"F4?" Max said, tilting his head for a moment before something finally clicked. "Fatih?"

"You know him?" Helmut asked. He knew that Max’s father was working behind the scenes, trying to accumulate as much influence as possible, with the containment of Fatih being one of the reasons. It had even required Red Bull to promise a concession against Fatih for the contract renewal to go through. However, he knew most of these plans and actions were Max’s father’s doing for the best possible outcome for his son.

"Yeah, I was in the same competitions with him during my karting years, but in different categories, so I got to see him compete. It was very interesting. And I also heard about the controversy surrounding him as well," Max said while putting on his balaclava.

"What do you think about his driving?"

"Phenomenal."

"Want to face him?"

"How old is he?"

"Fifteen."

"Then he has three more years before he is in F1," Max said, instead of answering Helmut’s question directly.

"We can lobby for an approved talent exception or something like that, so it can be even earlier," Helmut said, testing Max’s reaction. He specifically asked about that because he knew this was the concession Red Bull had given to Max’s side during the contractual negotiations: the promise not to lobby or push for Fatih to receive an early exemption or for the rule to be changed to allow for his earlier debut in F1.

Everyone privy to this agreement would know that this was to allow Max more time to build influence before Fatih arrived and caused trouble by splitting resources. Without the lobbying, Fatih would arrive in a team that was fully sided with Max as the number one driver, and it would be difficult to fight against that.

Max, who was in the middle of putting on his helmet, paused for a moment before he asked, "That works, but will they allow the same team that caused the implementation of that rule to be the first ones to receive an exemption?"

"We can still try," Helmut said with a smile. He had just received the answer to his question and was now sure that Max didn’t know about his father’s machinations.

"Well, if it works, it is good," Max said before he turned to talk with one of the mechanics as he walked to his car, ready to strap in as the free practice session was about to start.

Helmut just looked at Max for a moment before he picked up the tablet again and returned to watching the session. As if to give him a sense of déjà vu, Fatih was already back to his weekly shenanigans of driving the practice session in laps fast enough to put him on top of the timing screen, but at a pace he could sustain for an entire session. This gave their team a mountain of reliable and continuous data that they could use to optimize everything to fit the track for all three of their drivers’ cars, causing him to chuckle for a moment, completely unaware that he was currently on the F1 live feed, with the camera capturing both his chuckle and the screen that was clear enough for viewers to see what he was watching.

......

James silently watched Fatih’s T-cam feed quietly. He didn’t need to look at the track map for drivers’ positions or anything of that sort because Fatih was not planning on going slow at any time other than when returning to the pit lane, so there was no need for him to warn about approaching drivers because no one was going to catch him.

At the same time, he was thinking about the second round of discussions he had with Norman, the setup engineer, when he approached and asked him, with a hint of sarcasm in his tone, if he was still only seeing it as "signs" or if he had seen enough to come to a conclusion.

Norman had mentioned since the first race Fatih had returned from his ban that he was now doing most of the things on his own, including the setup changes in detail. He wondered if it was a result of not trusting the team after they had missed something important and caused him to be banned for twelve races. Now, enough time had passed since James said that he only saw signs and that he was not fully confident.

However, now with enough sessions spent observing Fatih, he was fully confident that it was a combination of both, which was the same conclusion the higher-ups, who had put someone to look into this matter when he reported it, came up with. But they still decided against taking action.

As for their reasoning, it was that through this mistrust of the team, he was developing his understanding of the car very rapidly, which was a habit Helmut wanted Fatih to have and had instructed them to nurture further. The better his understanding of the car and how it works, the more effective a communicator he will be in the future.

Although the decision was sound, he was still worried that the mistrust part of the equation was just a bomb waiting to explode in the future when Fatih’s own decisions clashed with the team’s. He would either force his way through, which could end up exploding in his face, or work out and reinforce his mindset. Or, the team might force their way, which also wouldn’t end well. If it worked, their relationship would still be worse due to them forcing it, but if it failed and his initial decision was right, then it would reinforce his mistrust even further. None of those outcomes was positive at all.

After all, a driver and team needed to be on the same page to extract as much as possible, and when they were at odds, most of the performance was left on the table.

"Haaaaaah," he sighed due to his thoughts, but the driver who was causing them had just set another good lap on the track, completely unaware of the situation.

"Well, it is something we can prepare for ahead of time," he said as he slapped his forehead and ran his hand down his face before focusing back on the screen, planning to fully focus on the present and worry about the rest later.