Even so, she’d done it.
She’d defended P4.
How the hell had she got out of that? She looked in her mirrors for comfort. Barrantes was a good way back, still recovering from his flinch-induced error. She looked forwards to the other Massarella: Luciano looked like he was racing again, now that his wing man had failed in his assisted attempt to get by. Luciano’s attention had clearly switched from team tactics to maintaining his own position, P3.
It afforded Sabatino some time to settle herself.
‘Well played!’ yelled Backhouse into the radio. ‘What a game of chicken!’
She shouted back, ‘Where’s Paddy?’
‘Still in P2.’
‘To my P4?’
‘Correct.’
‘His eight points to my five? We’d be level on points.’
‘Points, schmoints. You’ve got more wins this year than he has.’
‘I’m still on for the Championship, then?’
‘You are.’
‘How far back is Aston from the leader?’
‘A good eight seconds.’
Sabatino looked down at her steering wheel display.
There were only two laps to go.
Aston couldn’t do it, could he? He couldn’t make up eight seconds and take the leader? Not with only two laps remaining.
‘You should be okay,’ said Backhouse reassuringly. ‘Hold steady. Lean off the mixture.’
‘Two more laps.’
‘Two more.’
‘Oh my God!’
SEVENTY
Sabatino breathed deeply. Two more laps. Less than six miles. Could she really be it? Was she really about to be World Champion?
Only two laps to go.
Then one lap to go.
Could she hold this together?
Sabatino forced herself to concentrate on the road, and on making no mistakes.
She crossed the finish line once again. This was it, now — the last lap.
She tried not to think about it. Less than three miles to run.
After the twenty rounds of Grands Prix this year — the hundreds of laps — the pressure — the distances flown — all the sabotage bollocks from Massarella. Was it all about to pay off?
Round Turn Five.
Through the succession of corners through Six to Twelve.
Keep it on the road. Keep it on the road.
She didn’t know what had happened until she’d rounded Junção, Turn Twelve.
She wasn’t told immediately.
Up ahead, on the outside of Turn Thirteen, she could see a yellow flag being waved. An obstacle of some kind. Something blocking the circuit.
What could it be?
Who could it be?
She rounded Turn Fourteen — and saw the reason. There was a Ferrari on the inside of the track. Stationary. A Ferrari. But whose?
Wasn’t that the race leader?
‘Andy, Andy? What’s happened to the race leader?’
Sabatino knew instantly from Backhouse’s tone. ‘Looks like he’s out — we think he’s run out of fuel, half a lap from the finish.’
‘So I’m third? P3?’
‘Yep.’
‘That’s good, isn’t it?’
There was an ominous pause on the radio.
‘That’s good, isn’t it?’ she repeated.
Sabatino screamed into the end of the start/finish straight.
Up ahead, the chequered flag was being waved. The race was over. Hadn’t she won the Championship?
Why wasn’t the radio going mad?
‘What’s wrong?’ she called. ‘Aston wins. I’m P3?’
‘Correct.’
There was silence over the air.
‘Oh no! NO! Fucking no!’
‘Afraid so.’
‘Aston wins — ten points — to my six?’
‘Remy…’
‘I’ve missed it by one point? One fucking point.’
Sabatino screamed to herself in the cockpit. ‘All that way, all that success. And we miss it by … one … fucking … point.’
SEVENTY-ONE
Sabatino ambled round the circuit on her in-lap. Her frustration was stratospheric. One point. That was all. She thought about what might have been — had the saboteur not destroyed her Qualifying run in Spa, had she not taken Luciano off in Monza, had she not flat spotted the front right in China causing that unscheduled pit stop, had she not lost her gearbox here in Brazil. An absence of any one of those incidents could have given her the damn title. How could she have come so tantalizingly close? As a thwarted competitor, her instinctive soul-searching was now starting in earnest.
But all that was about to be blown away.
It started as soon as she came to a stop.
She heard it the moment her engine powered down.
There was cheering. Triumphal cheering.
Sabatino pulled the steering wheel towards her, removed it, and climbed out of her car.
As she straightened up, and looked around, there was an immediate disconnect. All that cheering was focused on her — and not just from her own team. From everyone, everywhere.
Sabatino scanned the other cars and drivers in Parc Fermé.
What?
Aston’s Lambourn wasn’t even there.
It took some time to sink in. This adulation was for her. It was Sabatino who was being hailed. Film crews appeared and trained their cameras on her. Even when Aston’s Lambourn eventually pulled in, the attention stayed on her.
This was weird.
In a breach of all press protocols, a female TV presenter scrambled over the barriers and came charging over, thrusting a microphone towards her. Sabatino hadn’t taken off her helmet yet — and wouldn’t until she’d weighed in — but she still managed to catch some of the questions yelled at her over the noise of the crowd.
‘What does it feel like to be the most successful woman driver ever?’
Another journalist appeared.
‘How does it feel, as a woman, to have come that close to winning the World Championship?’
Whether she wanted it or not, Sabatino was being dragged out of her post-result sulk. She couldn’t believe it. These people — the TV, the press, the crowds — were projecting an entirely different outcome of the race — the season, even — from her own interpretation.
They were not saying: “You’ve been beaten”, “You came second”.
They were not commenting on the result at all.
This realization hit her even harder when she stepped out onto the podium. From two storeys up above the track, it offered her an extraordinary view. She looked out on a sea of faces stretching off for hundreds of yards up and down the Interlagos pit straight in each direction. It seemed as if every spectator from all round the circuit had congregated below. Even at that distance she couldn’t fail to get the message — it really couldn’t take long for it to dawn on her fully.
Paddy Aston may have won the race, and snuck the Championship from her at the very last minute, but the predominant colour over the heads of this massive Brazilian crowd was a clear surprise.
It was turquoise.
Turquoise!
For her.
Any vestige of doubt was then dispelled completely, as the crowd began a rhythmic chant: ‘Remy, Remy.’
She was given no chance to dwell on what might have been in this race or the Championship. This acclamation snapped her right out of that.
Sabatino’s standing in the sport was being hailed — unmistakably.