Steady. Cool. Focused.
Kai felt the rear of the Ferrari step out, the tires squirming on the limit of adhesion. Instead of fighting it, he opened the steering wheel slightly. He didn't block Hamilton's line aggressively; he simply occupied the space, forcing the Mercedes to take a wider, longer arc around the outside.
Kai swept through the apex of Turn 1, the Jones corner, balancing the throttle and steering input with a surgeon's touch. The car, which had felt light and twitchy a moment ago, planted itself as the weight transferred. He nailed the exit, pinning the throttle and firing the car toward Turn 2, the Brabham corner. He had the line. He had the traction.
Hamilton was trapped behind him.
The overcut had worked.
"Yes!"
In a small square in China, Wang Lin threw his hands up, screaming at the top of his lungs. His fists were slick with sweat, his heart hammering against his ribs so hard he forgot to breathe. He had been staring unblinkingly at the screen until the moment the number 22 Ferrari muscled ahead of the number 44 Mercedes.
"Yeeeeesssss!"
He wasn't alone. The crowd erupted. Joy and disbelief washed over faces as the reality set in.
The broadcast booth was in meltdown.
"Unbelievable!"
"Incredible scenes at Albert Park! The rookie, Kai, has utilized the Safety Car window to perfection. He jumps Lewis Hamilton in the pits and retains the lead of the Australian Grand Prix!"
"Ladies and gentlemen, we are witnessing history. He is holding off two four-time World Champions. Ferrari's strategy has pulled a rabbit out of the hat!"
"Mercedes has been caught napping. A massive strategic blunder from the Silver Arrows, and the rookie has made them pay!"
The shockwave rippled through the circuit. This "baby driver," who people worried might not even make it out of Q1, was now leading the pack on merit, strategy, and a little bit of luck. He had upended the script of the Hamilton-Vettel duel and dragged the spotlight squarely onto himself.
The gap was 0.8 seconds. Hamilton was right there, within striking distance. But the Safety Car was still deployed, neutralizing the race.
Hamilton could see the Ferrari's diffuser right in front of him. The proximity only made the frustration worse. He keyed his radio, his voice tight. "What happened? What is going on? Why did nobody tell me he was boxing? Tell me what happened. Did I do something wrong?"
He tried to stay calm, but watching the rookie snatch the lead was a bitter pill. On paper, the overcut shouldn't have worked. But it had.
Now the dynamic had shifted. Kai's tires were five laps fresher than Hamilton's. If Hamilton were ahead, he could have managed the pace and defended. But now that he was behind, he had to attack, and attacking destroys tires. Those five laps of tire life difference would become critical in the dying stages of the race.
Toto Wolff stared at the monitors, his stomach churning. Should they have been more aggressive? He pushed the regret aside. He keyed the channel to Hamilton. "Head down, Lewis. We have time. The rookie will make a mistake. If he doesn't, we will force him to."
Wolff was right. The race was far from over. This wasn't a GP3 sprint; this was a Grand Prix marathon. Fifty-eight laps. They weren't even halfway. The physical and mental toll of F1 was a different beast entirely.
Hamilton refocused. On Lap 31, the Safety Car peeled into the pits.
Kai was ready. As they approached the restart line, he backed the pack up, slowing the pace to a crawl. He waited, watching his mirrors. The moment the field bunched up, he stomped on the throttle.
He caught them sleeping.
Kai braked deep into Turn 1 and Turn 2, trusting the fresher rubber. He carved a precise line, neutralizing Hamilton's attempt to latch onto his gearbox. By the time they exited the chicane, the gap was 0.749 seconds. It was close, but Kai had held the lead.
Behind them, chaos erupted. Ricciardo attacked Vettel, Alonso harried Ricciardo, and Verstappen muscled past Hulkenberg. The midfield was a brawl, kicking up a turbulent wake of dirty air.
But out front, Kai had clean air. He set his rhythm.
Or so he thought.
Hamilton, having failed to pass at Turn 1, changed tactics. He settled in. He didn't attack recklessly; he needed to nurse his tires. He became a stalker, a predator lurking just outside the strike zone. He sat 0.8 seconds behind, close enough to be a constant, looming threat, but far enough back to save his rubber for the kill shot.
The pressure began to build, layer by layer.
Kai pushed, Hamilton matched him. Kai conserved, Hamilton conserved. The gap oscillated between 0.6 and 0.9 seconds. Hamilton was permanently inside the DRS window, playing a high-speed game of cat and mouse. He was toying with the rookie, waiting for the crack in the armor.
"This is a torture test for Kai," Croft noted in the commentary box. "He has a four-time champion filling his mirrors. He can't shake him. He has to drive every corner perfectly, knowing that one lock-up, one wide apex, and Lewis will pounce."
"I don't envy him," Brundle added. "He's being roasted over a slow fire."
Kai felt it. Leading was uncomfortable. Every time he checked his mirrors, that silver Mercedes was there. It was like a shadow he couldn't outrun.
Wang Lin, watching from home, was clutching his chest. "Just attack already! Why is he dangling there? My heart can't take this."
"It's strategy," Song Bo said, his own knuckles white. "He's waiting for the Boss to crack. He's trying to break him mentally."
In the Mercedes garage, Wolff watched with begrudging respect. The kid was making small errors, a missed apex here, a correction there, but his recovery was world-class. He wasn't cracking.
"Lewis, great job. Everything is optimal," Wolff radioed. "Wait for the call, then we attack."
"The kid is struggling," Hamilton replied.
In the Ferrari cockpit, the environment was becoming hostile. The heat was rising. Kai's hands were sweating inside his gloves. The tire temperatures were creeping up, dangerously close to the blistering threshold. If he pushed too hard, the tires would die. If he slowed down, Hamilton would eat him alive.
His brake temperatures were climbing. His reaction times were slowing as fatigue set in. He had never driven a car this fast, for this long, under this much pressure. His neck muscles screamed against the G-forces. His throat was parched.
He felt lightheaded, his spirit seemingly detaching from his body in the violent wind.
Focus.
He took a deep breath, mentally yanking his soul back into the cockpit. The noise faded. He tuned into the car. He felt the grain of the asphalt through the steering column. He found a trance state, a rhythm in the chaos.
"Watch the ERS deployment," Greenwood warned. "He might attack at any moment."
"Copy."
Kai adjusted the rotary dial on his wheel, dropping the deployment mode to save energy for the tires. He shifted the brake bias rearward to help rotate the car. It wasn't defensive; it was management.
Lap 45. Stillness.
Lap 46. Nothing.
Lap 47.
Hamilton struck.
Without warning, the Mercedes dumped its entire battery on the main straight. The Silver Arrow surged forward, the gap evaporating to 0.5 seconds. The slipstream was violent, a hurricane of silver turbulence tearing down the track.
The pressure was immense. Yet, Kai held his nerve. He didn't block erratically. He kept the gap at ten meters, close enough to touch, far enough to survive.
Hamilton was frustrated. His "wait and see" strategy had turned into "can't get past." He keyed the radio. "I'm attacking. Now."
He didn't wait for a reply. He faked a look to the inside of Turn 1, then swung wide to the outside, trying to use the superior grip of the Mercedes in the medium-speed corners to execute a "switchback."
DRS open.
The silver car screamed alongside Kai on the run to Turn 1.
"Bring it on."
Kai didn't defend the inside line blindly. He braked early.
By braking early, he squared the corner off. He hit the apex sharp and hard, rotating the car while Hamilton was still trying to wrestle his machine around the long way on the outside, in the dirty air.
Wheel to wheel. Side by side.
Kai felt the rear tires slipping. One millimeter more of throttle and he would spin. He held it. He balanced the car on the razor's edge of physics.
Hamilton, stuck on the outside, was suffering. He turned in, trying to squeeze Kai, but the front end washed out. Understeer. His tires were cooked, his brakes overheated from the dirty air.
Hamilton locked his left front tire. A puff of white smoke. The Mercedes skidded wide onto the grass.
"He's off!" Croft screamed. "Hamilton runs wide! Kai holds him off! Brilliant defense from the rookie!"
"Hamilton got impatient! He tried to hang it around the outside and the car just gave up on him!"
Kai didn't hesitate. As soon as the Mercedes wobbled, he pinned the throttle. The Ferrari hooked up and launched out of Turn 2.
The gap exploded from 0.4 seconds to 1.1 seconds. He had broken the DRS tow.
Hamilton rejoined, his tires flat-spotted and dirty. He saw Vettel closing in fast in his mirrors and had to back off to consolidate.
1.5 seconds. 2.1 seconds.
Kai was pulling away.
"No way..." Wang Lin was jumping up and down. "Is he going to win? Is he actually going to win?"
Song Bo stared at the screen, trembling. "Calm down. It's not over until the flag drops. Remember what he said."
Records were tumbling in Song Bo's mind. Fangio. Hamilton. Verstappen. Kai was chasing ghosts.
But Hamilton wasn't done. The champion reset his systems. "Mode 6. Recharge. Push next lap."
Lap 50. The Mercedes found a second wind. Hamilton took massive chunks out of the lead. 2.1 seconds became 1.6. Then 1.2.
"Gap is 1.2. Do not let him get DRS," Greenwood warned.
Kai checked his mirrors. He was exhausted, but clear-headed. He reached to turn up his ERS deployment.
Red lights flashed on his dashboard.
FUEL CRITICAL.
F1 cars start with a maximum of 105kg of fuel. They cannot refuel. Kai had been pushing so hard to keep the lead that he had burned too much.
"Kai, we are critical," Greenwood's voice was urgent. "Target minus 0.1 per lap. You need to lift and coast."
Save fuel? With Hamilton hunting him down? It was suicide.
But Kai didn't panic. He calculated. He needed to save fuel in the braking zones without losing lap time.
Lap 51. Turn 13. A slow 90-degree right-hander.
Hamilton had the tow. He wasn't in DRS, but he was close. He pulled out to the inside, looking to dive bomb. He wanted to force Kai to brake late, to miss the apex, to make a mistake.
Kai saw the move.
Instead of braking late to defend, Kai lifted off the throttle fifty meters early.
He coasted.
Hamilton, expecting a late-braking duel, was caught off guard. He braked at his normal marker, but because Kai had already slowed down, Hamilton shot past him deep into the corner. He had overshot the apex.
"Oh my god!"
"Kai let him go! He baited him into braking deep!"
It was a masterstroke. By lifting early, Kai saved the necessary fuel. By coasting, he hit the apex perfectly while Hamilton sailed wide.
Kai got on the power early. He executed the "switchback" maneuver perfectly, cutting underneath the Mercedes as Hamilton struggled to rotate his car.
The red Ferrari ghosted past the silver Mercedes, exiting the corner with massive traction. By the time they hit the straight, the gap was back to 1.5 seconds.
It looked like magic. A rookie outsmarting a legend.
The main grandstand gasped, then roared. They couldn't believe their eyes.
~~----------------------
Patreon Advance Chapters:
[email protected] / Dreamer20