[center][h1][b]Saturday August 5th Nürburgring, Nürburg, Germany 1800 EST [/b][/h1][/center] [color=gold][center][h2][i][b]Mindset[/b][/i][/h2][/center][/color] [center][h2][i][b]Jen Lowry[/b][/i][/h2][/center] Sitting inside the meeting room, Peter finished up, having said all that was said, between himself, the strategist, Keira and Callum, shutting the holographic panel down. "Okay, we'll leave it there for now. Thanks all. Let's go after P1 tomorrow, Jen, and Amy, damage control, and let's get after it." Peter concluded, "Gotcha." Amy nodded, grabbing her tablet, standing up, as the others did so, about to leave the room, as Peter put a hand to desk. "Jen, can you stay behind?" With the meeting over, Amy and the other engineers left, leaving Peter and Jen alone in the room, the others filtering through as Peter leaned against the wall, waiting until the door shut with a hiss, glass sound-deadening plenty more advanced than before. "So I suppose I may as well check in on how you're feeling. You've done well so far, and P2 here is impressive, like I said earlier. I know you spend a lot of time with Yan in the neurology lab we have back at Silverstone, but I wanted to check in person, how's the neural link and your prosthetics feeling? Any abnormalities with it? All playing out okay?" "None so far. It's....so, so much quicker. Like honestly, it's night and day. Genuinely, even off track....it's wild. I was at the climbing wall and it was like I could see the entire thing in front of me, every move planned out five ahead, throw myself up an entire five grades worth of holds without sweat, let alone on track....it's something alright." Jen replied, as Peter nodded, knowing this conversation was a difficult one to have, but, well, it had to be breached at some point. "Good. Sounds like you're enjoying being a little more superhuman. But, I think you should probably be aware you know we're pushing the limits. And, you know we'd never put you in danger. But, with stuff like this, I just want to get a feeling that the pilots we put through this understand the risks. And your adaptation is a fast one to it." Peter stated, Jen butting in before he could continue. "This isn't when you tell me it's going to give me brain damage, or get me addicted to eating tangerines or something? Or, are you gonna sell my soul? Look, I get it, there's risks. Am I in danger or something because I've gone too quick into this?" Jen asked, genuinely a little off-put, as Peter shook his head, the Irishman not holding back. "Nothing like that. The opposite, if anything, it's a neural link that's been tested to the nth degree, ahead of the curve of most units on market, as you can feel. The reason it came up because I know Al-Saqr are cheating feckin' bastards, but also, I don't want us to be stung by anything. Layla had to be fucking around with her neural link, and I reckon it's why she retired. So, between us, I just wanted to check in that you've not done anything similar, because given the examination FIAR give our team, and how fast you've adapted, I just don't want questions asked, and I don't want you to fall fowl of the pricks that inspect us, and most importantly, I don't want to lose you because you're doing too much to it, too fast. It takes time, it's like a pair of shoes to wear in. I know the temptation, because yes, it comes with the top level of competition. But given the situation, and how fast you're adapting, I want to just check we're on the same page." Peter was near deadpan, the feisty Irishman turned to basalt, and clearly, not wanting to fuck his words around here. "Peter, are you being serious? You think that I'd..." Jen was interrupted, the team boss cutting in. "I'm not thinking you would. But I just want to hear it. I'm not in the business of being your doctor. I'm in the business in making you a pilot that gets that top step tomorrow, and the team with it. If you are, I'd like to know, and we nip it in the bud. Now." Peter was dead serious, as Jen nodded, new prosthetic hands on table, knowing that Peter was riled up something to ask that. His presence was enough to make her almost feel like a schoolgirl. "Nope, nothing, Pete. Pushing it to the limits Yan recommended. Nothing more. Focusing on motion." Jen replied, realising that well, Peter was a hard man to please. And while the compliments on her performance had been reeling from him, with him gushing plenty, she also knew that he had to be feeling a little fear. Something had stirred him. Made him ask. And Jen wasn't sure if that concerned her more. The stoic, usually brazen team principal that didn't care what he said, seemed to be quite particular. "Good. I appreciate that. You're doing really well, Jen. Plenty of heads are turning, and Cal, and Simon Calder tell me you're a pleasure to work with. So let's keep that momentum going. Go grab first tomorrow." Peter smiled, the classic "shit sandwich" working rather nicely. Compliment, constructively criticise, compliment. "Thank you. Won't let you down." Jen smiled back, and with it, took her tablet and left the room with a mind wondering what the fuck had gotten him so riled. That was Silver Apex though, and what she signed up for. But being on a podium, after a year and a half of having a shitbox, well, she wasn't turning her chances down. And it appeared Bea was still in her mirrors. [hr] [center][h1][b]Saturday August 5th Nürburgring, Nürburg, Germany 2000 EST [/b][/h1][/center] [color=gold][center][h2][i][b]Boarding Call[/b][/i][/h2][/center][/color] [center][h2][i][b]Max "Wedge" Wedgewood[/b][/i][/h2][/center] Staring at the telemetry, Max flickered through the glass tablet, immersed, in the zone, the ship sitting in the steel rack silent, engines dead, magnificently sky blue and orange as always. They'd picked up Gulf as a sponsor, so the ship had an absolutely legendary look- the Gulf logo on the front and rear panels, clashing with a glimmer of orange against the beautiful blue. An oil company turned biofuels firm, the logo stayed exactly the same as it had, and exactly as cool. The other sponsors including Pratt and Whitney, AON, SiriusXM, Oakley and Paulaner 0%, the latter from Ulrich's connections to Bavaria. A mighty ship. A ship that was not going to score points this round, Max reminded himself. Moving to Valkyrie at the end of the season felt strange. All the promises of staying, now moving. It felt weird. He wasn't quite sure what he'd get at the German outfit, Ulrich had started teaching him already some key phrases, Getting a tap on his shoulder, Max whisked around, caught totally in a daydream. "Jeez, scared the shit out of me!" Max winced, as Carl Matthews, race engineer to Max chuckled, grabbing a seat next to him, as Max did the same, still in the undergarments from qualy, and direly aware he needed a shower sooner than later. "Well, don't wear noise cancelling headphones when you're sitting in the pit on your own! Dude, I coulda done so much worse..." Carl laughed, the Minnesotan engineer happy to chat the shit, as he sighed, sipping down some water, Max taking off his headphones, used to help him dial into the noise that he read from the data. A personal choice, of course. A weird one to some. "Coulda, but didn't. Got enough shit on." Max nodded, the silence breaking as Carl looked around, before checking back into Max. "So, how did the boss take it?" "Not great. Got a lot of promises on what is to come. But....I need something else. Try something different." "Yeah, I mean....I don't blame you." "I mean, it isn't...it's just you know. A team like Valkyrie come knocking, you can't say no." Max added, Carl nodding, saddened, but agreed. "Yeah. It's hard to move. You got any plans? "I always wondered. If you had to pick, who do you think could replace you? Or rather, who do you want me to suffer through?" Carl asked, both of them chuckling in response, "Well.....shit, too many good names. I guess." "Too late to bring me along to Valkyrie?" "Hah, shit, I haven't actually signed the contract....won't you miss being an hour by train to home?" Max realised his mistake, knowing in all of it, he'd not thought that one through. But then again, he didn't expect Carl to smile, wanting in. That was not on his cards. "Shit, dude. I'm fucking bonded to you at this point, no neural link needed." "Alright, I'll fire him an additional line. The sage wisdom of Carl Matthews in my fuckin' ear for another year." "Amen to that, brother!" Carl joked, the two chuckling, enjoying the dying of the light, looking out at the sunset, as with it, Max typed out a message, pinging it across to his agent, in a hope that well, before the weekend was up, at least he could tie that up. More money for Alexander to throw, but then again, he had a feeling that it wasn't an absurd request. [hr] [center][h1][b]Sunday August 6th Nürburgring, Nürburg, Germany 1500 EST [/b][/h1][/center] [color=gold][center][h2][i][b]Out Lap[/b][/i][/h2][/center][/color] [center][h2][i][b]Nora Kelly[/b][/i][/h2][/center] The feeling bubbled, as Nora's hands sorted out the remainder of the start sequence, hearing her engineer's voice rustle in her ears. "Comms." "Yeah, check check." Nora's reply was that of certainty. It had to be weird looking in after a little while out of the focus. But then again, #NitroNora was not exactly sitting quietly. Not since losing a leg and an arm. The fear, the absolute state she had to push through. All the shit back home with family, all of it bubbling, burning a hole. Making her feel even hotter than ever, to go prove every single one of them wrong. Beatrix sat to her side, as Nora gave a glance, the Aussie now a little more aware that the Brit had something about her. As aggressive as she was, her equal in taming an absolute heap in stability, but Nora seemed to work on that analogue level. Something prosthetics made harder, but it was like she didn't care. Dorian was ahead. And he would relish in holding his line through the bits of the GP circuit, before the Nordschlife began, where he was no doubt, an ace. Valkyrie had prioritised pace, but Dorian's experience shined through on a complex track that felt easy to get lost on. It was nothing to Nora. She'd just take him straight away. Remove that piece from the board. Four. Three. Two. One. [b]Soundtrack: [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVHYiLofVj4]Turbowolf- A Rose for the Crows[/url] [/b] And away they went. She didn't waste time. In corner one, she let him run all the way out, but immediately made a switchback and ran as wide as she could let it, making sure Dorian would be forced to back off, and in turn, keep Beatrix behind. That would do nicely as a buffer. Now for the rest. With Amy at the back, and Harrison nearly out of the points, this was one hell of an opportunity, in a ship that barely wanted to stay on track, to make it count. Han was already escaping her. But she wasn't losing 4th. Not after that. The GP circuit was normal, conventional even, like Portimao with excitement, but the Nordschlife was absolutely mental in an AG ship. Corners that felt fast in an Endurance car were taken at fast-forward levels of speed, magnified by how tight the circuit was even compared to something like Tokyo, it was wide enough for overtakes, sure, but it was insane to try them at this speed without being absolutely certain you had the ELS to make it stick. And Nora was not backing off chasing the Zygon ships ahead, the ship screaming in and out of compressions, and the lap burning away faster than most normal people could think. Corner after corner, bend after bend, but it was home. Where she knew this best. No noise. Just that signal. [hr] The rest of the race, however, from a spectator's point of view wasn't anything spectacular. A fairly big crash from Ben Hale at Schwedenkreuz into the barriers created an extended VSC through that sector, buffering times there while the wreckage and Ben, unharmed but with an ego more than a little bruised, were pulled out. Beatrix made a move on Dorian after he made some mistakes in the GP section, the changes to the ship in race trim just not working today, just a bad swing of the dice in setup that had happened. Kais managed to make up a couple of places, first sniping off Paul, then the struggling Dorian, making it two Valkyrie ships at their true home GP, and no doubt a motivator. Harrison, surprisingly had gone backwards, his stability particularly poor in the bumpy section, his risks not working at all, while Amy, despite charging up the grid, couldn't get past Florence and instead, settled on a duel with her old nemesis who saw all her mentee's tricks. Compared to Belgium, the overcast, sometimes sunny atmosphere of the Nordschlife meant it was more a beer drinking session than race for spectators given they weren't hiding from pouring rain, but every now and then, an exciting overtake kept things tense. The feeling was that everyone had piloted well, the deltas indicating times in the higher percentiles, but nothing really broke the deadlock. High form from one pilot just meant another was on it too. It felt a little anticlimactic, the end of the race having the same starting three, that finished, separated by seconds. [hider=Race Results at Nürburgring] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qF6cn-eA0G0sumgf79TvEnPjOHyQP-vZSFV6LNrn_OY/edit?usp=sharing [/hider] [hr] [color=gold][center][h2][i][b]Delta Hyper Interviews[/b][/i][/h2][/center][/color] "Well, we can't say it was the most inspiring, despite Hale's crash leading to a remarkable lack of change on the rest of the grid. Nora Kelly was still rampant, and the crash out from Amy had meant she'd closed vital points between herself and the reigning champion- who despite rampaging through the backmarkers, couldn't make her way to the front." "Nonetheless, some impressive progress there for Hamid Atlassi, who scores his first point in Formula AG, and looks over the moon. The first of many, it seems, as he took that ship around a turbulent track with grace. But what consistency from Cassie Neves to put it in first, her first win in over two years, and an impressive effort from the Zygon pilot. They must be beaming, their first victory of the year, and that closes them up to Valkyrie, and the rampant Carrera Condor." Rosie replied, Rory nodding, "Aurora, over to you!" [hr] "Thanks Rosie! Well, I'm joined here by race winner Cassie Neves, Cassie, how are you feeling? "Amazing, thank you! So so happy, the ship did everything right, and....oh my god I'm so happy to be back!" Cassie was nearly crying, and put her trophy in the air once more, to the shouting whoops of the crowd, clutching it like a baby, posing for a camera and smiling for the first time in a hell of a long time with that result. [hr] The interviews continued, as pilot after pilot filtered through, getting an eye in on their results and their feedback in the forested, undulating German track. [b]"Kais, a nice turn there for you through that race to get a respectable points haul from Al-Saqr. How did you find those moves on Hornfleur and Mulder?" "Bea, that seemed like a very controlled race from you, sitting in P5 nearly the entire second half of the race unchallenged. Are we seeing a matured, controlled side to you?" "Paul, sadly not the result you were looking for at Valkyrie's home race. Do you think you could have been a bit more aggressive today, given the pressure from Zygon and the midfield pack?"[/b]