The academy life had officially begun.
For Kai, everything was brand new. It was unfamiliar, fresh, challenging, and, at the same time, a lot of fun.
The first lesson in racing wasn't about sitting in the driver's seat and gripping the wheel. It started with the body and the mind. There was a lot of work to be done before he ever got near a cockpit.
The academy didn't have a mandatory wake-up time; it all ran on self-discipline. Even for fully-funded drivers like Leclerc and Kai, there was no strict rule. They only needed to remember one thing: full funding wasn't permanent. That was more than enough motivation.
Typically, Kai would get up between 6:30 and 6:45 AM and start his day with a one-hour jog around Maranello.
Around 8:00 AM, he would head to the gym for physical training under the guidance of a professional coach, focusing on core strength, balance, and neck strength.
Kai was on the taller side and still growing, so his first priority was to adjust his body's muscle composition. The goal was to increase his strength, endurance, and coordination as much as possible while maintaining his current weight. This required a coordinated plan of diet, training, and daily rest.
And the most important part: consistency.
Kai now truly understood just how precious Rosana's home-cooked meal had been. Once he was on the official training diet, eating became just another "task" of shoving food into his mouth.
Every meal—the ingredients, the portions, the combinations—was scientifically designed.
Whether the main protein was steak, chicken breast, or fish; whether the carbs were oats, quinoa, brown rice, or whole-wheat bread; whether the vegetables were broccoli, spinach, asparagus, or carrots—every single detail was strictly controlled.
This extended to snacks like "one banana, three eggs, or twenty grams of almonds." The stereotypical Italian spontaneity was nowhere to be found. It was more like a rigid, Germanic precision, to the point where you'd wonder if you'd accidentally joined the Mercedes-Benz academy.
In addition to the three main meals, there were three scheduled snacks: mid-morning, mid-afternoon, and evening.
Everything was designed by a nutritionist specifically for Kai's needs. Looking at his own tray every day, then at the trays of Leclerc and Zhou, Kai felt like he was in a madhouse. The only thing missing was a small plastic cup with red and blue pills to take after the meal.
If the diet showed the meticulous management of their daily lives, the other courses demonstrated the professional depth of Ferrari.
After two full hours of morning physical training and a fifteen-minute rest, Kai would begin his theory classes.
It was just like being back in school.
From aerodynamics to flag rules, from data analysis to race strategy, it covered everything. There were not only introductory courses but also advanced, specialized ones. Although Kai was the only student in the beginner's class, the academy's instructors were completely dedicated, systematically opening up the professional world to him.
This, without a doubt, was the part Kai was most interested in.
Before, he had taught himself to drive. His racing was all instinct. Although he had a "professional" at home, his father was also self-taught, lacking a formal, systematic education.
Now, Kai finally had the chance to properly organize his knowledge. He wasn't just understanding the principles; he was connecting them to everything else.
Generally, drivers, like athletes in other sports, are hands-on learners. No one likes boring theory lessons. They are people who are used to learning by doing, by feeling, by crashing. Most of them have no fondness for a classroom.
But now, they had Kai.
"This change in downforce you mentioned, does it also affect the entry speed curve for high-speed corners? And why does the ride-height setting we discussed last class counteract that effect?"
A ninety-minute class would only get through a third of the planned material. The enthusiastic back-and-forth was unstoppable. The teacher, drenched in sweat, completely missed lunch. In the end, Monfardini had to personally intervene to rescue the poor man from what the academy was now calling "Kai's quagmire of endless 'whys'."
Whispers and rumors flew. Some said the teacher had to be carried out by Monfardini in a princess carry, on the verge of collapsing from exhaustion. Some said he'd had a mental breakdown back in his office, sobbing until he was dehydrated. Others said he felt so humiliated he'd gone to Marchionne to complain and threatened to quit.
The rumors became so wild that Leclerc and the others would get visibly nervous just seeing Kai. Behind his back, the students had started calling him the "Demon King."
But the rumors were just rumors.
The teacher didn't quit. Far from it. He was energized, his passion for teaching at an all-time high. In the past, the other students just learned by rote. They'd been racing since they were kids and felt they already knew the basics, their ways of thinking already set in stone. They never sought a deeper understanding, just confirming what they already believed. This had made teaching a dull, thankless job.
Kai was different.
His "wild card" background was both a blessing and a curse. His unconstrained imagination would sometimes lead him to make basic, elementary mistakes, but at other times, it would produce brilliant, eye-opening insights. It had forced the teacher to go back and re-examine his own assumptions.
Now, the morning theory class had become the most mysterious part of the day at the academy. No one noticed the time passing. Even after class, Monfardini, as the academy's technical consultant, would often get pulled into their discussions.
Alesi, naturally, was disgusted by all of it.
"Pathetic. Let him keep pretending."
"Racing isn't writing a thesis. You can talk all you want in a classroom, but you'll be exposed the second you get on a real track. You can't become a world champion by studying theories."
"But, it fits his type, doesn't it? A bookworm. Master of the simulator, master of the classroom. Just completely useless on a real track. Hahaha."
Ridicule, mockery, insults. Alesi made no secret of his contempt.
Kai, however, never responded. He didn't even bother to acknowledge it. He just remained calm and focused completely on his training. This attitude only earned him more of Monfardini's quiet admiration.
That level of focus and rationality was truly outstanding.
Most young drivers who first joined the academy were arrogant and impatient. They hadn't even learned to walk, but they were already trying to fly.
Monfardini had seen it all before. In his years at the academy, almost every new student had asked him the same question:
"When can I get on the track?"
They didn't understand. The simulator was already so realistic—the car's feel, the track details, the environment. Why couldn't they just drive the real thing?
Monfardini had to explain, time and time again, that they couldn't rush it. They had to build a solid foundation in theory and simulator training before they were ready for the track.
F1, even after thirty years of technological leaps and ever-increasing safety standards, remains one of the most dangerous sports in human history.
Out there, speeds easily exceed 300 km/h. Braking distances are measured in meters. One tiny mistake, one small deviation, can send you straight into a wall. Or worse.
In those high-speed corners, drivers rely on 150-millisecond reactions while enduring over six Gs of acceleration, pitting their flesh and blood against immense forces. In the face of steel barriers and extreme speed, the fragility of the human body is laid bare.
To this day, no one has forgotten 1994, when the "God of Racing," Ayrton Senna, lost his life at Imola. He was only thirty-four.
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