Talbott Autodrome, Talbott, Liventia
InfoInternet Grand Prix of Liventia presented by Liventia Airways; Lap 11
Whether Victoria’s reassurance, the work of the team or simply that simmering ecstasy of driving, Coalescence all about him and bound by him once again, Ryker qualified on the front row for the Grand Prix of Liventia. He almost led from the first turn, barely prevented by Vilau’s late and daring dive. Five years of experience told him that determined pressure would avail him better than risking an early strike; so it proved when the Togoni driver, pushing hard to break away from him, slid off the track on Lap 6. That left him with no cars ahead.
So it was that Ryker Lane, piloting a car that ought to have been wholly unsuited to a track that he himself had truly hated in the past, led the field onto Lap 7.
Not that that lead remained at all comfortable for long.
“Martin!” Ryker flicks away the rear view on his helmet’s HUD, the afterimage of Rudy Edwards’ blue and orange machine pulling into the pits fading from his eyes as he focuses on the track ahead.
“I see it.” His engineer’s words are as soothing and melodious as ever. “Requesting additional power from Max and Janne; cannot promise much.”
“Anything’s a help!” Ryker replies, Coalescence’s Imagikinetic convertors tugging it towards the ground as he brakes for the first corner. Cannot lose track position, not on this circuit. No way to count on overtaking. Can’t expect a repeat of Drosopol. Ryker wills the car on through the shatteringly painful complex of 3, 4, 5, 6, brakes for 7; the whole business feels far, far too slow, the grip from his supersofts fading alongside the light of their Imaginational self-repair. The hairpin of 7 lasts an age…
“Alright, Ryker, burst ready.”
Imagination, yes!
Halfway down the start-finish straight, Janne Laukkanen’s Chase Cutter’s ICAST protocol activates for the briefest of moments, the power from his Paragon Warp array rapidly oscillating in its choice of target. Mostly, it remains powering Janne’s own car.
What remains impels Ryker’s alongside his own. Coalescence launches from the corner as an iron ball from a cannon, the surge of momentum accompanying its driver’s surge of joy and determination. “Thank Janne for me!” he calls out.
A soft laugh sounds from the other end of the radio. “Understood, Ryker – more at acceleration points. Box this lap; sticking to the plan.”
“Understood!” Superhards to the end… It’ll be a task, especially coming in this early, but better than trying to carve through the field here. The rest of the lap passes quickly, corners that would rob a car of momentum powerless in the face of the power of two Chase Cutters briefly dedicated to one task. And so, when Ryker emerges from the pit lane…
He’s down the grid – inevitably – but, more importantly, Edwards’ Preston is behind. Closer, but still behind.
“Okay, Ryker. Edwards’ compound looks similar to yours; you’ll be fighting to the end.”
To the end. Another flick of the button on his wheel to check the rear camera shows an Edwards dashing from Turn 2 with just a touch too much confidence, barely keeping the rear-left off the dust away from the track. Not that he’s waiting for that. Just have to hold him off until he runs out of juice.
Ryker breathes, then feels the tyres biting through Turn 3, shining blue as they heal and heat themselves to up to temperature under the influence of Coalescence’s Imagithermal convertor. “Alright, Jean, let’s see if any of your defensive skill rubbed off on me.”
The next two laps are a waiting game. Ryker’s rear view is increasingly dominated by flashes of azure; by Lap 13, Edwards’ car is sliding and swerving as he pushes it to its limits. He holds his nerve. If Edwards is willing to be the onrushing waves, foaming towards him with verve and vigour, he will be the steady cliffs on which they break, knowing the tide will recede in time.
As he powers down the start-finish straight, Rudy is for the first time in theoretical striking distance, tucking into the slipstream of Ryker’s Chase Cutter. Ryker monitors him, lets the supercomputers back at base predict his opponent’s line on the HUD. They confirm his own thinking. Not close enough for anything but a dive. Stay to the middle, ready to close off the inside, brake late enough – okay, good, turn in –
The wave comes crashing down.
Mostly literally.
Ryker’s eyes go wide as Edwards’ Preston sails right through where his car had been a second before, front wheels angled but entirely irrelevant to his direction of travel. A sea-foam plume of tyre smoke from locked brakes and kicked up dust heralds his rapid passage to the barrier; then a terrible, crunching, thudding sound; a car flicked, spinning into the air with debris all around it –
He rounds Turn 2. Out of sight.
“Martin,” Ryker pronounces in a low tone, “please tell me when –”
“Understood, Ryker. Just carry on for now.” A moment’s pause. “Yes, he’s climbing out of the car now.”
Ryker releases a breath he doesn’t entirely know he’s been holding. “Good – tell me if you hear anything more… Imagination, that was…” A realisation. “That’s a safety car.”
“It is.”
And, by the next time he crosses the line, and everyone else has taken the opportunity to pit…
Maelstrom.
Post-Race
“…from then on… Well, this track doesn’t suit our cars as much as some others, and it isn’t the best place for overtaking in any case. I offered what ICAST power I could to Janne to try and challenge for the points. We help each other.” Ryker smiles with just a touch of melancholy. “These things happen and it’s only the first race of the season. We move on and make the best of it.”
“And surely you have to be happy with the potential of the car, after all of it, at least!” The journalist speaking to him, an eager, brown-haired man standing on the balls of his feet who he recognises but doesn’t remember – Ryker refocuses, refusing to let that sad direction of thought take hold – holds the microphone back up to him encouragingly.
“Sure!” And, indeed, he does feel a little encouraged. “For that phase at the start, we had enough pace to run at the front. At a place like this, after everything that’s happened back at home –” Stop. “– and with the team, yes, I’m happy.” Ryker smirks. “Not that that’s going to stop us from pushing on as hard as we can to be better, though.”
“Ryker, tha–”
“One more thing!”
A slightly younger woman towards the back of the crowd, one he is confident he hasn’t seen before, memory or no. Ryker nods, smiling, gesturing for the other journalists to make space; with it, she approaches, nervy, excited determination in her stride and spark in her eyes. His mind flashes to Victoria in the course of answering some great challenge, and the momentary ache is palpable.
“…interviews with his team –” he refocuses again – “they said that Rudy Edwards’ crash was largely down to the Chase Cutter’s considerable wake of turbulent air. Is that something that other drivers need to be worried about on track?”
Ryker re-evaluates – it’s clear that at least part of that spark was accusatory. Nothing that a relatively short briefing from Karl Rain beforehand didn’t prepare him for, though his answer will still be his own. “Well, yes – it’s never good to see another driver crashing like that, and I hope that Rudy’s doing alright. I’ve been in that position before too.” He feels the echoes of that catharsis, of that day in Filindostan and all that came after it, and he holds his head slightly higher. “But then, driving’s full of changing circumstances and challenges like that – adapting to them is a part of our work.”
“Obviously, we can always do more to make it safer for us when we don’t manage to, which our team’s always been at the cutting edge of – and I’m proud of that. If we decide as drivers that dirty air’s becoming too much to adapt to even then, then we can make new regulations to fix it.” He pauses, gathering his thoughts. “So, yes – something to worry about, like anything else on the track. It’s what our teams give us the tools to deal with and then it’s up to us to use them. And, beyond any of that, I hope that Rudy’s going be on track to do it with all of us next time out.”
The woman gives a nod – not entirely satisfied, maybe, but satisfied enough. With a wave, Ryker sets out back to the garage… Not feeling quite right either. A sense of imbalance that he can’t quite shake.
‘Success is a process’. Keep going. We’ll work it out.
In Motion Workshop, Celina Community, the First City, the Nexus Wardship of Former Citizens of the Nimbus System
23rd of May
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-----THE ALTERNATIVE TYRE SUPPLIER CHAMPIONSHIPS: THIS TIME WITH CONSISTENCY!
So, that was an exciting first race of the season! Congratulations to Eminent and to Anneliese Devereux for pulling a remarkable result out of an equally remarkable event. Of course, we’re more than proud of the fact that they did so on our rubber and I’m sure we can say the same of our counterparts of Phoenician. We hope it continues!
Speaking of – let’s give this another try.
For those who didn’t read my previous blog post on the subject or who aren’t familiar with ‘tyre championships’ in international WGP racing, here’s a little background. Since WGPC 17, Tropicorp (at that point the largest, and soon to become the dominant, tyre supplier for WGPC and WGP2) have run a semi-formal ‘Performance Standings’, ranking the results of the various suppliers. That ranking, whether by incidental bias or by design, ended up massively favouring Tropicorp. That’s because they decided to score only the fastest car on each tyre (plus the fastest lap point, if the scoring system that season used it). That system’s obviously fairer than just aggregating all of the points from every team using a given manufacturer’s tyres but it still gives a major advantage to those with the most teams on their books.Essentially, Tropicorp’s rankings punish manufacturers for ‘bad days’ – races where none of the drivers attached to a given supplier score well. It should be clear what that means when you have different numbers of drivers on any given tyre. Back in WGPC 17, when Tropicorp’s rankings were introduced, Tropicorp had contracts with four teams to use their tyres, twice as many as any other supplier in the field – meaning that they were half as likely as them to even have a bad day. No surprise that they came out on top then and in subsequent seasons.
The thirds-of-a-team in the WGPC 18 bar result from the three Motorworks drivers, only two qualifying per race, being allowed choice of tyres.
As such, this is going to be the first in a series of blog posts here attempting to run a counterpart and counterbalance to Tropicorp’s rankings, hopefully giving as much weight to smaller suppliers as larger ones. I’d hoped to be able to do the same last season but things obviously went a little awry, for all of us. Hoping we won’t repeat that now!
So, how do we resolve the imbalance in Tropicorp’s rankings? The success in signing teams that we have had at In Motion after partnering with Phoenician means that we aren’t affected to a great deal any longer but that shouldn’t stop us from trying to work out something more equitable. This is especially true with Brústeinn still on the grid from last year and a new entrant in Tabtac joining us (A warm welcome to them!), each of whom are supplying a single team. To evaluate both our and Tropicorp’s performance alongside both in any way that’s meaningful and fair, we need a different system for rankings.
The simplest solution is to take a mean average of the points of every team using a given tyre. That comes with some advantages and disadvantages. While strictly fairest in the sense that it considers all drivers and teams using a given tyre without any advantage or disadvantage for the numbers of those drivers, it also means that a manufacturer is penalised for supplying to less successful teams. If a manufacturer strictly wanted to optimise for the rankings, they might decide to cut off those teams, which we obviously don’t want to see happen. On the other hand, it does seem right that a tyre manufacturer should be rewarded for working with those teams to bring the best out of their tyres as much as those that are more successful. At the very least, this ranking system seems worth pursuing to evaluate at the end of the season.
That said, it’s likely also worth looking at a more traditional ranking, at the very least for comparison’s sake. Can we eliminate the ‘bad days’ problem and prevent more prolific tyre manufacturers from being more consistent than their smaller peers by weight of numbers alone? We can try! Instead of adding the fastest driver on a make of tyres in every race to a manufacturer’s point totals, we can instead treat the manufacturers a little like teams by using the point totals for a given make of tyre’s best two drivers at any point in the season. That means that a larger supplier still has to account for the errors of individual drivers rather than having every race go perfectly, even if they do get a larger pool of drivers to work from. That said, unlike the prior ranking, they still aren’t on a level playing field with a manufacturer with fewer teams. Tabtac and Brústeinn, in our case, are supplying proven competitors in Portland-Carvenlo and Pressley Racing, so they will hopefully be able to make some impact, but we and Tropicorp both have a larger pool of drivers to find success in to make up our chosen two.
There is, of course, no ranking system that can perfectly capture what everyone wants from a tyre manufacturer competition – people want different things, not least Tropicorp’s representatives! Still, I do think that you could argue that both of the systems outlined above are better than Tropicorp’s at something, even if you could also argue that they are weaker in others. These, after all, are alternatives!
Thank you for bearing with me for that preamble; with it done, I’m pleased to be able to introduce the Unity and Elite Tyre Manufacturer Championships!
The fact that Brústeinn and Tabtac are supplying one team each means that their points will be identical across both Championships, which is wonderful for making comparisons. Straight away, the difference in approaches is visible. With Eminent scoring so well in Liventia, we’re able to take advantage to streak ahead in the Elite rankings, while Tropicorp can fall back on Fitzpatrick’s excellent podium to slot in behind. That just isn’t true in the Unity rankings, where R.L. Cruisin’s fourth place and so many drivers running Phoenician-In Motion tyres not yet scoring allows Tabtac to keep up, while the same issue weighs down Tropicorp. It remains to be seen whether this persists to the same degree as the season goes on.
That’s enough setup and analysis for one post, I’d say! There is, as ever, more research and testing to do to benefit our cars out on the racetrack and the road. I hope that you’ll come back to read the next instalment in the series, whenever I next have time to write it up; until then, best of luck to all the teams and drivers and a fond farewell from me!
Celia Speck, Co-FounderPrevious Post
Catching Up…
Grace Speck
With a sigh, Celia pushes away from her desk, chair half-rotating across the semi-polished floor. She stares at the screen for a moment. Then she stands, steps back towards the desk. Stares for a few moments more.
A few more.
Rests her finger over the ‘Enter’ key.
More.
Closes her eyes, and presses her finger decisively down.
