"Exactly, Crofty," a second commentator added. "Simulator speed is one thing, but the bumps and the wind at Albert Park are a different beast. He looks like he’s fighting the car rather than driving it. Marcus Berg is currently P9, so the car has some pace, but Kaito might be out of his depth here."

Leo heard none of this, but he could imagine it. He could feel the eyes of the paddock on him, the pitying looks from the mechanics, and the dismissive notes in the journalists’ notebooks.

He felt a cold, sharp tingle at the back of his brain. It was a sensation he rarely felt in the pod: amusement. He hadn’t felt this in a long time.

’Let them write their stories,’ he thought. ’Let Rossi and the other drivers think I’m a fluke. Let them think I’m an easy target. Hehe... They don’t know what’s about to hit them.’

He had already pictured the headlines after Qualifying. The "Technician" on Pole. The "Grease Monkey" shattering the track record. The shock on Rossi’s face would be worth more than any trophy.

"Leo, your tire temps are dropping," Elias warned. "You’re too slow on the out-lap. We need a representative time before the end of the session. Push now."

"Copy. Pushing."

Leo said that, but he didn’t actually push. He just refined the "act." He drove at sixty percent of his capability, making sure to miss an apex here and there, or to get on the power just a little too late so the car looked sluggish on exit.

He crossed the line.

[P12. 1:30.8.]

Still nearly two seconds off the lead.

"Okay, bring it in," Anya’s voice came over the radio. She sounded frustrated. "We need to look at the setup. You’re losing time in every sector."

Leo rolled back into the pit lane. As he drove past the Prema garage, he saw Alessandro Rossi standing by the pit wall, talking to his engineers. Rossi looked at the Arcadia car and then checked the timing screen. He gave a short, sharp nod of satisfaction and turned back to his team.

He had seen enough. In Rossi’s mind, Leo Kaito was no longer a threat. He was just another backmarker who would get out of the way when the blue flags waved.

Leo pulled into the Arcadia garage. Pete and the mechanics swarmed the car, checking the tire he had flatted.

"Rough run, kid?" Pete asked, helping Leo out of the cockpit.

Leo pulled off his helmet. His face was flushed from the heat, and he made sure to look slightly breathless. "The car is jumping everywhere, Pete. It’s hard to find a rhythm."

Anya walked over, her face a mask of disappointment. She pulled Leo to the back of the garage, away from the microphones. "What happened out there? At Silverstone, you were so precise and sharp like a surgeon. Today, you look like a kid in his first kart race."

Leo looked at her. For a second, he thought about telling her that it was all an act. He thought about explaining that he was "sandbagging", hiding his true pace to keep the big teams from protesting his car before Qualifying. But he saw the worry in her eyes, the genuine fear that she had made a mistake by putting him in the seat.

He realized he couldn’t tell her. Not yet. The "Hidden Monster" had to stay hidden until the moment it mattered most.

"It’s different here, Anya," Leo said, keeping his voice low. "The bumps... they change the timing. I’m still adjusting."

Anya sighed, rubbing her temples. "We don’t have time for a slow adjustment. Qualifying is in three hours. If you’re P12, we’re buried in the midfield. Vega and the others will eat you alive in the sprint race."

"I’ll find it," Leo said.

He walked over to the cooling fan and let the air hit his face. He felt the twenty-seven days of his life-clock ticking in his mind. The "Season Opener Dominance" side quest was still active.

He looked at the timing screen. The session was over.

1. A. Rossi (Prema) - 1:29.1

2. R. Vega (ART) - 1:29.4

3. O. Dubois (Invicta) - 1:29.5

...

12. L. Kaito (Arcadia) - 1:30.8

He had failed the first objective of the side quest.

『SIDE QUEST UPDATE: Practice Objective Failed.』

『Current Status: -2 Freedom Units.』

『Remaining Life: 25 Days.』 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

Leo’s eyes narrowed. The system was cold. It didn’t care about his strategy or his "sandbagging." It only cared about results. He had just lost forty-eight hours of his life to play a psychological game with Rossi.

He felt a surge of genuine anger. Not at the system, but at the situation. He was a prisoner of a machine that demanded perfection, and he was trying to be "human" to fool his rivals.

’No more games,’ he thought.

He looked at the Prema garage again. Rossi was laughing with a group of sponsors, looking like the king of the paddock.

Leo felt an evil, silent chuckle vibrate in his chest. Rossi going down.

"Elias," Leo called out, his voice sharp and cold.

The engineer looked up from his tablet. "Yeah, Leo?"

"Forget the damping adjustments we talked about. Put the Silverstone spring rates back on the car. And increase the front wing angle by one degree."

Elias blinked. "But you said the car was too twitchy. Those settings will make it even more aggressive. You’ll have no rear stability."

Leo pulled his fireproof gloves back on, his eyes locked on the timing screen where Rossi’s name sat at the top.

"I don’t need stability," Leo said. "I need speed. Just do it."

Anya watched him from across the garage. She saw the change in his eyes, the way the "human" mask slipped and the "machine" took over. She didn’t know about Simex, and she didn’t know about the Freedom Units, but she knew that the driver standing in front of her wasn’t the boy she had raised.