Qualifying Three started.
Grey clouds loomed.
The last ten cars set out on their out-laps in the final shootout.
By the time flying laps were attempted, the heavens opened. On drys, the teams were completely thrown. Inevitably, they were sliding about all over the place. Lap times were ludicrously high and completely unrepresentative of anything.
Aston tried to snake his way round, and slid wide in the middle of the Senna S. Sabatino fared only marginally better, tottering round while completely holding her breath.
Qualifying Three came to an end.
The Championship decider could not have been tighter. On much slower lap times than normally expected, because of the weather, Aston and Sabatino had ended up side by side — on the second row.
Sabatino P3, Aston P4.
Thankfully from Straker’s point of view — and his threat of proximity — Adi Barrantes in his Massarella was well back behind her, down in P6. On their starting positions on the grid, therefore, Sabatino was well out of harm’s way.
But then the order and the Championship were all about to be turned upside-down.
Everything changed on Sabatino’s in-lap, while she was making her way back to the pits.
Inching slowly — because of the wet — she changed down as she approached Junção, Turn Twelve. Even at the virtual snail’s pace of sixty miles an hour, that was plenty fast enough given the volume of surface water. Paddling for second gear, the Ptarmigan’s rear wheels suddenly locked-up, taking her by surprise. Steering aggressively to correct the resultant slide of the back end, she managed to avoid a spin.
She slid to a stop.
Her first reaction — following the sabotage incident at Spa — was to look around her and in her mirrors. But there were no other cars in sight. Next, she looked down at the indicator on her steering wheel. Her gears had clearly jumped from third to first.
Not what she’d asked for at all.
Cursing mildly at the inconvenience, she revved the engine and paddled again. Nothing. The car was now not responding. Wouldn’t accept any gear.
At all.
‘What’s up?’ asked Backhouse over the radio.
‘Gears, Andy. I changed down. She’s jumped down two. That, on this surface, locked-up both rear wheels.’
‘And now?’
‘Nothing. I’ve got a box full of neutrals. Can’t get her into gear at all. Anything showing on the telemetry?’
‘Nothing.’
For two minutes Sabatino tried to engage a gear. Nothing would take. ‘It’s no good, Andy. I’m going to need recovering.’
Half an hour later Sabatino’s forlorn-looking Ptarmigan was delivered to the pit lane on the back of a truck. It was hoisted off, hanging beneath a hydraulic arm, lowered to the ground, and quickly pushed backwards into the team garage.
Sabatino, still soaking wet from the rain, stood over the car, watching the guys take off the aerodynamic shell as they looked inside to see what was wrong.
‘Go and change, Remy,’ suggested Backhouse gently. ‘We’ll let you know as soon as we’ve fixed it.’
Straker’s immediate concern was why the thing had failed. Was this an organic failure, or induced by interference. Were their ghosts already back to haunt them?
Sabatino returned fifteen minutes later. She was met in the garage by a troubled-looking Backhouse and a disheartened-looking Straker.
Reading the two men’s faces, she asked seriously: ‘What’s wrong?’
Backhouse grimaced. ‘The gearbox has gone.’
Sabatino’s expression hinted at defiance. ‘Fixable?’
Backhouse inhaled and shook his head.
In an instant, Sabatino seemed to buckle at the waist and half turned away. ‘You’re kidding! You’re kidding me?’ she screamed. ‘You’re fucking kidding!’
Backhouse shook his head with great sincerity. ‘Remy, I’m sorry … it’s got to be replaced.’
Sabatino, still agitated, turned to face the two men. ‘That’s a ten-place penalty … that’ll drop me ten places on the grid. TEN!’ she yelled. ‘It’s over, the Championship’s fucking over.’
Straker stepped forward and tried to place his hands on each of her shoulders. ‘No, it isn’t,’ he said gently.
Disconcertingly, she shrugged aggressively, shaking his hands away.
‘That puts me down in thirteenth. Nine places behind Paddy. Nine! I’m out of the points. He’s on for five. It’s his. The fucking Championship is his.’
SIXTY-SIX
All afternoon Sabatino was impossible to talk to — to reason with. She scowled, fumed, and grumped her way through every meeting and conversation. Nothing seemed to placate her.
Straker decided to stand back, and let her rage play out.
Backhouse, working with a gang of mechanics in the garage all afternoon, gave the defective gearbox every last chance. He had it removed, placed up on a sterilized workbench, dismantled, and assessed for repair — component by component. But one of the gear clusters had failed; bits of it had worked loose, and, having caught between two moving parts, had ruptured the cassette. There was no way it could be repaired reliably enough to stand up to seventy-one gruelling laps in the race. Grimly, Backhouse instructed the gearbox be replaced and that the team file the change with Race Control.
Sabatino’s ten-place penalty was announced in the paddock at four o’clock that afternoon.
She would now have to start from thirteenth on the grid.
Nine places behind her Championship rival.
The points Sabatino needed to secure the title were suddenly a long way out of reach.
Straker found Sabatino in the motor home. She was still sullen and uncommunicative. He tried twice to converse and be supportive, and both times she snapped back. After one more try, he stood up, grabbed his phone and, deliberately in her hearing, rang the team driver: ‘Bill, can you come to the motor home, please — to take Miss Sabatino back to her hotel?’
She glowered at him critically, as if to challenge his right to make any decisions on her behalf.
Hoping she might still co-operate when the driver turned up, Straker ducked out of the Ptarmigan motor home to find a little privacy — some distance away. On his iPhone, he searched the web to find a number. Using the link on the website, he dialled it. ‘Could I speak to the manager, please?’
There was a pause — some clicking — some excruciating bossa nova muzak — before a Portuguese-accented man came on the line.
‘João Asturias,’ he said, ‘how can I make your day better?’
‘Mr Asturias, thank you for taking my call. I have an emergency — and I need your help.’
Asturias sounded suitably concerned and receptive.
Straker explained what he was after. ‘Can you do all that for me — in a bit of a hurry?’
‘Of course, Senhor, we can — and will — do it, with pleasure.’
Straker, thanking Asturias profusely, rang off and returned to the turquoise motor home in time to see Bill, the team driver, pull up alongside.
Climbing back into the Ptarmigan headquarters, Straker walked up to Sabatino, careful to take her firmly by the hand — not the wrist — and led her down the steps to the waiting car.
Her mood barely changed during the drive, or as they rode the lift up to her floor in the hotel. Taking the key card from her, Straker opened the door, and stood to one side to let her into her suite.
She was immediately taken aback.
The room was dark — not black — but dark — unlit by electric lighting. Instead, there was candlelight. Masses of candles flickered from every flat surface on the inside. Soft music — Dean Martin — could be heard wafting over the sound system. Sabatino was about to turn round and react to Straker, when a Portuguese voice came from inside.