When they return to their respective sides of the garage, Rafael immediately asks, “What did he say?”
“Not enough.” But the real threat is buried in what he didn’t say. “Can we pull up a video of my racing line from eleven to fifteen? Let’s overlay it with Thomas. There’s something I have to see.”
During the formation lap, Julien trips over the cars ahead of him.
Sam slows as they round the final corners, braking too roughly like he’s trying to force Thomas past him for a penalty. Thomas catches it though, carving heat into his tires as he weaves back and forth.
Julien isn’t as graceful when he suddenly brakes. Hopefully he didn’t wear a flat spot into his tires before the fucking race start.
The front row dances towards the start-stop line together. It feels like flirting, somehow, and Julien gags in his helmet.
Sam and Thomas are obsessed with each other.Yeah, that’s an understatement.
When they finally approach their boxes, they both angle their cars towards each other and rev their engines.
So Matt was right.
Julien wants to radio him somehow. Maybe stand up in his car, turn, and wave at the American starting ten places back who knew exactly what would happen at the front of the grid.
Instead, Julien remembers how he lost Japan on the first turn and grips his wheel tighter.
Green flag, and the lights illuminate somehow both too quickly and too slow. Beep, beep, beep, beep. Each red light thuds in Julien’s chest, echoing alongside his heartbeat.
After they’re all lit, time freezes—taunting the drivers. Forcing them to reconsider their strategy. One last chance to change their minds.
When the lights finally blink off, Julien punches the throttle and aims straight into Sam’s car.
The Red Boar narrowly dodges, distracted by covering off the older Ferraro, and their fight is a blur through the first turn.
In the first moments of a race, instinct takes the wheel. There’s someone to the side of Julien, someone in front, but he only barely registers their presence as he pushes forward.
There’s space, so Julien sends it—squeezing through an opening that might be smaller than his car. The gap widens, his adversary backing off, and Julien falls in line behind the other Ferraro before the next series of turns.
He blinks, reevaluating. Julien is second now.
Sam nips at his heels, but he struggles to keep the other Red Boar back—to attack without leaving an opening for Fritz. He falls away until he’s almost half a second back when they cross the line and start the second lap.
Circuit Paul Richard is good for the long game, so Julien focuses on maintaining his position, widening the gap back to over a second, and studying Thomas ahead.
The older Dubois is perfectly textbook, and Julien follows his line over twelve and fourteen. It’s strange not to cut the corner sharper—to take a longer way around, even by a mere meter or so—but Matt hasn’t been wrong yet.
After more laps, the Red Boars fall several seconds behind, but Julien stays in step with Thomas. He should probably back off, keep a comfortable distance, save his tires and attack later, but Julien powers forward, matching his brother’s swift pace.
Dirty air pushes Julien back through the curves, but the tow makes up for it, especially with DRS. Forwards, backwards, closer, further. His tires remain strong, so there’s no reason to let up the pressure just yet.
One mistake. If Thomas makesonemistake, Julien will be there.
Unfortunately, Thomas is a consistency machine. He pumps out perfect lap after perfect lap, and Julien feels his frustration growing in every twitch of his fingers.
After lap sixteen, he radios in with, “Should we undercut Thomas?”
“How are your tires?”
Julien’s gaze flicks over the screen. “They’re fine. I can keep going.”
“There’s traffic where you’d exit. If you can hold out another five to eight laps, that’d be best.”
Julien curses before hitting the mic button. “Copy.” He passes the pit entry with a grumble, but keeps riding Thomas’s ass.
