Sunday August 6th
Nürburgring, Nürburg, Germany
1500 EST
"Well, a race not to write home about, but it feels like we're seeing the tables turn this season." Rosie commented, the pair in the booth returning from Aurora on the interviews, looking across to Rory, who had some more commentary to that end.
"Certainly. Amy Stirling not getting points is vital for the Southern Cross pair who are hunting them down, especially Nora Kelly, who really ended up doing well. The constructors race is hotting up, and well, what will we be in for next time in Hawaii?"
"Certainly, and on that note, thank you all for watching. We'll see you there, thank you for watching us, and have a peaceful evening!"
Soundtrack: Caribou- OdessaThe end credits to the Nürburgring played, with slow-motion shots of ships through the various corners.
The editors must have been working hard, as making highlights were tricky, but the slow-motion crash of Ben's ship into repulsors, overtakes on track, sparks flying from the static from the anti-gravity unit through bumps from various ships, to the absolute speed of onboards, it all played out, quietly fading to black and ending the Delta Hyper episode in the west of Germany.
The fire in the design lab burned away in the white building far from the evacuation zone, as the entire staff stood outside, fire drills the same as they were forever. Even with advancements in fire suppression technology, working with a massive battery bank full of highly combustible materials, as was done on this day, with a few corners cut and a few bits of technology not doing what they should, meant that lab get caught on fire. Most of it had been put out quick, sparing anything serious, in particular the autoclaves, the rapid-test wind tunnels and any prototypes of ship chassis and engines in the end of the design centre.
Sighing, Ava looked to Bea, glad she'd brought her waterproof coat.
"This is some bullshit." Ava didn't really have the words, the husky Chilean looking at the high-vis wearing fire marshalls, hoping to go in soon. She instead turned to her phone.
Formula AG Pilot Group Chat
[Image of a burned-out design lab at the Carrera Condor factory.]
BeaAlright, which one of you did that?
@Paul?
@Cassie Neves? 😛
Ava VillarosaBEA! Jesus Christ.
PaulUnlike others, I play by the rules. It is more fun to battle you on the track on an even playing field. When I beat you, I want no excuses. I can't wait to meet you again when the world aligns and we duke it out on the track. Spa was a blast!
Cassie Neves Oh shit! Everyone alright?
Amy Stirling You're one bad social media post away from having George Russell energy @Paul
Astrid @Cassie Neves they will be when you stop burning shit down and stop cheating
Jen Lowry WOAH WOAH WOAH
Flo Mason You lot getting silly again?
Harrison Always
Cassie Neves Hey I didn't know
Amy Stirling That's what they always say ;)
Astrid Speak for yourself!
Kofi Guys you're out here committing violations in chat
Wedge My mixtape be like: [reposted picture of lab on fire]
Dorian And FIAR ones too.....I can't help it
Ben Hale Why have I been told to bring trunks to Hawaii? What shit is Delta Hyper planning?
Jen Lowry I'm gonna say diving or surfing. I'm packing for both.
Hamid @Wedge habibiii
Cassie Neves I didn't even get an invite :( Enjoy all, I will be thinking about you when sitting in the sim
Harrison Can recommend Basqueatoes in *W3W co-ordinates* afterwards, really good Basque food in New Hilo area
Cassie Neves You are taking the piss. Wait, they do Patatas Bravas in Sweet Ch....fucking hell I'm in
Astrid I'm on that too, I'll book us a table :)
Ava Villarosa Yes! Doctor Ivan (our native Basque) tells me it is the real deal. He also says he doesn't get how Basques ended up moving to Hawaii in such number that they'd make restaurants out there....
Wedge Enjoy! Yeah I'll get trunks, honestly, surfing ain't my thing, unless it's similar to snowboarding I guess?
Harrison @Wedge It is really similar
Jen Lowry I was hoping to go diving more! I think we talked about it before, but if Delta Hyper has plans, then we'll do that
The creepie crawlies in the jungle are scary so none of that please :O
Cassie Neves @Ava yeah, lot of them moved, my mum says some Portuguese too but it's like they gotan opportunity to live out there or something...
Amy Stirling Speaking of, I thought I'd sort out Singapore food too, given you can't have any fun there without being arrested lately. Tsai Wen Tower for a spot of dinner?
Flo Mason That was in Raven Squad! What a sequence it was too!
Dorian @Flo Mason Agreed, it was crazy. Me and Paul should be able to, I think?
Ava Villarosa I'm in, I think Bea too?
Cassie Neves Sure, me and Han can come
Harrison Not sure about Nora but I'm down
Astrid I'm busy with marketing stuff that evening :(
Flo Mason Yeah same with me and Ben. Something about some more commercial stuff and time with Bella
Dorian Such a mother, that's a fair excuse :)
BUGS///VOLCANO///PARADISE
Soundtrack: Flume - HyperrealThe chirp of movement of bugs.
A ship roars through the rainforest.
"Not expected to be here?" The voice almost seems alien, a creole of Hawaiian, a weird Spanish and Pacific accent, in English. A female one, to be specific.
A cut through, from the bug's multiple eyes, to the pilot's frame of vision.
The island opening up from the seabed over decades, after one of the biggest volcanic eruptions. Kanaloa Volcano was a seamount, expected to arrive on the surface of the Pacific Ocean in 10,000 years. Geology had another idea in 2028. In what was probably one of the most violent tectonic events of the region, some of whom believed it to be a reckoning from Mother Nature herself in whichever legend of Hawaiian culture or beyond you bought, the spew of lava created a black shell of rock from nothing into something.
It kept going for at least a decade. More volcanic ash and magma spewed from the ground than anyone could have ever dreamed the hotspot could produce, creating a volcano that was needle-like and 624m high, and only stopping in 2043. Almost all of Hawaii, bar Oahu and Molokai had to be evacuated, and what was left was an ash-filled, smoke ridden place. It wouldn't be a shocker if anyone who was born here had left for parts unknown.
"Sometimes the ocean spits out something new. And we welcome you to it."
The bug paces along a stick, into the newly grown mangrove, a bit strange given you're seeing it from their perspective.
"We take nature and bring it into humanity."
The roar of the ship through the MAG-enabled track, through the dense rainforest, the camera pointing up to an orange-red spewing shield volcano, old lava tubes creating a perfect line, and of course, away from the spewing constant that was Kanaloa And into the pilot's view, spiralling in chase after another ship, the red-orange glow of lava like goop was at a safe distance, but still dominated the view.
The bug's eyes catch again in reflection and inversion back in its perspective, as it goes from stick to stick, the view revealing absolutely, how insignificantly tiny they were relative to a human.
"We're so small in this huge world."
The bug leaps away, a bigger fly trying to tether it, sprinting, scurrying, moving quickly. At this scale, everything that even looks insignificant to humanity seems so, so much bigger.
"Yet part of something bigger than us."
The ships in pit, mechanics, engineers, strategists, pilots, all moving, all making it happen, and watching on in the distance.
"Shaped by their nature."
The bug clambering up the tree, into the canopy, another ship going past, revealing the volcano itself, the facility embedded in it, and in the distant, the ecocity of New Hilo, etched into the eastern side of the island, green towers like fingers of rock, except super-structures of residents.
"Built by our nature."
Ships roaring past, and a cut to Bea's ship fighting with Paul, at Spa, and a historic duel with Florence and Kofi.
"Remembered forever."
The top step, staring out with a fade to white.
"E komo mai, Formula AG. Welcome to Hawaii."
The intro parses the circuit in wire-frame form, and bit by bit, colours in the render, before sucking out into black.
Episode Twelve: Hot Like Lava
Thursday August 17th
Waimanu Valley, Hawaii Island, Republic of Hawaii, Federated American States
0500 EST
Paradise was a hell of a place to be. In a speeding, incredibly bumpy old Japanese boxy minivan though, it was passing by rather quick.
"Bea, slow the fuck down! We're not on track, we're in a shitbox van!" Harrison yelped, feeling the bumps through the gravel, the road rutted and clearly not used in a long, long time. There was no way into the valley a long time ago, but, an emergency services road had been carved out in the steep sides of the mountain, carving a way down to the beautiful valley, waterfalls and all, and shoreline.
Inside of that van, sat Beatrix, Paul, Kais, Max, Jenny, Han, and Harrison. It was staggering that they'd actually trusted Bea to drive, but they reasoned with a following vehicle, and the fact there seemed to be enough guardrails, it would be enough to stop anything ridiculous coming on the news. It was reasoned that the road would have to be taken slowly anyway, according to Delta Hyper's management. Nobody had realised in that risk assessment and health and safety meeting, that they should actually have told the ex-rally driver not to drive.
"Relax, she's only crashed on gravel.....actually, never mind!" Jenny replied, the van undulating heavy through a stream, making everyone get slammed into their seats, and most of the occupants of the van swear, lots, as the van turned around another hairpin turn, one of many, many, many that went down before following the coast on an incredibly scenic route on a cliff-side route, revealing the view of the valley.
"The view is mental from here! God, what have you got us doing, Rosie..." Max commented, looking out through glass on the winding, granite-black gravel road, the Waimanu Valley one of few to not be completely ruined by the volcanic eruptions on Big Island, and left untouched as a paradise.
It wasn't long until they got to where they were going. Through a dense woodland in the valley floor where Bea actually had to slow down due to how thick the mud and trees were, the van came to a stop in the dawn, the fog just about cleared but leaving a cold feeling on everyone's skin. Stepping out, after the winding, gruelling gravel trail in a non-AG equipped beater that looked like it had been the way in since the 2040s, the team saw Rosie gleeful as ever, caffeinated to the gills after a morning of getting out here.
Rosie beamed, looking across at everyone.
"Hello all, and welcome to Hawaii! So, we brought you to paradise, and while here, we thought we'd introduce you, and the viewers to something rather different. How comfortable are you all in water?" The question went out from Rosie, as the team was likely to have some very mixed opinions on that.
"Well....if you'd like to follow me, let me show you what we have planned."
The camera panned out, revealing the sandy shore beyond the dense mangroves and woods, as well as a few small huts on the beach where the group collectively walked through, and cut back with them at the huts, by the morning tides.
"Aloha kākou, welcome to Waimanu. I'm Tane, and this is Katie, and here to show you a bit of real Hawaii before you go out and race all over it. So, who here has surfed before?" The question went out, the two instructors, Katie and Tane, the latter's Polynesian carry coming out to the wider group in front of him. The former was a shorter, blonde-haired stereotype of a surfer, while the latter had a Tongan, burly build, perhaps more akin to Harrison in skintone than anyone else.
"We'll show you all you need, and get you started out here." Katie added,
It wasn't long before the group were in wetsuits, and with surfboards to hand, were being readied for what was to come.
A Hawaiian lea as a little award sat on the beach, left there for whoever stood up longest....and it was clear that Max's snowboarding skills didn't translate, Harrison was absolutely sending it, and Jenny seemed to be somewhere inbetween, before getting quite a nasty wipeout on the last break.
Thursday August 17th
New Hilo, Hawaii Island, Republic of Hawaii, Federated American States
1800 HST
Soundtrack: Kaela - SuperliminalThe city of New Hilo was something beyond comprehension to someone that might have been alive 70 years prior, but to those that lived, worked and played in the city, it was the bustle of four million people that made up the best lifeboat in the now second to most eastern Hawaiian island. With much of the remaining small towns of western Hawaii island destroyed from ash and vulcanism in the events of Kanaloa emerging and Mauna Kea's massive eruption, many believed that these lands would never be habitable ever again. Instead, through a mixture of private investment, and the energy provider Coalescence Energy finding that Kanaloa's thermal capacity could be harnessed, it created a hive for data centres, rocket launches and chemical plants, your usual energy intensive activities through lax regulations. And that needed a city for people to live in, to make their own, and to staff them.
The refugees from the Pacific brought their own cuisine, food, culture. Fijians, Tongans, Micronesians, all fleeing flooding, weather and the pulling of foreign aid that left them without a home. Entire countries, islands left underwater as the sea levels rose and nothing was left to stop the tide coming in. Anti-immigration rhetoric spewed when they arrived, but then again, the United States collapsed under the weight of its own disasters, as did much of the world in the 2050s and 2060s. No help was coming from the Mainland. Many had hard memories of that, so self-reliance became key. Let the world in if they want, but they weren't coming to carry the people of the land. So the Republic of Hawaii was a quasi-independent state in the aftermath of that, and in the light of the destruction caused by the seamount volcano, made decisions to create a future braver than any. Those refugees brought with them not a sense of shame, but a willingness to build, and they happened to be in the right place to staff that future. New Hilo was a city-state within a new state like no other.
Instead of creating Kowloon, they created a human-scale paradise. Something that took vision, an Eco-City that actually lived up to name. Most towers were barely over six storeys, with a central green-glass structure that stood at 40, like a basalt tower, low density with forest and tree plantations and streams in many streets, traditional wooden Hawaiian architecture meeting cutting edge safe, clean and efficient design, it felt....well, like a futuristic fairytale. Design in mind with humanity, no towering buildings, and a city that felt more like forest than an actual settlement given the palms and pines. Water recycled near infinitely, energy produced completely from the distant orange glow of Kanaloa volcano across the bay, food produced on rooftops and on walls, in vertical farms and literally produced in a way that was symbiotic to the environment. Solar panels, wind turbines in building structures that avoided polluting the landscape, it meant that each of the structures and buildings looked like fingers of some ancient Polynesian society rather than a city. Advertising was non existent, or at least, far more subtle, making it feel more like an urban jungle than an actual city. And markets, social spaces and community was carved out in a way that let the cultures that came here, thrive together, rather than isolate- quarters still dominated by one language or another. Equity, yet balanced by forcing an integration in a new way of life.
A small flutter of drones broke the peace, but with no flying AVs, cars, in fact, anything here inside the city itself, it was incredibly quiet. A gigantic dockyard sat out of view, turning it into the logistics centre of the Pacific, trade often finding itself here in the freeport before moving to where it needed to go. The chemical plants, once key to the development of this place, had long since shut and been completely folded into algal processing and biofuel production farms.
The tech companies followed the others when energy, water and human capital abounded, with virtually unregulated free trade making it easy to do business, and the government being committed to high levels of security, education and social cohesion. Then local firms emerged, built like Cooperatives inspired by the Basque model from immigrants from North-Eastern Spain. Many of those settled in New Hilo creating the port of New Euskadi in the south of the city, given their extensive knowledge in large-scale structural and environmental engineering, and added another angle to what was already a very exotic melting pot. The near destruction of their Basque homeland through forest fires had forced them here, and despite how out of place they were, they bloomed even among Pacific Islanders that made the city what it was. International environmental companies, many of whom were instrumental in the great rewilding and geoengineering efforts across the globe made the Hawaiian Islands their home as a testbed, as did the Oceanic Whanau, their HQ of Honolulu and providing a collective voice for the islanders who had lost everything and found no country, or concept entirely able to take them. A highly fertile soil between East and West, the old powers and the new, sat like a nexus point that linked it all together. Like Singapore with volcanoes.
The movement of billions could have ended the Pacific, but if anything, they embraced the future harder than anyone else. Innovated more, and from nothing, created an entirely new way of living that transcended traditional capitalist narratives. Communities, culture, yet finding ways to create new things and build from that nothing into something. A model of a new world they were willing to share, almost as if in a peering-through-glass kind of way. They had built what they had built, but didn't take refugees from the continents, outside of the ASEAN area, and in another way, that achievement seemed almost what made it more remarkable. They'd done it their way, and as silly as it seemed at first, now it was showing the fruits of why it was worth it. While other cities choked in their own squalor, limited themselves to their history, as beautiful and as stunning as they were, this was something else. A city that more than fed itself, more than looked after itself, seemed to now be imparting that into the world.
And somehow, they'd done it without destroying their cultural heritage, or their environment. The west of the island was still an absolute wreck when Mauna Loa erupted violently and virtually fried it all, but the choice to create a new rainforest reversed the tide of biodiversity failure, and was the single most impressive, if not important turning point in ecosystem recovery and rewilding that humanity had seen. Vulcanism created fertile soil, and when the volcanic activity stopped, it let a landscape go from black to green within a generation. A choice that was seen as stupid, ignorant of resources and demands, proved to be a dividend for future generations decades later that saw it come back to fruition. Culture had been maintained in the hills, and it felt distinctly like the land had been put back to hundreds of years.
Yet New Hilo was not perfect, given it also felt like Singapore in terms of how it treated crime, the language being so different on every street it felt strange to go from Basque to Tongan to English and back to Hawaiian, and the fact that living here required abandoning any idea of what a normal city dweller would be comfortable with. Public transport was intentionally not that great despite AV bus lines and an overground metro to encourage cycling, walking and connectivity- on the other side of whcih, the Maglev virtually turned journeys to Honolulu, a more "Western" city by any extent, into a metaphorical portal.
Some lamented the loss of jobs in recent times, especially since much of it had been resourced back to more traditional bases, and the city government's constant use of referendums on a weekly basis frankly felt like an invasion of time for many residents. And perhaps it gave off an air of being boring. It was sculpted, but outside of the cultures here, it felt a million miles away from the dirty, cool, underground feeling of other cities, London's charm and history to somewhere like Buenos Aires's anarchy that made it so alive, so real, so tantalising. There weren't clubs here, there wasn't that cyberpunk feeling that came with bars, dirt and danger. Not even the super rich were here, unlike the abundance and excess of Monaco, it almost relished in being a city that put people into interaction, equity over anything else. If you wanted quiet, there was an island devoid of anyone now, left to nature and untamed. Even Aachen, a garden city that probably blended the ecologically focussed aim of a solarpunk world with the reality of people being people was not something New Hilo considered a compromise. It was absolutely different, and may as well have been written in a science fiction piece from another 100 years into the future, given that the lack of roads, walkways and architecture with nature, streams and plants at their core, ran so counter to everything humanity had ever built.
If other cities at least felt recognisable to people decades prior that the calendar visited, albeit with a new lick of paint and technology, this felt interstellar.
Yet if the street food and music was decidedly Pacific fused with Basque, bringing Thai green curry into mix with Fijian sweet potato and synthetically-produced North Atlantic Cod, it was exclusionary, and being in the city felt like a place that did not want outsiders to tether themselves in permanently, even if the trade and ideas were allowed. Almost like a version of Japan 100 years prior, it wasn't so much as racism, as it was just almost as if it didn't want to corrupt itself, it felt decidedly, and significantly foreign to anyone visiting in just how different life was. The creole of Basque, Hawaiian and other languages seemed outwardly like people here spoke a language that even a Earworm hadn't figured out entirely the rules of.
Starting from a refugee camp to an ecologically focussed city, it was what it was, and didn't want change now from outsiders that weren't willing to adapt. To give up a car or AV, to eating food only made on the island, and taking a co-operative feel rather than a capitalistic one would be alien to anyone- this wasn't socialism or a commune, it wasn't even a third way; it felt like an isolated example of something totally different. It let visitors look, but didn't let them touch, beyond the bits of tourism that they did allow special guests like Delta Hyper in, it didn't feel like a place that was drowning in excess, but rather, living in the reflection of the world beyond itself. Hawaiians may have been famous for hospitality, the lei and the warm embrace of a ukulele on a beach, but strangely, it felt like when the world forgot them, they wanted to forget the world's embrace when they looked inside and remade their world, quite literally and figuratively.
If Solarpunk had a city, it looked like this. The air clean and near silent bar voices from markets, cycle bells and the occasional permitted AV, the buildings green, and a culture and feeling that this was a model for living. Not some idealistic one, but one that felt biophilic, intertwined with the very volcano in the distance that created life and destroyed it in tandem.
The pilots had a chance to explore the city, given their accommodation wasn't on the volcanic island as it had less in the way of amenities than even Mare Austral- it was here, with an AV shuttle allowing them to cross the small strait to the volcanic mountain literally decades old in the making. There was fanfare for Formula AG being back in town, plenty of events on, but none of them were commercial outside fanzones that had gone up fast from each team in the city. Oceania was obsessed with Formula AG, probably being one of the largest markets outside of Europe, East Asia and the Americas, being one of the first to adopt and race it, so the fans were of course, gutted to not be in attendance, but glad to see the teams themselves.
Coalescence had agreed with the Republic that as part of hosting that Pilots, if they were going to do anything related to their teams would not promote sponsors but rather promote themselves, their stories and their lives, returning something back to the communities that they were idolised by. Stories in Polynesia, after all, were currency worth more than gold. They didn't need charity, they needed engagement, inspiration, and the pilots that attended were that. From events in the city to beyond in the volcanic hills and mountains, pilots were here to show a very different side of themselves. Walks up mountains, to hub events in the cit yitself.
How they did that was up to them, if they wanted to. Unlike Silverstone, it wasn't a stage, unlike Canada, it wasn't cookery, unlike Italy, it wasn't a mountain hut away from everything, unlike Belgium, this wasn't an exclusive charity gala.
This was their chance to show off who they were, their story with their team's support or on their own, and their identity so far to a captive audience in a new world that even in globalisation, they were truly foreigners in, and could inspire.
Sitting on the roof of one of such green buildings after all was said and done in the evening sun, the eco-block gave a panoramic view of a sun about to pass the far horizon on the southern coast, instead of the hyper-tech like white walls or traditional concrete and composite, this was wood and greenery. A garden on a rooftop, where, in that view, the yellow sofa sat.
"Welcome back to Delta Hyper, Bea. We know you never spent time here, but does it feel like a strange return back to home, nearly at the antipode to where you live? What would you say about your experiences in Hawaii so far, how does it compare to London?"
"Hello Paul, and welcome to the Delta Hyper couch once again. With the season taking us to such incredible places, from the surface of the Moon to the legendary race tracks of Europe, how are you feeling about our unplanned visit to Hawaii?"
"Kais, welcome back on Delta Hyper! How have you found the change so far this season, with a visit to Hawaii instead of Rwanda, as planned in the season?"
Friday August 18th
Moa Tempesta Circuit, Kanaloa Island, Republic of Hawaii, Federated American States
1400 HST
The tiny island of Kanaloa in the last 60 years had sprouted vegetation densely in the rich, organic soil that had propagated, and despite being barely 20km2, with an almost stereotypically jungle-island-needle like volcano contrasting the other shield-like structures in the Hawaiian archipelago. The eruption's end, endless rain, and a little bit of ecological work had turned the island from a barren black mount to a lush green rainforest, dominated by nothing apart from Moa Tempesta, a ground-breaking geothermal plant that instead of drilling into the earth's core, instead worked right at the coal face of the quietened caldera. Unlike traditional thermal schemes, it produced a significant amount of efficient electricity through a fusion-supported cycle, and the excess heat was piped into New Hilo for heating and industry. While fusion was beginning to get cheaper, there was no denying that Tempesta had single-handedly, created all of what happened across the strait.
Nobody lived here, mostly due to Moa Tempesta being a quite literally heat-extracting boiler that created an endless amount of steam so much that it turned it into rain that peppered the island itself, left just the wildlife and track on it as features that made it feel truly alien, wild, and strange. An Ecological Preserve was the other reason, and well, sulphur was not ideal as a smell given it reeked around the plant itself higher up the mountain, where the trees ended and the barren black moon-like environment took over on the Palmer Plateau, the only remotely manageable bit of land that Moa Tempesta could be built on below the bubbling, red-glowing caldera. This wasn't something that felt like it was here forever. It felt like it had arrived yesterday, and already been filled with rainforest. An island sculpted almost by human hand yet left totally over to nature.
The commentary team pipped up, sitting in a commentary booth overlooking the track, and the short straight of the pitwall before the circuit began, Rosie and Rory in place.
"With teams gearing up for practice, we're joined by Rory Andrews. Rory, would you like to take viewers through the circuit?"
"Yes, it is an impressive track. A replica of a classic, Moa Tempesta uses much of the same technology used in our Italian AGP race, but is used in a more confined space with tight, MAG-driven corners and less in the way of snow, and more in the way of technically difficult lush rainforest. The circuit starts at the base of a valley, densely in the rainforest into a tight left hander at Turn 1 (Poaka) followed by a loose right left at Turns 2 and 3 (Tartaro), before climbing up one of the spines of the volcano, flanking through a historic lava tube (Tempesta Climb), and a brand new cut that has full MAG tracking in 360 degrees of the tube itself, creating a pivotal overtaking spot on a circuit that is incredibly twisty in other areas."
"The circuit then emerges into Moa Tempesta itself- the plant is still active and operational, and runs through a series of straights interrupted by hairpins and chicanes in the approach roads (Turns 4, 5, 6, 7- Pira Complex and Kapua Complex), running up and around a lava dam- an enormous wall of rock that holds in the extruded magma chamber of the Kanaloa Caldera, known as Kami Crater, and directing the continuous flow of lava from the now calmed, shield-like volcano off into the northern face of the island. The circuit then descends with a hard left at Turn 8 (Lamia) back down through another series of deep, gouged valley-like lava tubes and streams that emerge during rainfall, and then winds back down through the rainforest deep into a steep valley with multiple inversions and chicane-like complexes at Turn 9, 10 and 11 (Lacroix, Hina and Maui), with 90 degree knife edge runs through decants and walls, and new for 2094, a long section running behind a rapidly eroded waterfall at Turn 12 (Manilla) cut into rock. Each come with a mixture of fast, medium and slow corners that bring us back to sea level through Turns 13, 14 and 15 (Mari, Gulf and Coal Corners)."
"The circuit then loops down vertically and into a chicane-filled section, going to the coast before cutting back in to the newly built pit area, where me, Rosie and Aurora are watching. Energy Systems are critical, with so many MAG Sadly, with no fans today the virtual stands are up but if you're watching at home, enjoy through your devices just how lush this circuit is. Wow, I thought we had it good in Rwanda!"
"Yes, it was unexpected to return here. Now, as the lights go green, ships are leaving the pits, and we're seeing them take to the track."
The rain gently picked up, and stopped, coming and going in showers, making the run around the volcano caldera even more spectacular, the glow of orange in the background behind ships, or through the rainforest a smattering of colour.
Friday August 18th
Moa Tempesta Circuit, Kanaloa Island, Republic of Hawaii, Federated American States
1900 HST
Back in the temporary pit, the modular buildings and the tracking outside as temporary as could be, the evening sun was beginning to close in on the densely forested canopy, and turn things darker than the clear skies would allow.
With the NOVA ship adorned with a rainforest-inspired pearl leaf scheme of its own, best seen in person up close, that took the livery to another level, Florence was busy with diagnostics.
Plugged in and running the track again and all the data, configuring her last adjustments. Setting each corner the way she liked. She stopped, seeing Sally appear, waving a hand, pulling hand to neck and peeling out.
"We looking good here? Florence asked, as Sally nodded, sitting down by her side.
"How's it all going? Managing Bella, the role, yoursel..."
"It's fine. I miss her a bit. Formative years and all that. But, I also love racing. And Mark is a great dad. He gave up all of his bits working on Luna to come back to it, and I think he enjoys it a lot. They get to watch me race, and they know I'm happy doing what I love." Florence replied, Sally taking her star pilot's response quickly blurting out, to the point, and knowing where Sally was going.
"That is good of him. I never asked. I know you don't mention it a lot, but what you're doing here, it's....well, it gave a lot of the staff a lot of confidence. The management aren't expecting miracles. But with your involvement, the staff are beginning to believe in this." Sally replied, as Florence nodded, sitting up.
"That's good. I mean, I believe in this project. And what it can do. But also, because it's a good opportunity to throw my hat in the ring. I never was that good at doing stuff delegated, I...guess I had to get stuck into something. This was it, and well, I'm glad it's working. Like anything I do, I suppose." Florence mused, as Sally nodded, walking across to the ship, resting her palm against it.
"Good, good. I was hoping you'd have a word with the board about next year. We had horrific stability going in, really bad procurement. I just hope they don't make the same mistake."
"Aren't they listening to you?" Florence asked, as Sally shrugged, looking up at it, then back down.
"To be honest, they see me as a left-behind object from Fitzroy. The success came despite it all, but....what can I say. You're a bigger voice, with success. And they might listen to that more than me." Sally retorted, as Florence nodded, putting away the neural line, standing up and also leaning against the ship.
"Perhaps. But don't knock yourself back. You got this all here. And I can do that for you, but the results will come. Maybe not yet, like you said. Procurement's your business, Sally, I'll deal with on track, and make them turn heads. Get you something to shout about. Between us, we've got this." Florence replied, ever confident, as Sally nodded, a strange feeling of a Team Principal wanting the backing of a pilot, rather than the other way around.
"Good, I appreciate that. Rare this sort of thing happens. Hawaii won't be our circuit, not if we can spare it."
Florence shook her head, a grin forming as she peeled back the circuit layout, looking over it.
"Not if you go for a riskier ELS strategy, and load up the cells harder. A lot more battery charge in the ship's hull, through a supercapacitor bank might do it, store more power from start and reduce the amount picked up on circuit. I did it here years ago when they were trialling ELS. Dodgy, yes. But like you said, we didn't have a chance. Means you can react if there's a Virtual Safety, find a little more energy out of corners than others later in the race, but the ship will feel like it's basically tazed half the time."
"You suggesting we break the rules?"
"I'm suggesting we bend, Sally. We know it's going to take a miracle to do well here. So shit or bust." Florence suggested, as Sally looked up, looking through the delta times, nodding.
"For you then. Sure your reputation isn't going to be burned up by this entirely?" Sally asked, as Florence shook her head.
"Zygon fielded an entirely false chassis for a race, maybe two. We'll need a lot more bravery if we want to compete. Management don't care how we do it. Only that we do, and start to take scalps like you did earlier in the season every now and then." Florence replied, as Sally realised where Florence was going with this.
"Oh....then I might have some ideas of my own." Sally grinned, as Florence smirked, and with it, a text went out to get a few engineers back.
It wouldn't be much, or enough, but a 50/50 was worth a punt.
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