One red light went on.
The second light went on.
Then the third, then the fourth.
The fifth red light came on. The crescendo of sound in the narrow cavern of the street was utterly deafening.
Seconds passed. A pause.
Then, all the lights went out at once.
GO!
Twenty-one clutches were engaged within a fraction of a second. And the fleet of the world’s most sophisticated automobiles screamed off the line, hurtling at breakneck speed down the street towards the impossibly narrow right-hander of Sainte Devote. It was a breathtaking sight.
How could so much energy, speed and hardware converge into that corner and hope to emerge on the other side without incident? There were puffs of blue smoke as tyres were locked-up. There was bumping, wheel to wheel. One car, interlocking its wheels between the wheel-base of another, made contact and was momentarily lifted off the ground. Anyone watching, let alone commentating on the race, could only focus on one tiny part of it, and just hope they could follow and understand even that minor segment of the story. It all happened so fast. Only with repeated replays afterwards would the full story of the start be clear.
A matter of seconds later, most of the field was through Sainte Devote. Commentators were frantically trying to call the race — to see who the emergent drivers were, who had got ahead, who had dropped back, and who, if any, was out.
The cars charged on up through Beau Rivage. Simi Luciano in the black Massarella had built a lead from pole. Remy Sabatino had had a blistering start. Although starting one row back, she had jumped the Ferrari into second place having the advantage of the clean side of the track. Paddy Aston remained fourth in the Lambourn, while Adi Barrantes, still having a miserable weekend of it, had been bumped in Turn One and was now down to ninth.
Straker watched the main broadcast feed as the cars streamed past the Casino and hurtled down the hill towards Mirabeau. As far as he could tell, there were no retirements. All twenty-one cars were still racing after the first half-lap.
He heard Backhouse radio Sabatino with an update on placings. There was excitement in his voice.
But there was a long way to go.
Around they raced, more or less as a high-speed procession.
So it remained for the next fifteen laps. No one was able to overtake, and there were no incidents.
Fortunately for the spectators, everything came to life shortly afterwards.
Simi Luciano in the Massarella had managed to build up a fourteen-second lead. Then, taking everyone by surprise, he pitted far earlier than expected. Straker heard the TV commentators getting thoroughly over-excited at the realization of his three-stop strategy. They’d all thought the Massarella was naturally quicker, not that it was significantly lighter than the others. Recalculations were swiftly done to try and work out how fast Luciano really was on a fuel-adjusted basis.
That was the first incident.
The second involved the other Massarella.
Well down the order, Adi Barrantes was having a feisty scrap with one of the Red Bulls. Heading out of the Chicane, Barrantes caught a good exit and was quickly up behind the Red Bull’s gearbox. With some distance to run before the ninety-degree left-hander of Tabac, Barrantes, frustrated by his lack of opportunity to overtake, pulled out sharply and lunged down the inside. Relative to each other, it seemed like slow motion, even though they were both travelling at well over one hundred and twenty miles an hour.
Slowly, Barrantes’s front wheel managed to pass the other’s rear axle. Then the front wheel pulled level with the other driver. Barrantes was still gaining when the Red Bull started moving over to claim the racing line.
Was Barrantes alongside far enough? Did Barrantes now have a right to the line? Except at that speed, it was almost too quick for rational judgement.
As the Red Bull started to set itself up for the corner, Barrantes realized his space was disappearing. Bottling out, he lifted off and jabbed at the brake.
And that’s when it all went wrong.
Barrantes’s front left rolled over some white line markings on the normally public road. As he braked, that tyre was on shiny white paint rather than the rough, grippy surface of the track. It was no help in slowing him down. The skid started right there. Instinctively, Barrantes yanked the steering wheel to the left, trying to correct the resultant understeer, but the car simply continued straight on.
Adi Barrantes’s Massarella would not respond. It was streaking across the circuit. And there was no way out.
No run-off.
It could only slam into the Armco on the outside of Tabac. Luckily, the angle was slight — more of a glancing blow. Even so, at that speed of impact, the front wing and carbon-fibre nosecone crumpled and splintered, as it was designed to. The front wheel hit the barrier. Again, the shock was absorbed in the car’s construction, this time in the wishbones. Fragments of carbon fibre exploded outward from the impact. The car scraped its broken front end some distance along the bottom of the barriers before its kinetic energy was finally dissipated.
Barrantes came to a stop. He waved a hand immediately to indicate that he was conscious and not hurt.
From around that section of the circuit, race marshals jumped into action, waving yellow flags and radioing to the operator of the hydraulic crane, a short distance along the Armco.
Right behind the stricken Massarella, Formula One cars were still belting past only a matter of feet away. A lethal situation. Barrantes looked over his shoulder, hurriedly yanked off the steering wheel, pulled himself up out of the cockpit, and jumped up and over the steel barrier to safety.
In a matter of seconds, with extraordinary Monégasque efficiency, the marshals managed to hook the car to a crane and lift the dangling and broken Massarella clear of the track. The race was continuing, but under yellow flags.
Next to Straker in the headquarters truck, the Ptarmigan team members were animated — particularly Oliver Treadwell, the Strategy Director. ‘Get a shot of Tabac,’ he commanded, ‘quick!’
Treadwell was soon able to study the CCTV image. ‘Is that oil?’ he asked the room.
‘Looks like it,’ replied one of the team.
‘All stations, all stations: possible safety car.’
Straker heard the radio traffic buzz in both ears as the pit lane spoke to Sabatino. This was absolutely crucial. Tactically, the team had a huge call to make.
Was the safety car about to be called?
If so, Ptarmigan could take a punt and call their driver in immediately, and maybe grab a “cheap” pit stop. At full race speed, taking the twenty-five seconds out of the race to make a pit stop — when the field was travelling at one hundred and fifty miles an hour — was always expensive in time and distance. But to make a pit stop now — with the chance that the entire field might soon be bunched up and slowed to seventy miles an hour behind the safety car — would cost them a lot less time. Sabatino could dart in, pit, change tyres, refuel, and be out again with the opportunity to shoot round and quickly rejoin the back of the pack. If the safety car was then deployed, she would have stolen a march on her rivals — Race Control would close the pit lane for stops once the safety car was out. Her rivals could then only pit when the race was restarted and the field was back up to full race pace, costing the stoppers, then, considerably more speed, distance, possibly even track position.
On the other hand, if they called Sabatino in and the safety car was not deployed, they would have destroyed their planned strategy for the race.