Okay. Let’s do it.
Julien accelerates through turn eighteen and crosses the start-finish line at full speed.
This isn’t the time for uncertainty, and Julien confidently hits every corner exactly as he does on his sim. Two tires over the line, three tires. As long as he carves through the track sharp enough to make one tire stick, it still counts.
His arms scream at him, and it takes all of his upper body strength to steady the wheel as Julien absorbs the shock of every bump, every jolt, and every slip of the tire. His ass takes the brunt of it when his skid plank bottoms out over the convex line, but he still pushes harder, faster, forward.
“Good pace.”
It’s a welcome improvement over Davide’s famous“Push now” comments.
When Julien crosses the finish line, there’s no relief in it, only acceptance. He’ll be on the backstep no matter what, so whatever his lap time is, he needs to improve it.
“Mega lap, Julien. You’re provisional pole.”
Yeah, well, he’s the second car to set a time.
Julien keeps an eye on his mirrors as he slows for his cool down lap. “Where are my losses?”
“Checking.”Weird. Davide usually has a list ready to go.
After a few moments, Julien asks, “Davide?”
“Turn one.”
Alright, he might’ve braked a little early for such a high-speed turn. That’s easy to fix.
Julien waits for more notes, but the race engineer is silent. “Just turn one?”
“It was a mega lap, Julien.”
Not that mega. Davide’s too nice. He should fetch Rafael and ask him where Julien can improve. Rafael always has opinions about where Julien can improve.
Then again, Rafael was a total dick about the impending penalty, so maybe Julien will stay unimproved just to spite him.
The Brazilian driver is nowhere to be found when Julien is wheeled back into the garage. The crew covers his tires while he reads through the telemetry and purposely avoids the timing tower.
A good result will only give him hope. He can’t use hope right now.
The telemetry isn’t much help either. Julien can pick up a little time in turn one, but the most important thing he can do is go back out there and lay down the best possible lap while he's carrying the least amount of fuel.
Julien rolls out of the garage and joins the cars lined up in the pitlane for the final push. While he slowly creeps forward, he tries to shove everything out of his head other than the track itself.
No penalties, no fuck ups, just Julien and the track he knows better than his own hand.
The warm-up lap passes in a blur, and, before he knows it, he accelerates through the final turn again.
Top speed, hold the pace through turn one, carry it through turn two. He carves through the switchbacks like an ice skater, hitting the rumble strips head-on while straddling the line.
Julien loses the car behind him by turn eleven and accidentally steals a tow on the straight after fourteen. He catches the dirty air of the Mercenary ahead and struggles with oversteer in seventeen, but still manages to cross the line without incident.
“Good job, Julien.”Davide’s voice sounds stilted for some reason.“Do you want me to keep you updated on placement?”
“Negative. Just tell me after everyone else crosses.”
“Copy.”
As the checkered flag waves on the session, there’s nothing more Julien can do. After a brief moment of relief, he's hit with all of the negativity he postponed stewing over.
