Sabatino thundered down the Haymarket. The noise from the engine bouncing off the high buildings on either side was deafening — even through her helmet. She had three hundred yards to run straight down the hill. Passing the Haymarket Theatre, and the end of Sector One, fifth gear was all she could reach before running to the right and dropping two gears before a forty-five-degree left turn at the bottom of the hill. Turn Five. This took the circuit across Pall Mall. Sabatino accelerated hard through the apex and on down the slope of Cockspur Street towards Trafalgar Square.
Next up was Turn Six, and a novelty for Formula One.
This corner could be very different, depending on the exit. Round to the right, drivers had to shoot under Admiralty Arch, but were presented with a choice of two arches — the middle or the left-hand one — each being only one-car wide. Depending on which arch a driver was aiming to use, they would have to vary their entry to the preceding corner in Trafalgar Square. Sabatino, in practice, had opted for the left-hand one each time, making the corner more open and, therefore, faster.
Holding herself over to the left of the entry at the foot of Nelson’s Column, she changed down and cut right, rounding the corner. Admiralty Arch loomed over her head as she shot under the left-hand arch. Emerging the far side, she had an amazing view down The Mall — the pink surface of the wide, dead-straight- and tree-lined road — stretching for half a mile to the façade of Buckingham Palace at the far end. Opening right up, she felt the awesome power of the Ptarmigan propel her up to top speed.
To the spectators on the grandstands to her left, the view was enthralling. They watched her brilliant turquoise car emerge through the splendour of Admiralty Arch, accelerate at an awesome rate from right to left in front of them — against the backdrop of Nash’s Regency masterpieces — and disappear at breakneck speed down between the trees towards the Palace.
Three-quarters of the way down The Mall, about level with Clarence House, Sabatino, running at two hundred and ten miles an hour, drifted left — onto the St James’s Park side of the road. She was setting herself up for Turns Seven and Eight: a contrived chicane beside the Victoria Monument.
Through this tight right-left-right the car was completely balanced. There was no understeer — no hint of the back end trying to step out. This felt as good as it had in Spa. She powered easily through the chicane to reach the bottom of Constitution Hill. Sabatino now had the four hundred yards run up that rise along the wall of Buckingham Palace, all under the canopy of the spectacular avenue of trees.
She heard Treadwell over the radio, telling her she was fastest by point-five in Sector One.
Towards the top of Constitution Hill, she prepared to shoot the Memorial Gates on the right-hand side, readying her entry for Turn Nine, which led onto the roundabout at Hyde Park Corner. At that speed, she felt some lightening of the car as she crested that rise, but was soon back on the power as she headed down the short straight towards Grosvenor Place. The next corner, on the roundabout, Turn Ten, was a ninety-degree right-hander with a scoop-like camber. She hoped its banking effect would act as slingshot round the Australia Memorial, sending her quickly up the hill towards Hyde Park. In third gear, the Ptarmigan did precisely that, digging in round the bend and offering total solidity as she pushed the car hard. G-force, at around three-point-nine, was the highest anywhere on the circuit.
Up the short straight.
She accelerated hard. Hanging left, she set the car up for one flowing S-shaped motion. Cutting in right, Sabatino drove the combination of the right-handed Turn Eleven, by the Lanesborough Hotel — the short straight along the top of the roundabout — and then the left-hand Turn Twelve, circling round Apsley House, heading north up Park Lane. Once again, the car responded to everything she asked of it.
After rounding Turn Twelve, Sabatino was back in Park Lane but only for seventy-five yards. Almost immediately she had to prepare to turn again.
Holding her line to the right, she needed to shoot the Queen Elizabeth Gate to the left.
She was through there. No sooner than she was, did she need to slice right, through Turn Fourteen, into the long straight of Serpentine Road, cutting through the middle of Hyde Park.
Sabatino blasted along under the maple trees, below the Cavalry Memorial — past the open space at the southern end of the Parade Ground of Hyde Park — and on towards the boathouses.
Serpentine Road was wide, straight and level — and, running along the northern shore of London’s most famous lake, the Serpentine, was for Formula One fans wholly evocative of the scene around Albert Park in Melbourne. Four hundred yards further on, and hitting her top speed, she drew level with the lido on the far side. A flock of geese, moorhens and ducks took flight as the noise of the Ptarmigan’s Benbecular engine screamed by.
End of Sector Two.
Sabatino felt she was flying.
Preparing for the next corner, a right-hander, she first hugged the inside kerb of the right-hand kink and set herself up for the thirty-degree right of Turn Fifteen, by Magazine Gate. There was a huge bank of spectators directly in front of her. Sabatino swung the car right, up and round the corner, giving her access to the pink surface of West Carriage Drive. The circuit, here, was straightish with a very slight meander in each direction for two hundred yards. Kensington Gardens were now over to her left.
Turn Sixteen was one of the features of this circuit, the Duchess of Cambridge Hairpin. Dropping down to second gear, Sabatino timed her entry. Despite the adverse camber of the corner, her feel from the car allowed her to apply massive acceleration through the apex, and gain a clean exit into the fast straight of North Carriage Drive.
In the relative inactivity of the next segment, she looked down at her steering wheel as she built up speed to two hundred miles an hour again. Everything was looking good. Up and over a very slight rise, with no more than a fifteen-degree right, she was able to relax her neck and shoulders momentarily, as she hurtled down past the public grandstands running parallel with — and backing onto — the Bayswater Road.
Turn Seventeen, the Cumberland Gate, gave onto the Marble Arch roundabout. This was a one-hundred-degree left-hander. The surface — where the organizers had removed some of the island bollards normally in the road — was a little uneven.
Taking off speed, she hung over to the right, lined up her entry, braked hard, and swung left onto the roundabout. The car was faithful, despite the rough surface, only giving one scintilla of instability — otherwise, she was round and through. There were seventy-five yards to run before she was into another corner. A sharp right-hander this time, joining the Bayswater Road. This turn, like Turn Ten around Hyde Park corner, had a favourable camber. Pushing in hard, she rounded it easily and hurtled on towards Oxford Street, with the Odeon to her left and Marble Arch to the right.
Then Turn Nineteen.
The last on the circuit.
She hung left, judged her moment — and sliced as tight as she dared through it, kissing the apex on the inside to perfection. As she opened the throttle heading south into Park Lane, she was ecstatic.
The car’s set-up was magnificent.
She didn’t think she could have driven any faster.
Crossing the line by the Dorchester and starting to wind down — ready to amble back on her in-lap — Treadwell’s voice came up animatedly on the radio. ‘Bloody terrific, Remy!’ he yelled. ‘You’re fastest by nine tenths. Outstanding.’
Sabatino smiled and allowed herself to shut the FIA hearing, due to be held on Monday, out of her mind. For the moment, at least, she wallowed in being the fastest of the pack so far.