a very physical and engaged driver, blow for blow for blow for blow for blow for blow, felt like hundreds of rounds in a boxing ring with a champion fighter. He had raised his level and laid down the pressure like a thousand feet of concrete pressing coal into a gem of diamond.
But a diamond had emerged, and Kallen had survived his onslaught for three hundred and eight kilometres. Now she just needed to survive it for two more.
Buck the trend by braking earlier into Bico de Pato, try and catch Suzaku off guard if he tried the same trick of blocking off the turn in a second time. But Suzaku didn't blink, seeing Kallen's counter ahead of time and matching it by getting on the brakes early to not let Kallen enact a switchback move on him.
It left them in the brief awkward moment of both dawdling for a moment on approach to the apex, each trying to outwit the other, however it had resulted in neither approaching the corner with any great aggression, and a reminder that one could always be too clever and trip over your own shoelaces trying to undo someone elses.
Suddenly, Kallen found a gasp of initiative, and blasted the throttle, jumping ahead of Suzaku, who had up to that point been drawn alongside in a very strange game of chicken.
This was the difference, the difference that would win it for Kallen. As she rode the high line around the Bico de Pato hairpin, she looked in the mirror and grinned. She had got the jump on Suzaku, who had been too caught up in trying to work out if it was the cup in front of him that was poisoned to have the initiative to just bolt, as Kallen had done.
Which, as Kallen swang down Mergulho for the final time, was the difference. Suzaku was a generational phenom, an absolute freak of nature that was capable of immense feats of physicality that was capable of maintaining superhuman levels of intensity from lights to flag. Kallen had worked to bridge that gap over 2019, and while it was nearly bridged, the critical difference, what Suzaku had not matched, was the seat-of-your-pants, snap thinking that had served Kallen well enough completely on its own before she had needed to raise her game. Kallen had made the snap decision to flash, to jump out of her own initiative, initiative, as she broke cautiously into Juncao, that had seen her develop the instincts that had taken her this far, initiative, as she flew through the apex, Suzaku firmly now behind her, that had taken her to the finale of a championship, and initiative, as the straight opened up and rose, rose, rose up to the outer rim of the bowl, that had been the final card she had drawn to see her just about triumph over the 2018 Champion, and seal second place as she shot across the finish line, the man with the chequered flag waving it gracefully and firmly.
She had done it. It had taken every ounce of Kallen to break the sixty lap deadlock, but she had, and, looking at her steering wheels readout, she had finished just four tenths of a second ahead of Suzaku. She had beaten the very best over a two hour duel, one which had completely exhausted her to the point where she couldn't even scream over the radio, instead having to wait for Nigel to break the silence of the engines screaming and the crowd in a frenzy.
"Pee Two Kallen, Pee Two. Great job, that was a sensational drive, last to second. Unbelievable."
Kallen had to catch her breath for several moments, as the car freewheeled through the Senna Ess, before she could ask the billion dollar question.
"Is that it? Am I the champion?"
The voice let out a short raspy negation, before replying curtly "Not yet, not yet. But just you wait. We'll have to wait for all the cars to cross the line to be sure. It won't be Rolo, and it won't be Suzaku, but we need to wait to be sure."
Seventh - Li Xingke – 229 (5 wins)
Second - Kallen Kōzuki – 229 (4 wins) FINISHED
First - Rolo Lamperouge – 229 (2 wins) FINISHED
Third - Suzaku Kururugi – 226 (4 wins) FINISHED
Fourth - Gino Weinberg – 220 (1 win)
Eighth - Naoto Kōzuki – 218 (1 win)
"And it's Kallen!" Diethard roared, keeping up with the madness as the Japanese pair raced up the hill to second. He was now getting so overexcited that he was on the verge of fainting from hyperventilation, however he had a job to do, and he was nearly done. "It's Kallen that takes second place, there's the chequered flag for Kallen, but is that enough? Will that make the fiery Camelot driver champion, or will she be forced to concede on countback to Li Xingke? We wait, as the Chinese driver flies through Pinheirinho chased by the one man who can spoil his party, one Naoto Kozuki! Team Radio-"
The commentator halted himself, to allow Kallens weary voice to be heard on the broadcast.
"Is that it? Am I the champion?"
A pause, before Nigel came to reply with almost as much enthusiasm as Diethard.
"Not yet, not yet. But just you wait. We'll have to wait for all the cars to cross the line to be sure. It won't be Rolo, and it won't be Suzaku, but we need to wait to be sure."
"He's talking about Naoto." Jeremiah butted in, and Diethard agreed, as the camera cut across to Xingke, to see if the Chinese pilot could keep it on the island, and retain his grasp on the title.
"Naoto Kōzuki is the danger man, he's the lynchpin." Diethard restarted, as Naoto quickly followed. The Japanese pilot of the number ten Rebellion had made up five seconds in as many laps, and was now breathing down Xingke's neck. Keeping up the momentum, Diethard continued "Can Kallen's brother crown her champion? All he needs to do is to overtake the Geely, all Xingke needs to do is to keep it on the island, and now they enter the final sector, they're so painfully close, Naoto is practically sitting on Xingke's diffuser!"
There's a lot you can do, but you cannot control everything. Even once you have done all you can, there's a certain amount that needs to be left in the hands of others.
It's all gone wrong for Naoto. But he still has agency.
Please leave a review if you'd be so kind. See you then.
~G1ll3s