Turning his head back towards the front, Straker had to smile as he looked at the mischievous expression on Sabatino’s face. ‘That was quite extraordinary,’ he said, with admiration and disbelief clear in his voice.
‘Yeah,’ she said unenthusiastically, ‘but what the hell are these people doing? What the fuck is going on here?’
Despite Straker’s aching ribs, the moment they got back to the Ptarmigan factory — he called a meeting with Sabatino, Nazar and Treadwell.
‘We cannot ignore the new level of threat we’re facing,’ Straker declared.
After being told by Krall of the beating Straker had taken in Leamington Spa the night before — let alone its effects being all too clear in the contusions and broken skin across his face — not to mention the damage inflicted to the back of his brand-new Morgan starkly visible out in the car park, there was no disagreement from the Ptarmigan bosses.
‘Most significantly,’ Straker went on, ‘these scumbags have moved beyond trying to screw us on the field of play. It means we’re all now potentially at risk. At any time.’
‘What do you think we should do?’ asked Sabatino.
Straker handed them each a single sheet of paper. ‘Here are some thoughts I’ve drawn up to enhance the security and safety of the team.’
The two men read their sheets in silence.
Sabatino didn’t: ‘You want to remove any predictability from my discussed or published timetable?’ she stated half mockingly. ‘You want a complete change of all my plans — travel, accommodation, and timings, including moving me out of the Dorchester to another hotel decided on at the last minute before the London Grand Prix? You want me to cancel all public appearances — in order that I keep a low profile?’
Tahm Nazar endorsed Straker’s entire package of measures, and strongly encouraged Sabatino to comply.
Surprisingly, she sort of agreed to do all of it.
Straker’s sense of injustice hit new levels of intensity. After their disastrous press coverage from the Paris hearing, and Quartano’s announcement of Ptarmigan’s withdrawal from the massive Mandarin sponsorship deal — not to mention Straker’s personal violations from the assault in Leamington and the violence to his car as they were chased through Warwickshire — Straker was about to be pushed to the edge.
A tweet started trending — with the hashtag “#closetoJoss”.
It boasted that Massarella had made an approach to Mandarin Telecom. The tweeter crowed that Formula One was still capable of benefiting from this phenomenal endorsement of its sport, even if some teams appeared to be no longer worthy of it.
“Our sport is bigger than any one team,” said the tweeter.
Straker was incensed by this news.
He lived through the next forty-eight hours over the following weekend not knowing which way this blow to his psyche would take him.
FIFTY-EIGHT
Somehow Straker survived. Holding it together.
Anticipation of the next race might have played a part.
The first London Grand Prix loomed. This idea had been a long time in the making, seemingly thwarted by decades of bureaucracy and nimbyism. To its advocates, it made perfect sense. London, over the centuries, had pioneered major public sporting events — the Boat Race, the Festival of the Empire, two previous Olympic Games, a World Cup Final, and, more recently, phenomena like the London Marathon, and, spectacularly, the London 2012 Olympics. The London Grand Prix seemed to be from the very same stable. Furthermore, how could this not be a fitting legacy to 2012 — and be yet another opportunity for Britain to show off her organizational flair and sporting heritage?
In the media build-up to the race, Sabatino was fêted — celebrated for her status not only as the first serious female Formula One driver but also as the current leader of the Drivers’ Championship. Luckily, editors chose to focus on that, rather than the pall overhanging the Ptarmigan Team of their prospective follow-up hearing in front of the FIA, to be held the following Monday.
Despite the distractions, Sabatino was mentally focused. During the practice sessions, she had taken several laps, but none of them yet at full speed. She was now ready for her first all-out flying lap.
For the London Grand Prix, the grid was laid out in front of the Dorchester Hotel, in the southbound carriageway of Park Lane — while the pit lane was made up by temporary structures along the northbound lanes, on the other side of the central reservation.
Rounding Marble Arch, Sabatino headed down the eastern side of Park Lane and built up speed into what, that weekend, was the start/finish straight. Down past some of the most expensive real estate in London, she sped the car up through the gearbox to eighteen thousand revs on each change before hitting one hundred and eighty miles an hour as she passed the Grosvenor House Hotel. Seventh gear, and the car was running well.
Now!
She crossed the start line outside the Dorchester and hurtled southwards, on past the massive grandstand in front of the Hilton.
Sabatino swept the car gently to the right, holding the inside line of the gentle curve, as she headed down towards Hyde Park Corner.
Keeping over to the right, she could see the Wellington Arch loom into view in the middle of the roundabout. Pulsing the revs while dropping down three gears, she readied to slice left onto the Hyde Park Corner roundabout.
Rounding Turn One — almost reaching the wall by the Machine Gun Memorial — she applied a little more left lock through the second apex, putting her into the end of Piccadilly. Grandstands had been erected on the roundabout, which now gave their occupants a superb back view of the Championship leader as she roared — hurtling directly — away from them down Piccadilly.
Sabatino reached one hundred and ninety miles an hour as she sped down the slight incline, alongside Green Park to her right. This section of the circuit was dead straight for nearly three-quarters of a mile. A slight dip in the road to cross the Tyburn — at the normal intersection with Brick Street — had her slightly compressed in the cockpit, but she was soon rising up the other side towards the Ritz. Cresting the rise opposite the hotel, she entered the more built-up part of Piccadilly — down past Fortnum & Mason. Still dead straight, her Ptarmigan screamed between the narrow confines of the street at over two hundred and ten miles an hour. Banks of seats, along either side and in very close proximity to the track, gave the spectators a vivid sense of the speed these cars could do — and a clear understanding of the noise they made, as the sound reverberated off the buildings down the narrowish street.
After another five hundred yards, Turn Two was ahead, a left-right-left into Piccadilly Circus, round Eros and past the Trocadero. Drifting over to the right towards the end of Piccadilly in preparation, she waited to judge her braking zone — as discussed with Treadwell on their walk round. Passing Waterstone’s, she breathed deeply and started to brake. Again, with the engine management system pulsing the revs to prevent any rear-wheel lock-up on any downshift, she shaved one hundred miles an hour from her speed before judging the moment to slice left into Turn Two. Eros was blocked out by more grandstands which were giving spectators a magnificent view of the track.
Into Piccadilly Circus.
A forty-five-degree left-hander. Sabatino ran straight for no more than fifty yards before applying opposite lock and turning right, over the slight mound in the road at the end of Shaftesbury Avenue, before straightening up, pulling left in front of the Trocadero and then swinging right through Turn Four, into the top of the Haymarket.
She smiled to herself as the car performed beautifully. It was balanced — the downforce being spot on — and the grip, even on the places where the road surface had been heavily touched up, was as much as she could have wanted.