On the hooter blast, her adrenalin started to kick in for real. The grid cleared and, with Sabatino’s engine finally running, she absorbed the thunderous noise of the cars all around her.
She was grateful.
The intensity of the sound helped to occupy the entirety of her attention.
The lights came on and the Formula One runners pulled off on their formation lap for the last time this season. Round they went, all swerving, zig-zagging, accelerating, braking — every driver busily working temperature into their cars in their own way round the 2.7 mile circuit.
Sabatino spent half the lap changing up and down the gears, making doubly sure her new gearbox was working and reliable. It felt good — better, even, than the last.
After Bico De Pato, Turn Ten, she let the cars to her front pull away, to give herself a longer run on a stretch of clear track. Pumping her right foot, she accelerated hard and threw the car round Junção, Turn Twelve. She nodded to herself.
The car felt good.
The conditions were ideal, and her car’s set-up was pretty much spot on.
Straker, back on station in the motor home with all his surveillance equipment, watched the field re-form, each car slotting into its designated place on the grid. He was completely focused on the two black Massarellas in P2 and P6.
Sabatino looked down. Her temperatures were all good. She blipped the accelerator. The Benbecular sounded fantastic and ready.
This was it.
One red light came on.
Sabatino felt her heart rate quicken.
Two red lights. She breathed deeply, and exercised her fingers.
Three red lights.
Four.
Five.
Wait … Wait! … WAIT!
GO!
The engine roar around her was deafening. Cars screamed forward off their spots. She hurtled forwards. Accelerating. Accelerating fast.
Suddenly, the car in front darted to the right. In nothing less than a reflex, Sabatino did the same. A Sauber had stalled on the grid. It was stationary. The cars behind had to swerve violently to avoid ramming straight into the back of it.
How didn’t she hit it? — skimming past it by only a whisker.
In the run down to Turn One, and the intensifying bottleneck of cars all trying to squeeze through an ever-shrinking space, one part of her brain had already registered that the Sauber had held a place ahead of her but behind Aston.
She’d clawed back one place already.
She was twelfth.
Turn One, at the top of the upcoming Senna S, was the corner for overtaking on the circuit. To take the challenge to her Championship rival, this was where she was going to have to do most of the work that afternoon — to be bold — and to take every opportunity that came along, however tenuous.
But not this time.
In the mêlée of the start, she was happier to get round safely, and get herself under way.
Into the corner they ran.
Every car was now in, through, or half-out of Turn One. Front runners were already accelerating, streaming down the hill through the Senna S. From six rows back, Sabatino could see the field jostling and squabbling for position spread out down the hillside combination of turns — a right, left, then a more gentle left — below her.
Suddenly there was a smash.
Two cars had come together at the bottom of the first right-hander. A Lotus had lost its back end — after being bumped? — and was sliding across the track. Then slam! Another car smashed straight into its back wheels. Debris flew outwards, right across the circuit.
Some of the debris was turquoise. Wouldn’t that be Cunzer in the other Ptarmigan?
Sabatino flinched to find a way round these now-stationary cars and the lumps of wreckage lying slap-bang in the middle of the track. To avoid it all, she had to dive out to the left — wide to the outside. Holding her breath, she had no choice but to drop a wheel over the edge onto the grass. She prayed she didn’t lose the back end. Exhaling deeply a second later, she fully regained the tarmac — keeping herself in the race.
She rounded Turn Three and pushed on down Reta Oposta. The long straight gave her time to think. Poor Helli going out — and the Lotus. But then she had a Darwinian thought — verging on Schadenfreude. Hadn’t she just gained another two places? That smash, then — to her — was actually good news.
She cleared through the apex of Turn Five. She looked at the field down the track in front of her. There were two Red Bulls and a Mercedes. Weren’t these guys — after the stalled Sauber and the collision of her teammate and the Lotus — now P7, P8 and P9?
Didn’t that make her tenth?
She accelerated hard and chanced a look in her mirrors. There was a stretch of clear track behind — indicating no immediate threat of being overtaken herself.
She settled down to catching the cars ahead. The front runners were speeding down to Turn Six. Finally letting the Ptarmigan go, she realized the set-up and conditions were married up perfectly. Now she had to use them.
Immediately ahead of her was a Mercedes, currently in P9.
Radioing in, she asked: ‘Is Helli okay?’
‘He’s fine.’
‘Have they cleaned up the Senna S?’
‘No.’
‘Any sign of the safety car?’
‘Highly likely. There’s crap all over the road.’
Even better, she thought. The front runners may have built up the beginnings of a few seconds lead between them already. But the safety car would see them all bunched up again tightly — keeping her well and truly in touch with the leaders — at least for a little while longer.
Within ten seconds the letters SC appeared in the LED display on her steering wheel. Sabatino yelped in delight. A few moments later the field had been concertinaed up again — the first nine cars in front of her forced to crocodile round nose to tail — behind the safety car. Aston, still retaining P3, hadn’t been able to get that far away from her. Not yet.
It took three laps for the marshals to clear the debris from the Senna S.
As the pack rose up the hill from Turn Thirteen the next time round, the lights suddenly went off on the roof of the safety car. Fifteen seconds later, it was ducking into the pits.
They would be racing again soon.
The Ferrari at the front accelerated hard into the long pit straight, aiming to get himself away from the bunched-up pack behind him and to re-establish his lead.
Being bunched up might make it easier to mount a challenge to the car in front, but exactly the same opportunity was created for the guy behind. There was some protection from this — being prohibited from overtaking, at least until they crossed the line. Once over it, though, all cars were free to mount a challenge — or be challenged. Sabatino was pleased it was more the former. She took great delight in the Benbecular engine’s furious purr immediately behind her, giving her all the power she wanted as she pelted up the long start/finish straight.
Crossing the line, her few extra horsepower were working to her advantage. The Mercedes, in front of her, was fast, but the Ptarmigan felt quicker. Using her speed, Sabatino closed in and right up to the Mercedes’s gearbox. She started taking a tow.