Not that the crappy conditions are affecting Grady. He’s having his best race yet, moving up from P8 to P6 thanks to a great start. But I’ve never coached him in the wet before—at least, not this kind of wet—and I want to make sure we’re doing everything we can to maximize performance and minimize the risk of an accident, already heightened by the slick track.
“What’s it looking like out there?” I ask him.
“Like the weather forecasters are full of shit,” he says. “Visibility is fair. I’m aquaplaning a little. But the car is handling great.”
“We’re thinking of moving you to the extreme wets.” I brace myself for his outburst. Most drivers hate running on extremes, and I assume Grady’s no exception. The intermediate tires he’s on now are already warmed up, and they’re usually around a second and a half to two seconds per lap faster than the wets.
“What’s my position?” he asks.
“P6. Gap is .05 between you and Castellanos in P5.”
“And behind me?”
“Singh .03 behind.”
“That’s a big hell to the no on the wets,” he answers predictably. “I’ve got a chance to catch Yanni. And Raj is way too close.”
“Copy. I’ll convey that to the team. We’ll switch you in a few laps to new intermediates.”
“New inters sound good, but let’s wait a little longer before changing. These ones still feel good, and unless your data is telling you something different—shit.”
My stomach does a nose dive, landing somewhere near my feet.
“Grady, what’s wrong?” There’s nothing but static. I glance at the telemetry data on my laptop, which seems normal. Meaning nothing’s wrong with the car, but still no response from Grady, so I try again. “Grady, are you there?”
“Yeah, I’m here,” he says finally, and my heart starts beating again. “Yanni spun out. And he took one of the Mayflower cars with him.”
I look over at Bernie, who’s on the pit wall channel with the rest of the senior staff. We have multiple radio channels. Some general for when the whole team needs to communicate, like the garage channel. And others for smaller groups, like the pit crew and engineering channels. And then there’s smallest group of all—the drivers and race engineers. Each pair has its own channel so they can communicate without distractions.
Without me having to say a word, she pulls out one earpiece and confirms that Arete’s Yanni Castellanos and Sterling Samuels from Mayflower are out. I mouth “thank you” and turn my attention back to Grady.
“It’s Samuels,” I inform him. “He and Yanni are both out. They’re out of their cars and seem fine, but we’ve got a yellow flag. Virtual safety car deployed.”
“Copy that.”
“Nice work staying out of that one. How’s the car? Any damage?”
There’s a pause, like he’s listening to the car, maybe trying to become one with it, then he answers. “Everything seems fine, but there was some debris. I’m not sure if I hit anything.”
“Telemetry looks good. I’ll let you know if we see anything on our end.”
“Thanks.”
I check my laptop, where I’ve got GPS mapping data for all twenty cars, telling me where they are on the track at all times. “You’re P4 now, Grady. P4. 1.2 behind René.”
“I hate that it’s due to someone else’s bad luck, but fuck yeah.”
“That’s racing, my friend. Twenty-five laps to go. Safety car ending after the next lap.”
Once the safety car is lifted, the race is pretty uneventful for a while with most of the drivers opting to play it a bit conservatively and overtaking at a minimum thanks to the weather. Grady manages to gain a little time on René, thanks to our decision to hold off on switching tires, meaning Grady’s running on fresher rubber. But the two teammates are still in P3 and P4 going into the final laps, which has the mood on the pit wall and in the garage just short of outright giddiness.
“Okay, Grady, last two laps. Just hold position. Stevens is .9 behind.”
“What about René?”
“Gap is .3.”
“I’m faster than him. I can overtake.”
