My Formula 1 System-Chapter 662: Stay Put, Vic!
As a Christian, Victor was kind of certain that God was finally on his side. It felt like the way was being cleared for him, and he was being rewarded for all his hard work and the good things he did. Just that brave, heroic action he took at the gala—saving the man from choking—could very well be the rocket boost his career needed. With such a boost, he might actually stay in F1 much longer than he had feared earlier this year when things were looking in doubt.
After being rescued, Chris had sat the boy down with his wealthy friends. They started inquiring all about him, trying to figure out who this kid actually was. Truthfully, barely anything was known about the Trampos rookie other than category record and temperament, and the fact that he was Luca’s teammate. It was as if Luca’s fame made up for everything Trampos lacked, leaving Victor as a bit of a mystery.
So, Victor went ahead and told them the basics—just the kind of stuff fit to tell strangers.
Chris and his cohorts responded with exaggerated interest.
To be honest, Victor Surmann’s life was pretty boring compared to their billion-dollar worlds, but they listened like he was telling a spy novel.
"Eighteee, and this is your first season?" one of the men asked, refilling his glass. He was dressed in a remarkable velvet blazer. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢
"Yes, sir," Victor replied politely.
The man grinned, looking around at his chums. "Not bad. And when I was eighteen, do you know what I was up to?"
Victor waited, having no clue what to say.
"NOTHING!" the man barked, and suddenly the whole table boomed into laughter.
The wealthy folk and their laconic jokes. Context sense 0/10, delivery 2/10. Victor just smiled enough to be polite, though he felt super uneasy sitting there.
"But you’re being treated just fine over at Trampos, right?" Chris asked, his voice mellowing out the moment.
This was where Victor started to suspect there was some paddock drama simmering beneath the surface of this conversation. These weren’t just random questions; they were feeling him out.
"Yes," Victor answered boldly, looking Chris in the eye.
Chris and the others stared at him for a long beat. They slowly nodded, shifting their attention to their drinks and letting the gala noise fill the gap for a few minutes. The opulence of the room felt denser when closer to the source of power. It was a scene of uncurbed wealth, where every tuxedo and gown represented a lifetime of heritage and power. Then Chris spoke up again, swirling the ice in his glass with a mindless gesture.
"They say buy the dip, ride the peak," Chris muttered.
"I mean, my good friend Lemaitre did so with Rennick. He got in early, made his name, made his money, and now he’s packed his bags and wished us a good day. What a cunt."
The other men sat in total silence. The mood had shifted from dumb jokes to deadly serious in a second. Chris sat up straight and stared right into Victor’s eyes, his expression totally unreadable.
"So," Chris continued, leaning closer, "it would be stupid of us not to catch the spark before the flame."
"I mean, you’re not Luca... but you’re standing close enough to the heat that you’re bound to catch fire eventually."
The silence grew teeth. The air in the room seemed to run out. Victor felt like he was being measured for a suit he hadn’t asked to wear.
"Or are you not flammable, Victor?"
~~~~~~~~
It was a big, fat NO from Trampos. In fact, it was one of the most unwavering and instantaneous decisions the team had ever made regarding anything to do with Victor. It honestly shocked Victor, too. He started to worry that he might have brought some serious trouble to his door just by sitting at that table. In some sense, he did, but the team’s refusal was enough to remedy anything that had been done—or was about to be done.
But Victor was an adult. As a Formula One driver, he technically had the right to make his own moves. Drivers can do all sorts of independent things without their teams breathing down their necks, like having their own supplement and wellness partnerships, hiring personal physiotherapists, signing lifestyle and clothing ambassadorships, and even picking their own helmet designers. But there is a tax on everything. You always have to check the fine print.
It is a fundamental rule across all sports that one cannot accept sponsorship from a rival entity or a group aligned with the competition, regardless of how lucrative the offer appears. Chris and his associates weren’t just random rich men; they were staunch facilitators of Red Bull and their affiliated teams. Striking a deal with them would be tantamount to Victor declaring an open mutiny against Trampos. He just couldn’t do it. Not just because it appeared morally wrong, but because it was technically impossible. His contract was like a cage, barring him from having those kinds of interactions.
The only way it could technically work was if Chris and his crew sponsored him through a totally different establishment. Maybe through one of Chris’s microfinance firms or perhaps his high-end real estate holdings in Dubai. It had to be a "clean" brand with zero ties to the racing world. That was the only way the legal paperwork would even get past the first desk at Trampos.
To be honest, Victor was betting on that loophole. He really, really needed sponsors of his own. These billionaires had just slapped a marvelous, life-changing opportunity right in his face. If Vic got a deal like that, he’d go from a nobody to a somebody overnight. He’d see stratospheric growth—his face on billboards, a massive spike in his social media following, and he’d definitely be able to buy one of those supercars in less than a year.
But Trampos wasn’t having any of it.
It didn’t take a master strategist to figure out that Chris and co weren’t helping Victor; they were capitalizing on him.
Trampos believed these fat cats were trying to slowly fracture Trampos from the inside, and maybe even mess with Ferrari on a larger scale by stealing away their upcoming talent.
If Victor were wholly independent, he could still go ahead and make the deal if he were stubborn enough. But unlike Luca and the majority of the other drivers, Victor had no personal structure. He had no agent of his own, no private legal counsel, and no personal PR manager to fight his battles in the boardroom. The team, Trampos, were his legal body through and through. They held all his cards. Because of that, this dream deal was looking like a total, unachievable fantasy. He was stuck in the red suit, and for now, the red suit said: "Stay put."
