The afternoon sun bathed the Bahrain International Circuit in warm light—it was perfect racing weather.
Alex Sun sat inside the monocoque, the roar of engines rising and falling all around him.
Mark's steady voice came through the TR. "Crosswinds are stable. Stick to the strategy. Extend the first stint as much as possible."
Alex Sun took a deep breath, eyes locked on the grid ahead. He was starting eleventh, with his sights firmly set on the points.
Ahead of him were the top ten from Friday qualifying:
Guanyu Zhou, Lundgaard,
Piastri, Felipe Drugovich,
Dan Ticktum, Richard Verschoor,
Liam Lawson, Max Armstrong,
Jehan Daruvala, Theo Pourchaire.
As the five red lights illuminated one by one, time seemed to stretch unnaturally. The lights felt slower than ever, and Alex Sun's concentration sharpened to its absolute peak.
"Five lights out! The Bahrain F2 feature race is underway!" the FIA commentator shouted.
The instant the lights went out, Alex Sun released the clutch. The car surged forward at the very limit of grip, each upshift skirting the edge of wheelspin.
His car shot to Pourchaire's left, and on the main straight he powered past him cleanly, climbing straight into tenth.
After the overtake, Alex Sun held the outside line. He knew that while Bahrain's Turn 1 wasn't the Monza-style parking lot chaos, it still demanded caution.
As multiple cars ran side by side through T1, he noticed several machines on the right running wide at T2. His nerves tightened. On the long straight after T3, he would need to be extra alert—losing speed would be bad, but getting torpedoed would be disastrous.
Two hundred meters before T4, Alex Sun drew fully alongside Armstrong thanks to his stronger exit out of T3.
A piercing screech of brakes rang out—and Armstrong vanished from Alex Sun's right in an instant.
Before his mind could catch up, Alex Sun instinctively eased off the brakes, kept the car stable, and took a wider line through the corner to avoid being hit by a car spiraling out of control behind him.
The wider line inevitably cost him positions. The places he had gained off the start slipped away, dropping him back to tenth—but thankfully, the car was unharmed.
"Incident in Sector 1, Safety Car deployed!" came the race control announcement, and moments later the safety car ahead lit up its warning lights.
Alex Sun immediately adjusted his pace, keeping a safe 0.8-second gap to the car in front to avoid any risk of contact under Safety Car conditions.
Curious, he asked over the TR, "What happened? Is Armstrong okay? He just disappeared next to me—what was that?"
Mark reviewed the replay, then let out a long breath. "Pourchaire braked too hard before Turn 4, locked the left-front, and drove straight into Armstrong's rear.
Armstrong snapped into a spin, brushed past the back of your car, and then hit Daruvala. Both cars went off together—debris everywhere."
"Holy shit… Are they both okay? Any damage to my rear?" Alex Sun thought back to how close it had been, relieved he'd taken the wide line.
"They're both fine. From what I can see, your car's fine as well. Maintain your rhythm under Safety Car and watch the pit window."
"Copy."
Over four laps behind the Safety Car, track conditions gradually stabilized.
Alex Sun's white tyres, after their initial bedding-in, were now close to the optimal operating window. He could clearly feel the tyres biting into the asphalt.
Mark continued feeding him updates. "Tyre pressures normal, engine temperatures stable. Watch your pace on the restart after lap five. Pourchaire is ahead in P9 on softs—stay in rhythm."
"Copy. I'll hold steady."
Over the next five laps, Alex Sun kept the gap to Pourchaire between 1.2 and 2 seconds, following him like a shadow.
Lap after lap, he made small adjustments to his braking points and lines, gradually settling into his best rhythm.
He stayed close enough to benefit from the slipstream, but far enough to avoid excessive dirty air, patiently waiting for the soft tyres ahead to fade.
Mark's approval came over the radio. "Pace looks great. Keep it up."
On lap ten, the situation on track began to shift.
The TR reported that P1 Lundgaard's lap times were starting to drop, while P3 Piastri was nearly 0.8 seconds slower.
Alex Sun immediately understood—this was the soft tyres beginning to fall off.
He glanced at his tyre data. His white tyres showed 15% wear, with temperatures holding steady at 90°C—right in the sweet spot. The tyres were working perfectly.
"Time to push and apply some pressure."
He took a deep breath and began lifting his pace, closing on Pourchaire at roughly half a second per lap.
By lap twelve, Alex Sun was within a second, firmly inside DRS range.
Pourchaire clearly felt the pressure. His line through Turn 7 began to drift, and his exit speed dropped again.
The gap shrank to just 0.2 seconds. Alex Sun could clearly make out every detail on Pourchaire's rear wing.
Still, he waited—targeting the long straight after Turn 10 to ensure a clean, decisive move.
Before Turn 10, Pourchaire misjudged the state of his soft tyres. His left-front locked on entry, and on exit he was a full 20 km/h slower.
Alex Sun tucked into the slipstream, opened the DRS, and sailed past with ease.
Through the following sequence of corners, backed by superior tyre performance, Alex Sun pulled more than a second clear by the DRS detection point before Turn 14, completely killing any chance of a counterattack on the main straight.
Seeing such a clean move, the FIA commentator couldn't help but shout, "So calm, so efficient! Alex Sun shows no mercy at Turn 10, then immediately pulls away. His rate of improvement is astonishing!"
While most of the field was simply running its own race, F2 action often turned dull—but this overtake was like a spark thrown into dry tinder, igniting the race.
As the commentators finished breaking down the move and explaining Alex Sun's recent journey to viewers, the race reached lap fourteen.
Cars that had started on soft tyres began to pit in sequence, and Alex Sun's position steadily climbed—to fourth.
By lap sixteen, his pit window opened. Mark called him in over the radio, but Alex Sun hesitated.
In his memory, Guanyu Zhou had won this very race in the past—and that race had featured two Safety Car periods. The second Safety Car had appeared mid-race.
That was the Safety Car Alex Sun was waiting for.
On lap seventeen, drivers who had pitted on lap fourteen were now on fresher hard tyres and had caught up to Alex Sun, launching attacks from behind.
"Alex Sun, the Safety Car isn't guaranteed. Don't miss your window. Even if you hold them off, once the pack compresses you won't have clean air after your stop," Mark warned over the TR.
Alex Sun stayed silent—but he didn't give up the position.
Relying on his 74 points in Driving Technique and 52 points in Track Tatics, amplified by the Man and Machine as One bonus, he defended relentlessly.
He positioned the car perfectly before corner entry to make moves uncomfortable, and through corners where overtakes weren't yet complete, he shut the door right at the limits of the rules, forcing his opponents to back out.
Despite his hard tyres being on the older side, his lap times matched those behind him. A small DRS train gradually formed in his wake.
And then, on lap nineteen, everything changed.
Mark's urgent voice burst through the TR. "Petecof's car has stopped in the Turn 1 run-off due to a fire extinguisher failure. Yellow flags in Sector 1. Situation unclear."
Alex Sun knew it instantly.
His chance had arrived.