World Grand Prix Championship 20 [RP/Results Thread]

[Aboveland]

CUTOFF

for the Cocoabo Preservation Grand Prix at Cocoabo Park Circuit

[Aboveland]

Week 5: Race

Conditions:      	Dry	
Laps:              	47	
Nation:         	TRP	
Circuit:        	Cocoabo Park Circuit	
Event:	Cocoabo Preservation Grand Prix	
Safety Car Deployed on Laps:	4, 5, 6, 7, 32	
Cars on Grid:	28

Start       	POS  # ▍DRV Name                     Team                     	Time      	Pts		 
 1 ▍YAN       	  1 14 ▍VIA Skiia Vialiv             Urotovsky-Gatutin        	01:39:07.481	25		
 2 ▍CRU       	  2 94 ▍LAN Ryker Lane               Nexus Racing             	00:00:16.448	18		
 3 ▍ARC       	  3 42 ▍MCR Sophie McCreary          Pressley Racing          	00:00:29.323	14		
 4 ▍BLA       	  4 71 ▍FAE Brendan Faloe            Cygnus Motorsports Team  	00:00:40.240	10		
 5 ▍VIA       	  5 40 ▍AKS Adriana Kowalski Lilian  Eminent                  	00:00:41.918	8		
 6 ▍LAN       	  6  9 ▍TUV Batu Tüvshinbayar        Scuderia Orange Cow      	00:00:47.892	6		
 7 ▍HAU       	  7 33 ▍BLA Sam Blaatschappen        GPA Pryfors Bilar        	00:00:50.249	4		
 8 ▍ANG       	  8 50 ▍LUN Sara Luna                Viska Racing             	00:00:58.926	3		
 9 ▍JSY       	  9 51 ▍CRU R.L. Cruisin             Portland-Carvenlo        	00:01:02.144	2		
10 ▍EDW       	 10 91 ▍WAL Kingston Walcott         Sivaleinen               	00:01:04.081	1		
11 ▍NAT       	 11 23 ▍C23 Cocoabo #23              Race Eelandii VTGP       	00:01:05.143			
12 ▍TUV       	 12 10 ▍NAT Lillý Náttmörðsdóttir    Sivaleinen               	00:01:07.497			
13 ▍VIL       	 13  7 ▍DEV Anneliese Devereux       Eminent                  	00:01:12.897			
14 ▍FTZ       	 14  5 ▍EDW Rudy Edwards             Preston Autos            	00:01:17.246			
15 ▍WAL       	 15 87 ▍YAN Bryce Yannec             Pressley Racing          	00:01:22.533			
16 ▍MCR       	 16 74 ▍FTZ Adonis Fitzpatrick       Urotovsky-Gatutin        	Laps Down: 1			
17 ▍C23       	 17 19 ▍FAL Dom Falepeau             Portland-Carvenlo        	Laps Down: 1			
18 ▍PRE       	 18 11 ▍CRT Lane Carter              Race Eelandii VTGP       	Laps Down: 1			
19 ▍TII       	 19 17 ▍LAU Janne Laukkanen          Nexus Racing             	Laps Down: 1			
20 ▍AKS       	DNF 28 ▍DEE Aaron Deering            Viska Racing             	Ret. lap 25			
21 ▍DEE       	DNF 84 ▍ANG Angela Tan Fang Ling     Cygnus Motorsports Team  	Ret. lap 17			
22 ▍LUN       	DNF 12 ▍VIL Darian Vilau             Kaylan Racing Team       	Ret. lap 31			
23 ▍DEV       	DNF  1 ▍TII iBen Toralmintii         Tropicorp-Colourworks    	Ret. lap 1			
24 ▍FAE       	DNF 13 ▍JSY Ji So-Yeong              Tropicorp-Colourworks    	Ret. lap 11			
25 ▍LAU       	DNF 24 ▍JCR Jordan Crowe             Scuderia Orange Cow      	Ret. lap 37			
26 ▍CRT       	DNF 37 ▍HAU Laura Haukanna           GPA Pryfors Bilar        	Ret. lap 3			
27 ▍JCR       	DNF 88 ▍PRE Ted Pressley             Kaylan Racing Team       	Ret. lap 22			
28 ▍FAL       	DNF 96 ▍ARC William Archer           Preston Autos            	Ret. lap 23

Drivers' Standings

Pos # ▍DRV Name                      Team [Engine]                                        Tyres                    Pts
 1 42 ▍MCR Sophie McCreary           Pressley Racing [Kaylan]                             Brústeinn                32
 2 23 ▍C23 Cocoabo #23               Race Eelandii VTGP [Tropicorp]                       Tropicorp                26
 3 14 ▍VIA Skiia Vialiv              Urotovsky-Gatutin [Preston]                          Tropicorp                25
 3  7 ▍DEV Anneliese Devereux        Eminent [Sidus]                                      Phoenician-In Motion     25
 5 74 ▍FTZ Adonis Fitzpatrick        Urotovsky-Gatutin [Preston]                          Tropicorp                24
 6 94 ▍LAN Ryker Lane                Nexus Racing [Paragon Warp]                          Phoenician-In Motion     22
 6 40 ▍AKS Adriana Kowalski Lilian   Eminent [Sidus]                                      Phoenician-In Motion     22
 8  5 ▍EDW Rudy Edwards              Preston Autos [Preston]                              Tropicorp                18
 9 51 ▍CRU R.L. Cruisin              Portland-Carvenlo [Carvenlo]                         Tabtac                   12
10 71 ▍FAE Brendan Faloe             Cygnus Motorsports Team [Tropicorp]                  Tropicorp                10
10 37 ▍HAU Laura Haukanna            GPA Pryfors Bilar [Sidus]                            Phoenician-In Motion     10
10 17 ▍LAU Janne Laukkanen           Nexus Racing [Paragon Warp]                          Phoenician-In Motion     10
13 19 ▍FAL Dom Falepeau              Portland-Carvenlo [Carvenlo]                         Tabtac                   8
14 88 ▍PRE Ted Pressley              Kaylan Racing Team [Kaylan]                          Phoenician-In Motion     6
14 33 ▍BLA Sam Blaatschappen         GPA Pryfors Bilar [Sidus]                            Phoenician-In Motion     6
14  9 ▍TUV Batu Tüvshinbayar         Scuderia Orange Cow [Tropicorp]                      Tropicorp                6
17 50 ▍LUN Sara Luna                 Viska Racing [Viska]                                 Phoenician-In Motion     4
17 91 ▍WAL Kingston Walcott          Sivaleinen [Preston]                                 Tropicorp                4
19 11 ▍CRT Lane Carter               Race Eelandii VTGP [Tropicorp]                       Tropicorp                3
20  1 ▍TII iBen Toralmintii          Tropicorp-Colourworks [Tropicorp]                    Tropicorp                0
20 84 ▍ANG Angela Tan Fang Ling      Cygnus Motorsports Team [Tropicorp]                  Tropicorp                0
20 87 ▍YAN Bryce Yannec              Pressley Racing [Kaylan]                             Brústeinn                0
20 96 ▍ARC William Archer            Preston Autos [Preston]                              Tropicorp                0
20 24 ▍JCR Jordan Crowe              Scuderia Orange Cow [Tropicorp]                      Tropicorp                0
20 28 ▍DEE Aaron Deering             Viska Racing [Viska]                                 Phoenician-In Motion     0
20 13 ▍JSY Ji So-Yeong               Tropicorp-Colourworks [Tropicorp]                    Tropicorp                0
20 10 ▍NAT Lillý Náttmörðsdóttir     Sivaleinen [Preston]                                 Tropicorp                0
20 12 ▍VIL Darian Vilau              Kaylan Racing Team [Kaylan]                          Phoenician-In Motion     0

Teams' Standings

Pos NAT ▍Team [Engine]                                        Tyres                    Pts
  1 PDN ▍Urotovsky-Gatutin [Preston]                          Tropicorp                49
  2 ETL ▍Eminent [Sidus]                                      Phoenician-In Motion     47
  3 TMB ▍Pressley Racing [Kaylan]                             Brústeinn                32
  4 NIM ▍Nexus Racing [Paragon Warp]                          Phoenician-In Motion     32
  5 V&T ▍Race Eelandii VTGP [Tropicorp]                       Tropicorp                29
  6 LEN ▍Portland-Carvenlo [Carvenlo]                         Tabtac                   20
  7 HAP ▍Preston Autos [Preston]                              Tropicorp                18
  8 DCS ▍GPA Pryfors Bilar [Sidus]                            Phoenician-In Motion     16
  9 ESM ▍Cygnus Motorsports Team [Tropicorp]                  Tropicorp                10
 10 TGN ▍Kaylan Racing Team [Kaylan]                          Phoenician-In Motion     6
 11 CBP ▍Scuderia Orange Cow [Tropicorp]                      Tropicorp                6
 12 AUR ▍Viska Racing [Viska]                                 Phoenician-In Motion     4
 13 MRT ▍Sivaleinen [Preston]                                 Tropicorp                4
 14 ABL ▍Tropicorp-Colourworks [Tropicorp]                    Tropicorp                0

[TJUN-ia]

Race Day III: Rumble In The Jungle had finally arrived...and no one knew just how much of a 'Rumble' this would end up being. Of course, the Cocoabo Preservation Grand Prix was always going to be a big occasion - the quarter mark of this season at a track that has hosted everything except the open-wheel top flight - but considering the chaos that One-Shot Qualifying had brought to the grid, no one was certain as to how the 28 will do. It was a situation that the TJUN-ians had been in before as both of them had had to go through the format in the past but this was the big time and in a season that is already so chaotic, both of them knew that anything could happen once things got underway. Lane Carter was starting way towards the back in P26 and hoping to make up some serious ground while Batu Tüvshinbayar would be hoping to make history from P12 for both himself and his team. Nobody knew what would happen when the 5 lights went out...but both would have to be ready for anything.

This race was only 47 laps long, due to the length of this famous racing circuit, but those 47 laps would end up packing in so much fucking chaos that you need to keep notes just to keep track of it all. iBen Toralmintii, the defending champion, would end up going out on Lap 1 after getting involved in incidents with other drivers - including Lane himself in what could only be described as a "bumper car time". Laura Haukanna ended up crashing out on Lap 3 and in turn, bringing out the Saftey Car and bringing a 4-lap halt to the chaos. Once the SC came in on lap 7, cars started dropping off like flies - Ji So-Yeong on Lap 11, Angela Tan Fang Ling on Lap 17, Ted Pressley on Lap 22, William Archer on Lap 23, Aaron Deering on Lap 25, Darian Vilau on Lap 31 and even poor Jordan Crowe on Lap 37 - for a grand total of 9 retirements in this race, a surefire record for this series...right?

As for those who made it through this chaotic mesh of carbon fibre, Lane Carter received a broken front wing for his troubles in the early going - a position that he would never recover from as he finished in P18 and a lap down - but considering everything that had happened, he reflected that he may've been lucky to finish the race at all. He would end up telling Adonis Fitzpatrick, another driver who ended up a lap down, in parc ferme that the race was "fucking brutal" while also sending congratulations to his former team and all of the staff. As for Batu, they managed to weather all the storms enough to earn 6 points for finishing in P6 - his first ever points in a WGPC event - and they would be happy with that, doing a little dance as he went through parc ferme that would end up being memed by those back home under the #BouncingBatu. Bouncing Batu would then end up celebrating with the Orange Cow squad and commiserating Crowe on his late retirement, but it was still a great day all the same. The biggest winners, of course, would be UrGa as Skiia Vialiv took a historic win over Ryker Lane and Sophie McCreary that would end up taking UrGa to the top of the Constructors and McCreary to the top of the Drivers table. Brendan Faloe, Adriana Kowalski Lilian, Batu, Sam Blaatschappen, Sara Luna, R.L. Cruisin and Kingston Walcott completed the Top 10 with Fast Cocoabo missing out on a point by a second.

One Shot will be back next time for the Ramngardian Grand Prix in Diarcesia (a home race for Luna, Blaatschappen and GPA Pryfors Bilar) but now that everyone knows what's up, a less chaotic weekend may be in store. As for the TJUN-ians? They'll be ready for anything and now that both drivers are on the board, the battle for supremacy (in a friendly way) has only just begun).

[Diarcesia]

Girls cae Apsychiae

Hwoarang Racing Circuit, Togonistan
Grand Prix of Togonistan
Post-Race

Täre Sam!
Could we, by any chance, hang out by the time we get to Auruna?

It was no joke. Laura sent Sam a message. She's not really sure that Laura would offer to hang out, but she wanted to give accepting it a shot. She was starting to get bored of her usual routine.

Hi Laura!
Yes, absolutely! I've been wanting something new and you seem like an interesting person Where can we hang out?

Her reply was sent.

---

Cocoabo Park Circuit, Tropicorp
Cocoabo Preservation Grand Prix
Post-Race

Following the race, the retired PF-2 of Laura Haukanna was immediately put into intense scrutiny. This marked a new chapter for the project, as the car had undergone a major change in its design: not only the infamous transmission issue resurfaced, but also, it was revealed the front wing general philosophy was flawed. The latter contributed to Sam Blaatschapen's ultimate inability to hold her high starting position.

"The internals of the car needs to be changed," commented Lars Svensson, head of engineering. "We need to go back to square one."

Damaged transmission in Laura Haukanna's car. Image courtesy of GPA Pryfors Bilar.

---

Diarcesia

After arriving in the team's office in Diarcesia, Haukanna went to speak with Sam to discuss plans leading up to the Ramngardian Grand Prix weekend. They had intended to have a detour after all of them ride the train from Pryfurium to Ramngardia. Sam invited her to spectate a tankery match that was to occur before the practice^[note]. Held in a battle-stadium (not actually a stadium and more of a area suitable for competitive tank battles) not too far from Sigurd Ring, the match day was the culmination of a week-long tournament for various tankery clubs in Diarcesia and a few foreign schools.

Laura agreed to Sam's proposal, and both drivers took time off from her busy schedule for some recreation before the race weekend.

How did it come to be? As it turned out, part of Sam's excitement was that her childhood friend, Osama Najmi, was coaching the Diarcesian school team that made the finals. Coincidentally, their opponent would be Auruna's Näkirakoska Academy.

Both arrived at the venue. It was a rocky field surrounded by forest on three sides and a few grandstands filled with people who had come to watch the matches. The spectators exuded excitement in their voices as they discussed among themselves what tactics each tank would employ to take out its opponent. As she stood there watching the competing teams go through their warmup exercises before entering the arena, Laura couldn't help but appear deep in thought. Perhaps it's because of how far tankery had gone from being considered a niche sport for Auruns (as far as Sam is aware) to an established amateur event that brings schools together over one field regardless of gender or national origin.

Or maybe it was because Sam was reminded of her own school days. Osama Najmi had been part of a tankery club back in high school and Sam watched him participate in several matches, the first being back in her sophomore year. She had a thing for the sport even as a bystander because it involves vehicles; Sam was involved in racing vehicles ever since she was introduced to it by her father, who took her under his wing and encouraged her to take part in races with other kids.

"Hey guys," Osama called out as he approached them. "You must be Sam and Laura." He shook hands with both of them before leading them into one of the smaller viewing areas reserved for students, parents and staff members close to the teams participating in matches.

"You sure we're allowed here?" Sam asked.

"Yeah," Osama said. "I'm the coach and I can bring a few people along." He gestured for them to take a seat as he stood behind one of the chairs and rested his arms on its backrest. "It's nice seeing you again after all these years, Sam," he continued. "And this must be Laura?"

Laura nodded in response while also taking note of how similar they looked like each other: same height, skin tone and facial features... maybe they were even related by blood? Not that she would complain about it if that was the case! She wondered if Osama knew about her racing exploits so far... probably not because he appeared to be completely occupied in tankery.

"I'm sorry for the short notice," Sam said. "You're doing great, by the way." She gestured towards the arena as she continued: "Looks like you guys are going to win this tournament!"

Osama smiled back at her. "We just have to beat Näkirakoska first," he replied. He then turned his head around and looked at Laura, who was also gazing in anticipation of what would be a close match between two teams that showed their capabilities throughout their run in this tournament. The team Osama was part of, the Lyceum of Myrtia, had to endure grueling matches with fellow Diarcesian school Kader Xenagoras Academy (Sam and Osama's alma mater) and Yünshiluggi's Taran & Llawddelyn High School for Girls (in order).

"That ship-school poached you, huh?" Sam was referring to the Lyceum: she and Laura toured the docked floating city Myrtia in Ramngardia before attending the match.

Osama chuckled. "That's the only way to put it," he said, before explaining how he was approached by Theodoricus Feyruna and a few members of his staff to be their head coach after they saw him in action in various tankery matches. Having seen her old friend have an opportunity of a lifetime like this, Sam couldn't help but feel happy for him as well as envious that he has more professional success than she has so far in WGPC. She wondered if she would reach the same heights...

Later, the match between Myrtia and Näkirakoska began. Both were defensive-minded teams, making it a battle of attrition. The Lyceum was the one who made the first move: two Apsychia tanks at its flanks attempted to get around their Schkeska T-77 opponents and take out their rear armor from behind by circling them in opposite directions. It didn't work because Näkirakoska had anticipated such an attack and separated themselves from each other enough so that they could cover both sides. After an hour, neither team penetrated through enemy lines until one tankery club decided to take matters into its own hands: someone sitting behind Laura stood up on his seat with a beer bottle in hand as he screamed commands at the monitors and making obscene gestures...

"Thanks for coming, Laura. I enjoyed it. Let's do this again soon." Sam said after the match ended.

---

[note]: This event occurred a few years before the First Annual SACT Modern Tournament. By then, Osama Najmi returned to Kader Xenagoras and Cecilia Andersdaughter was the coach of Lyceum of Myrtia's tankery team.

---

Sweden-Finland Saga

One Ring to pull them all.
One Ring to find them.
One Ring to bring them all...
...And in one purpose bind them.

Known for its challenging layout and picturesque surroundings, Sigurd Ring (not named after Ragnar Lodbrok's father) has hosted international events since the mid-90s, primarily endurance races. Once part of a road network in the outskirts of Ramngardia, it location was somewhat forgotten over the years after the route's closing but was rehabilitated as a motorsports venue. It remains one of the most scenic and technically challenging venues in Diarcesia.

Key Features

Stockholm Syndrome: A challenging high-speed bend that requires precise car control and optimal racing line to carry maximum speed through the corner.

Hastighetslagen: A tight chicane section that demands precise braking and quick changes of direction. It tests the driver's ability to brake late and carry momentum through the sequence.

Nordström: A slow hairpin corner where drivers need to carefully manage their speed and find traction on the exit for a good run down the following straight.

Österhörn: A series of fast, sweeping corners that require a delicate balance of speed and precision. Maintaining the right racing line is crucial to carry speed through this challenging section.

Sydkattegat: A blind crest followed by a steep downhill slope, testing the driver's bravery and car's stability. It demands accurate car control and a smooth transition from the crest to the downhill section.

[Esmerel]

Located near the coast of the protected Cocoabo Forest, the Cocoabo Park Circuit combines a varying mixture of high-speed kinks and turns. Notably, there are no truly straight sections of the course, leading to drivers always being on the wheel and fighting for the best lines throughout each corner. This is the first year the Grand Prix has moved away from its historic date at the Mountain Challenge Course, and expectations are rightfully high for this track to deliver a worthy event.

-From the Lapiz Point Post’s Pre-Weekend Rundown

CHAPTER 6
Turning Up The Heat

Brendan Faloe had never felt any hotter in his life.

There was the natural heat of the Cocoabo Forest, aided by the encroaching heat of June, and the impending summer months. There was the mechanical heat of the Tropicorp V8 engine behind him, and the stuffiness of the closed cockpit (even with the precise airflow channels it had). There was even the heat of Cole yet again pushing Brendan to perform at his best- justified yet still harsh- after a poor lap in one-shot qualifying left Brendan starting down in 24th.

But even with all that heat, it was a slow burn. Like the heat in Togonistan, a hot environment meant a hot track, and a hot track meant poor conditions for the tires. Brendan had started the race on hards, with Cygnus hoping the tires’ durability could help Brendan push without tearing them to shreds.

So far, Brendan had managed to keep the car on the track without much worry. The first couple of race laps were to plan, even if that plan didn’t involve much at all.

Of course, the best-laid plans often went awry. Not in a terrible sense, at least this time, but certainly awry.

”One car has pulled off the track, they're crawling at turn 8… Okay, safety car has been deployed, safety car deployed,” Cole radioed in. ”Keep the delta positive- and give me some info here, how are the tires doing?”

“Slow,” Brendan replied. “I can keep up with the cars around me, but only just.”

”I’d be open to a strategy change if you want softer tires,” Cole admitted. ”We could pit under the yellow and only lose a few places.”

“No, no, let’s not do that,” Brendan decided. “We’ve just started, and I don’t think we’d do well on the pit delta with softer tires. Let’s stick to the plan- lap 19 for new mediums, then lap 33 for more. Groove should be there by that point.”

”Okay. Think you could use that brain of yours a bit more today?” Cole asked. ”Angela’s got some pace. If you want to keep up, get those tires going. I’ll do my job, you do yours.”

“I can try, Cole. Just accept that,” Brendan said.

After a lengthy SC period, the green flag came back out, and Brendan was racing again, running P22.

Several more laps went by, and Brendan kept on going with his tires. The Tropicorp Sifakas that his C101 used- running at their home circuit- were holding up, just as advertised. Of course, they weren’t nearly as quick as the Phoenician-In Motion tires that five other teams had decided upon- which had led the latter supplier to an early advantage. Still, Dr. Emerson had surely decided on using the tires for a good reason- the C101 wasn’t the most reliable of cars (though there were worse), and there needed to be some element of stability in the team.

Yet things seemed to already be settling into yet more mediocrity. The points-paying positions were several cars up the road, and Brendan’s hard tires, push as he might, weren’t easily going to get him up there.

Still, he pushed anyway. Brendan Faloe wasn’t going to take it all lying down. Not anymore, at least.

-

On the other side of the Cygnus garage, Carol Schmied was in high spirits. In car #84, Angela Stella Tan Fang Ling had managed a top-10 start, and was still running within the points about a third of the way into the race. It all seemed to be going well enough for the team to score their first points- and with both Tropicorp cars failing to complete any more than 10 laps, definitively break away from the last-place Constructors’ tie.

“Angela, you’re doing a solid job,” Carol radioed in. “You’re catching Blaatschappen ahead, gap is about 3 seconds. Náttmörðsdóttir is behind at 4.5. Remember to box next lap, please, box next lap.”

Carol felt confident in the team’s skills, as well as their drivers’ skills. Brendan was rapidly adapting to compete with the fastest drivers in the Verse based only on his simulation practice, and Angela was translating her experience as an astronaut to instead pilot a 600kg open-wheel monster. Her mere presence in the team was equally effective- after the poor showing at Togonistan, she had offered the team an impromptu show-and-tell of her outer space experiences. For some, it was a mixed feeling. But Carol believed that passion was in the right place. There was no victory without it.

On the telemetry screen, Carol watched as Angela’s lap time continued to improve over the delta, and faster than her competitors. If this is what Angela can do on worn hards, Carol wondered, imagine what she could do at peak performance?

Yet at this point the most jaded of race fans would imagine that this run was only beginner’s luck, and that it would come to an end somehow. In the worst way… they would quickly become justified.

Carol could only watch as Angela locked the brakes up at Turn 14, the final corner, and slid into the gravel trap beyond it. Car #84 started to spin, and hit the outside wall on its right side with a sickening crunch. The impact was minor, however, and the car came to a stop.

“Are you okay, Angela?” Carol quickly asked.

Angela responded quickly in turn that she was alright. On the telemetry monitor, as well as the TV feed, Carol could see Angela trying to move the car and continue the race. It didn’t feel like an impossible task; Carol had seen many a car slide into the barriers and go on to finish well.

Open-wheeled cars, however, were nowhere near as strong as GT cars. As Angela managed to roll away on the thin strip of tarmac by the barrier, he could see the extent of the damage: both the front and rear wing had taken a knock, plus the side pod. Worst of all, the suspension looked unstable, and the wheels looked barely attached to the car.

In the heat of the moment, Carol understood why Angela then said she wanted to keep going; to salvage what she could. But it was a foolish decision, and he knew that as well.

“Angela, sorry, the car looks pretty bad from here,” Carol said. “If we kept going, we’d probably be shown a meatball flag; our fate’s all but sealed. Let’s retire the car, please. Full set 1 and be careful into the pits.”

On the other end, Angela acknowledged Carol’s request, and drove the last few hundred meters into and down the pit lane, bringing the car to a halt in the box.

One half of Cygnus had been lost. Today, Angela couldn’t stand the heat, though she was only getting out of the kitchen for now. She’d be back.

-

As for Brendan, he was still in the kitchen, and it was getting even hotter, despite fewer cooks being in it.

”Angela’s had an accident,” Cole told Brendan as it happened. ”She’s retiring the car. Tires look dangerously worn- we’re changing the strategy. Box now for new hard tires, please.”

“...I copy,” Brendan said with melancholia.

Car #71 rounded Turn 14 safely and dove into the pit lane following it, cruising down the thin strip of tarmac. Ahead of him, the Cygnus mechanics had just managed to push Angela’s car into her garage, and were scurrying to get into position and bring out new hard tires for Brendan to drive with.

A 3.7 second pit stop followed, slightly delayed by the close timing of it all. Brendan shot out of his pit box, passing by just 1 more garage before reaching the end of the pit lane and rejoining the track. Thus, he assumed, he would begin another slow, mediocre run of the Cocoabo Park Circuit. He was down in P18- about where he ended up in the first two races- and the C101 wasn’t going to magically find more pace.

”Brendan, get those tires going and use the engine as best you can,” Cole directed. ”We probably can’t ask for more than that. Just don’t wreck the car.”

“...Cole, I don’t like what you’re saying. Just have to be real,” Brendan replied.

”If you can’t stand the heat, you’re welcome to get out of the kitchen. Now drive.”

A few seconds passed. Suddenly, Brendan heard a different voice on his radio.

”Brendan, I know it’s going to be difficult, but I think we can find more pace yet,” they said. It was Carol.

Brendan could somewhat overhear Cole in the garage complaining about the situation. “What are you doing? I’m Brendan’s race engineer, you need to let me-”

“Just let me try,” Carol replied to Cole, which Brendan overheard. ”Brendan, get a bit of temperature in those tires, get them working optimally. Now, you spent 17 laps figuring out the track and the racing lines, right? Try to be patient and use those lines. Nurse the tires, and you’ll have pace when the other drivers are struggling. Keep it up out there. We’ve got time.”

Brendan immediately preferred Carol’s approach to handling a difficult situation, though he feared saying so to Cole. Still, he got to work getting his C101 around the track with care.

A lap passed. Then two. Then, a little more. Brendan lost a little bit of ground along the way, but he was taking good care of his tires.

Ahead of him, cars were struggling- losing grip in the high temperatures. Some had made pit stops for harder compounds, while others had overcooked it and retired from the race, leaving Brendan in P14 on lap 25. From here, the magic started to begin.

Brendan knew now what lines were best for keeping his tires in good shape while not sacrificing all of his pace. Now, his hard tires were about to go the fastest they had ever gone. He picked up pace, finding it where others could not, and hit the perfect stride.

While Cygnus was new to the WGPC, they had studied what worked and what didn’t in the series and its junior formulae- and especially after the previous weekend at Togonistan, they had found a solution to the hot weather and its effect on the tires. At this moment, the hard tires were the way to go, and Brendan hadn’t missed the boat. He carved a path through the countless corners of the circuit, never truly letting the wheel go straight at any moment.

-

By lap 31 the tires were indeed starting to show their wear, but Brendan could keep it up for a few laps longer yet. The points-paying positions were within reach.

At that moment, another crash changed the fortunes of the team. It wasn’t Brendan, he was fine- but it was a close opportunity for a choice.

”Another car just pulled off, big smoke from the engine. It’s Vilau, I think it’s at… No, it’s not that turn… Ah, whatever,” Cole said to Brendan. ”Wait… Okay, there’s a VSC on the track, keep the delta positive or else.”

“VSC? Should we take the chance to pit? I’m not far from the pit lane,” Brendan replied.

Cole quickly studied the length of the VSC remaining, and Brendan’s distance to the pits. He realized it was a golden chance, like Brendan had thought. ”Yes, box this lap, box this lap, we’ll fit some mediums on the car.”

Hearing Cole’s request, Brendan was happy to oblige… but he was feeling confident. Too confident? He’d find out soon enough, but that was to be seen.

Fifteen laps were left in the race. At this stage, most of the cars running were just trying to get to the end. Of course, many would opt to pit under the VSC, but not all of them could safely do so. There was an opportunity to gamble- and see if it would pay off.

And Brendan, for the first time, took it.

“Copy on the box… but I want soft tires,” Brendan told Cole.

”Softs? Are you mad?” barked Cole. ”We were starting to struggle with wear on 17-lap-old hard tires; don’t tell me you think softs can go another 15 without falling off the cliff or even blowing enti-”

“Cole… Give me this chance,” Brendan interjected. “You’ve been pushing me to go for it more and more. Why are you surprised now?”

There was only silence on the other end for the next few seconds.

“Maybe it won’t work. But I’m feeling good. We need to do something to even the odds. It won’t be points anyway if we play it too safe!” Brendan reasoned. “If you really think I can perform when it counts… then let me perform!”

”...I yield, Brendan,” Cole relented.

Brendan pulled into the pit lane, where a few other cars had also opted to pit for new tires. But few of them, he saw, were trying to make such a gamble. If it worked, Brendan stood to gain a lot.

If it didn’t, as he had said, it wouldn’t be any worse than not trying. He slipped into his pit box, skillfully diving between the crowds of pit crew members.

”Clutch in, first gear… Okay, go!” Cole directed, as the Cygnus crew gave Brendan an impressive 2.3 second stop. Brendan quickly drove out of the box and back onto the track, making sure to merge safely.

“Cole, tell me what I need to know here,” Brendan said. “What’s my position, and how long until green?”

”You are… P12. Náttmörðsdóttir is pacing ahead at 2.2, then Walcott at 4.2,” Cole replied. ”Fifteen seconds to VSC end, delta is still looking good.”

Brendan focused himself as the seconds ticked by. He slowly found himself entering the tight turns 5 and 6 as he got ready to put the hammer down.

”If you want to prove yourself… you had better do it,” Cole sternly said. ”Five, four, three, two, one… Give them hell!”

Brendan lifted off the throttle at three and opened it wide at one, roaring away and through the right-hander to the rest of the lap, and the race.

Immediately it became evident that the soft tires were much better for pace than the hards, and even the mediums paled in comparison. It would matter that the soft tires would lose their edge quickly, however, and it was up to Brendan to make the most of his advantage, pierce through the cars ahead, then pick a god and pray he could hold on.

The good thing was that the edge did what Brendan wanted it to do. As Brendan exited the final corner behind the two Sivaleinen cars, he saw the first parts of his charge forward falling into place. Carefully, he increased the pressure on the throttle until he could go no further, then opened up the rear wing and applied full boost. The C101 reached its zenith, gaining speed at an insane rate. Brendan was alongside and past Lillý Náttmörðsdóttir by the time he passed the pit exit, then kept pursuing Kingston Walcott ahead. He kept the steering as straight as possible through the kinks on the “front straight”, so as not to lose the rear end, and dove inside the #91 car as they both approached Turn 1.

In a single straight, Brendan had overtaken two cars. He was in the points, and still he kept going. As the next few laps went on the board, Brendan kept gaining ground on the cars ahead of them- Fast Cocoabo, R.L. Cruisin, Sara Luna, among others- then skillfully found the opportunities to overtake.

”Brendan, you are the fastest car on track right now,” Cole radioed in. A rare sense of approval could be heard in his voice, which Brendan noticed.

“This car, when it comes together… Oh, it comes together!” Brendan exclaimed.

-

Brendan ran more and more laps, and entered Lap 42 side-by-side with the Eminent E20 of car #40- Adriana Ela Kowalski Lilian, a compatriot to his own teammate. It didn’t stop him from roaring ahead as the two cars thundered through the Cocoabo Forest and into the turns- but it was harder now, as the soft tires were beginning to have their troubles.

”That is honestly… I can’t believe your pace, Brendan, you’re P4!” Cole exclaimed over the radio. ”Okay, shift to defending; McCreary ahead is 10 seconds, you’re starting to lose the advantage.”

“Copy, I’ll hold here- but I’d better build what gap I can to Kowalski,” Brendan replied.

And so Brendan channeled all the skill he still had into holding onto his new position- a phenomenal P4 in just his and Cygnus’s third Grand Prix. But if he wanted to finish there, he would have to fight for it.

Lap 44. Four laps remained in the race- and Brendan’s gamble was about to demonstrate why it was even a gamble in the first place. The soft tires that had been run almost constantly at the edge for the last 11 laps were nearing the cliff. One false move, one flat-spot or overzealous turn-in, and one or more of the tires might fall, destroying Brendan’s pace and taking away all of the ground he had gained- maybe even out of the points he and the team so desperately wanted. Not only that, but the Eminent’s tires, ones made by Phoenician-In Motion, were much quicker than their Tropicorp counterparts- if less durable, probably enough to stay in the fight with a weary Brendan.

Okay… Just remember the lines Carol recommended, Brendan thought. Nurse the car home. “Cole, give me the gap to Kowalski at each sector.”

”Copy… Currently 3.1; they’re on mediums the same age as your tires, so they’ll have a bit more grip at this stage,” Cole explained. ”Come on, now prove yourself to me, like you said!”

Brendan didn’t need Cole’s forceful commands in his ears, but he listened to them. It was fortuitous that the circuit had only one truly heavy braking zone- Turn 14- while the other zones, such as turns 5, 8, and 12, weren’t much in comparison. It meant less chances for it all to go wrong- but a chance was still a chance.

2.8. 2.6. 2.3. 1.9. Kowalski was catching Brendan quickly- almost a second a lap. He may as well have fallen off the tire cliff already.

Carol jumped in. ”If you’re defending… be brave, but be fair. No weaving, and easy on the tires when you fight!” he said.

This was the moment in which Brendan wished the C101 produced more dirty air than the little it currently did. But he soldiered on. Defensively, carefully, and hopefully.

-

The gap kept diminishing. Two laps to go, and it was 1.6. Then 1.3. Then 1.1. P6 behind them was another seven seconds behind, so P5 was almost guaranteed, but Brendan was running out of time to keep P4.

The deep purple E20 loomed in Brendan’s mirrors as he broke for the penultimate time into Turn 14. The gap on Brendan’s MFD read 0.9- close enough for DRS to be in effect. It was unfortunate that Brendan had used the function so often to gain speed when it helped, yet he disliked it as a function of the car. He’d play by the same rules, at least.

Still, it would make it all the more harder for Brendan to defend down the lengthy “front straight” and through the fast corners that followed it. If he wanted to keep his well-deserved P4, he would need to act impregnably.

In the blink of an eye, Brendan knew there was one example he could think of; one he could pull from to help him. Years ago, in 2017, another Esmerelian had pulled off an impregnable defense at a race track nearby to this one. Jean Mercer-Daly had held off Ryker Lane, that season’s World Champion, for nearly half the Vilitan Grand Prix to win the race.

So maybe Brendan could do something like that for just one lap.

Your move, Kowalski.

Brendan knew he had enough spare boost to last a good amount of time, and enough stability in the engine to keep it on a high set. He cranked the switches to their highest settings and crossed the line to begin the last lap.

Behind him, Adriana Ela Kowalski Lilian opened her rear wing and gained more and more ground on Brendan, pulling alongside him as they both worked through the kinks- just as Brendan had done so five laps earlier. But Brendan knew the line he wanted, and left open the line he didn’t. He stuck to the left-hand side of the circuit, getting ready for the small braking point at Turn 1.

It was a swift and flawless maneuver, done on tires begging to be released from their duty. On his right, Kowalski could have kept fighting, but saw sense and backed off. Brendan- and her, he assumed from this action- knew she would have more chances during the lap.

Turn 2 was not yet one of those chances, nor Turn 3. But afterward was a semi-straight section where Kowalski, while without DRS, crept up towards Brendan again. Turn 4 wasn’t a heavy braking zone, but Brendan, with his lacking tires, couldn’t handle it quite at full speed. The clock was ticking.

Turn 5 led to Turn 6, a medium-hard right, and Brendan could see Adriana having another look as they both braked for the corner. The tires were nearly giving up. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Brendan missed the apex as his tires simply refused. Kowalski got a much better exit. Both of them could tell she was going for it.

The two cars- one C101 and one E20- jockeyed out of Turn 6 and through the flat left-right that constituted Turn 7. Turn 8 was rapidly approaching. A long, slow left-hander, and yet Kowalski’s grip meant she could try and sling it around the outside of Brendan, and it could probably work. And so they both fought towards the braking zone, edging closer and closer, both of them waiting to see who could get the braking point right, or at least better than their opponent.

Brendan had the slightest of advantages over Kowalski- just a tenth or so- and he knew it was now or never to put together perfection itself. But it turned out he wouldn’t need to. As Brendan hit the brakes carefully and turned left, he saw a puff of smoke from Kowalski to his right.

She had locked up just slightly.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his opponent miss the turn, and clip the gravel on the outside of the bend, losing precious time. Precious time that now belonged to Brendan.

”She went wide! Come on, keep going; gap’s up to 2.4!” Cole barked.

Brendan didn’t need anyone to tell him twice. He precariously continued his last lap, with his tires still refusing to give him even the time of day.

Yet without another car right behind him or even alongside him, he could handle every part of the track he needed. One last time, driving as straight as possible through the esses, around the long Turn 12, and braking a bit too cautiously for the last corner.

It was enough. It had to be. And Brendan came out of the final corner, slowly increasing the power once more and darting towards the finish line; towards his first points-paying checkered flag.

”Brendan, man… I’ll admit I was wrong,” Cole began, softly. ”You can pull it off when it matters. Incredible, absolutely. You are P4.”

“...Greatest driving experience I’ve ever had,” Brendan replied. “This… Oh, gods, this’ll feel better than any win I might ever get.”

”If you say so. Don’t get me wrong- I still expect you can do more like this,” Cole added. ”But right now, it’s all you. You really did it. Set 1 on the inlap and be real easy. Enjoy it, man.”

Over the radio, Brendan could hear the jubilant celebrations of the Cygnus garage- and longed deeply to go and join them.

And yet it didn’t settle in that the celebrations were for him.

Maybe it would… one day.

-

Before he knew it, Brendan was back in the Cygnus garage. He brought the car to a halt, slowly but surely undoing his steering wheel, seatbelt, and cockpit cover. He got out of the car to the soft cheering of his team- they had already spent their best cheers when he crossed the line.

Brendan undid his helmet and took off his balaclava as he walked towards Dr. Emerson; the two shared a jubilant handshake for their efforts.

“I enjoyed every second of that performance, Brendan,” Dr. Emerson said. “And starting all the way in P24… You’ve absolutely proven your worth to this team, and the whole sport.”

“Thank you, sir,” Brendan tiredly replied. “It’s… a huge shot in the arm. I couldn’t think of any better feeling.”

“As a bonus, you must be a contender for Driver of the Day,” Dr. Emerson mentioned. “If that drive didn’t earn the respect of the fans, I don’t know what would.”

Brendan and the team spent the next few seconds simply smiling at each other. Everyone was exhausted- in a good way, at least.

“I don’t mean to interrupt our phenomenal fortune,” said Lianna, entering the scene. “But we were met with something a bit less phenomenal as well… our first retirement. I’m itching to analyze the data and figure out what went wrong. As well as repair the chassis, of course. We don’t have many spares.”

“Send my condolences to Angela- she must have been doing well,” Brendan noted.

-

Lianna and Dr. Emerson walked off to engage in a conversation of their own, while Brendan wandered towards the front of the garage. As it so happened, the international TV feed was passing by with a pit reporter and a camera at that time, who both spotted Brendan and darted to interview him (which he had to accept due to WGPO Sporting Code).

“Brendan Faloe, a recent university graduate, jumped straight into the world of motorsports, and three weeks in, he’s put on a stellar performance to finish in P4; Brendan, tell us what you’re thinking and how you got here,” the reporter announced.

“Well… It’s honestly more than I’d’ve ever imagined,” Brendan began. “I’m really happy with the team and the car, and happy with myself for proving I can compete… I want to give some thanks to the fans back at home, and all of Cygnus’s sponsors, they’ve all hung in there with plenty of patience… I’ll give some condolences to my teammate Angela, who couldn’t finish the race after a strong start, and to Adriana Kowalski; she was a great driver and she gave me some serious challenge in those last few laps. If she didn’t run wide at 8, she might’ve made the overtake stick, and it would have been deserved. But, yeah, really good day for Cygnus overall, and let me tell you, I know we’ve got more.”

“Thank you, Brendan, that’s told us plenty,” the reporter said.

-

Back inside the garage, however, not everything was peachy.

“...Why did you have to do it?” Cole asked Carol.

“Do what?”

“Interfere with my race. Brendan’s my driver,” Cole sternly said. “Just because yours made an error doesn’t mean you get to jump ship.”

“...Cole, first of all, we don’t yet know what caused Angela to lose control; you can’t just pin the blame on her!” Carol retorted. “Second of all, you can’t deny my advice helped Brendan. I] helped him score all 10 of those points he just got for the team.

“You know I can hear you guiding Brendan at your station; I’m barely a meter and a half away,” Carol continued. “And I don’t enjoy what I hear 90% of the time. Would it kill you to stop being so harsh?”

“If I’m harsh, so be it. But I do it because it works,” Cole defended.

“I could say the same about how I do it!” Carol interjected. “And you can’t deny that my strategy is effective!”

“That’s different. It’s short-term comfort. Same feeling as a participation award,” Cole said. “How can you say your strategies work when you don’t tell your driver to push for more?”

“...I don’t think we’re getting anywhere,” Carol admitted. “Maybe I do need to understand that things are different here… But again, so do you. You, Cole… you need to warm up. Somehow.”

A couple of seconds passed.

“ ‘If you can’t stand the heat, you’re welcome to get out of the kitchen.’ “

Carol walked away to celebrate with the rest of the team, leaving Cole mostly alone.

And Cole was at an impasse. Stuck, asking one question he couldn’t figure out the answer to.

I joined this team because they promised something new… So why is it just more of the same?

[Aboveland]

Cocoabo Preservation Grand Prix
Cocoabo Forest, Tropicorp
Before the race

Janne wiped his forehead, his hand slipping on his slick, damp skin. The late noon sun peeked through the cracks in the closing skies above; qualifying had been dry, but the possibility of rainy weather was an ever-present threat in the Vilitan archipelago. The dense, humid weather had brought out the summer clothes across the paddock — but they still weren't enough to not have everyone panting every time they set foot outside the garage or their motorhomes. Further adding to the sweat collecting under Janne's arms and at the back of his neck: he was in a rush, his tongue obtrusive in his mouth as he gasped for air and sighed heavily every few steps. For some reason, he'd been called up to a press conference — his first in God-knows-how long —, and it had come as such a surprise that not even Max had been aware, as their post-race debrief was suddenly and acrimoniously interrupted because "the conference starts in FIVE MINUTES!"

He'd already stumbled over himself scrambling out of the motorhome in search of wherever the fuck the media room was supposed to be, and with the signage around the back of the paddock unclear he'd decided to walk in a single direction until someone pointed him the right way. For an instant, tangled in his age-old inability to attain to schedules, he smiled warmly and complicitly to himself — the past months had been strange, and he was sort of feeling like he knew himself again. At one point in his brisk and bouncy walk, a lady with her fingers covering an earpiece and glaring sharply around her spotted him. She gesticulated harshly, her arms rigid, her face mixing stress and exasperation. "That way, Mister Laukkanen," she snapped, lunging into a full-body point. Janne could only muster a nod and a shy, hip-level thumbs-up — he was probably so flushed, damp and scraggly that she realized he wasn't able to conform to niceties for his lateness.

His vision shut off as his eyes adjusted to the darkness inside the main paddock building, and before he could blink, he felt his arm clutched, pulled and thrust towards the brightly-lit conference room — to which his eyes again painfully adjusted. As the shadows before him gradually came to view, he could see the floor of media personnel — sparsely populated and not particularly enthusiastic, judging by the slumped bodies and absent looks — awaiting his arrival. Turning his face towards the table where he would sit, he could see that the figure on the hot seat nearest to him was dressed in a rich, revolutionary red.

"If you'll just make your way to the opposite end," suggested a monotone voice-over, which overcame the dazed ring in his ears to plonk him in the moment. He nodded at the faceless voice, perhaps too subtly, and reached over to the final empty seat of three, furthest from the entrance to the conference room, to flop onto with relief. He sighed briefly but heavily as he laid his arms on the table, the voice speaking up again to introduce him and the other two drivers while he pushed his flat, damp hair away from his eyes.

"We are joined today by three front-runners of the renowned fourth season of WGP2 to see where they stand today: home star and UrGa front-runner Skiia Vialiv, Nexus Racing's Janne Laukkanen, and Kaylan's Ted Pressley..."

Janne flinched, the voice-over fading away to the back of his mind again. His tired, narrow eyes shot open briefly as he glanced to his side: the garish, green and orange cuff of the shirt of the guy beside him was too obvious to have missed when he walked in; as Ted shifted in his seat and adjusted his cap, a waft of his post-qualifying musk rolled towards Janne's nose, tears briefly welling beside the bridge of his nose as the follicles on his arms fluttered up. He blinked hard to collect the salty drops — and when he opened them again, dazed, his mouth ajar, he raised his face towards Ted's — the Tumbran was subtly glancing to his right much more skillfully than he had been since the start of the season, but when their eyes met, he simply couldn't resist breaking his own pact with himself.

"Hi," loudly whispered Janne, his attempts at processing the situation inhibiting him from closing with a smirk. Ted briefly vacilated, looking straight towards the journalists before them, before turning his face almost imperceptibly back towards the Abovian. He exhaled silently, but strongly enough to reach the prickly hairs on Janne's nearest arm — almost as if he was making a point. "Hi," he replied, back, dryly, curling his lips inward as soon as he finished and turning his head back towards, as Janne immediately realized, the source of the voice-over.

"A question for Skiia Vialiv," said a spectacled reporter, his freshly-ironed polo framing an overwhelming image of over-correctness. His voice, monotone, was quickly drowned out by the noise in Janne's head and the drum of his pulse. He'd let his guard down for just one moment, and he'd instantly folded; and if he didn't continue pestering the Tumbran beside him, he'd have to channel his nervous energy towards thumping knee-bounces and moist, fervent, lip-smacking nail biting. The battle had been lost — there was only one rational course of action left. With a semblance of apprehension, feigned to a greater degree to hide his genuine terror, Janne rested his elbows on the table and leaned his body weight onto his left, the one nearest Ted. "Crazy, we're just now coming across each other!" he scoffed quietly, masking his attempt at starting conversation appear as just another of those off-camera murmurs that drivers would often engage in during press conferences. The Tumbran, however, seemed unfazed, and it was only a few seconds after Janne had spoken that he glanced to his right, before promptly turning his body towards him as well. He'd not managed to hide the displeasement strewn across his face, but he was quite a bad liar.

"Janne?" asked the voice-over from earlier, making the Abovian jolt. "There's a question for you," they continued. Janne nodded, tilting his face towards the audience. He'd evidently missed the journalist's brief words of self-introduction.

"We saw you come close to scoring your first-ever podium at the highest level of WGPO competition last weekend, only for your fortunes to take another turn today in qualifying; do you think that your third team switch in three years is affecting your concentration, or are there other factors at play?"

Janne frowned slightly, his mouth almost ajar upon hearing the question. The audacity, he thought; but if she just came up with the distraction thing, she got me good, fuck!

Conscious not to stutter — the churning of his insides ready to burst at the first sign of weakness — he quietly cleared his throat before replying. "It's taking me some time to adjust," he began carefully, sighing as punctuation. "I've switched race engineers; and for sure I'm chasing the fighting feeling I had in WGP2 season 4 — it's not a matter of motivation, but of all the pieces falling into place." He let himself relax as he licked his lips and orchestrated his next few words. "We as drivers, we usually look a bit dry or cold from the outside, but we have pressure from all sides: making our teams happy, remembering to look after our own mental health, keeping our social lives alive, proving our worth or making a point when people don't believe in us or want us to fail..." He lets his words linger, a dry, drawn-out swallowing sound grating in his ears from beside him. "So, to answer your question," he shrugged, "we juggle a lot of things. But Nexus Racing believes in me, and returning to the team has felt like coming back to family. For sure, once everything starts to go in the right direction, the results will come."

The journalist, seeming lost as to what the original question had been, smiled politely and retook her seat. "Thank you, Janne," she quipped.

The voice-over again addressed Skiia Vialiv, leading the way into a question about her test drive role at Tropicorp which fell back into the background of Janne's mental space. Again, he shuffled closer to Ted, hissing a bit louder than the previous time. Maybe he hadn't heard him?

"Your lap was good today," Janne mumbled breathily through his teeth; he was careful to turn his nose away from the Tumbran, to not blow onto the tender skin just below the cuff of his sleeve. "And you were way quicker than me at the first sec―"

"Stop," the Tumbran hiss-snapped back, his eyes darting at him briefly out the side of his low-hung head. His lips parted; "speak later," he breathed through clenched teeth, before letting his mouth modulate the final words. "It took you long enough." He sat back in his chair and stretched tightly, strenuously avoiding any eye contact through the piercing, straight-ahead glare he hid under his ever-so-slightly bushy brows. Janne swallowed hard, sitting back in his chair and nodding to himself. The churning in his gut kicked and turned and shook; an excitable shiver of anticipation gripped him from the tailbone and cracked him like a whip.

"We have time for one more," said the voice-over, the person behind the voice stretching their arm over the podium they spoke at. "Yes, go ahead."

"I have one for Ted Pressley," said the final fortunate journalist, her gaze exquisitely inquisitive. "The success of Pressley Racing has certainly taken the WGPC grid by storm, beating out seasoned and decorated rivals from the onset. How do you think your father was able to put together such a competitive package with no prior WGPC experience, and would you consider making the switch to your namesake team in the future if they continue at the sharp end of the grid?"

Glancing unashamedly at Ted, Janne noticed him tense up. The hair on his head shifted back as his ears twitched; the fingers on only one of his hands curled as his tongue peeked out to moisten his lips. Ted was well media-trained — Janne knew this — and yet, he could see right through him.

Still close to him ― the Abovian had scooted his chair closer and not returned to his original position, although having leaned back in his seat — he observed as the Tumbran calmly inhaled to reply. Before he looked too longingly at him, Janne lowered his head and brought his hands together. As he twirled his thumbs, he let his left knee fall towards Ted's under the three-wide panel table. The fair, wiry hairs on the ball of his knee tangled loosely with the ones straddling the side of Ted's calf. His stomach turned; the hairs on Ted's leg ever so slightly pushed up on his own.

[Commonwealth of Baker Park]

Coming from the last row to mid table had Jordan feeling better about his experience at Cocoabo Park through 36 laps; running in a pack fighting for the last points--9th through 13th covered by just a few seconds with Crowe the trailing car just ahead of Anneliese Devereux a few more seconds back—he was coming to the end of the long sweep before turn 14 when it all went wrong.
He'd adapted a strategy at this tight hairpin of lifting off the throttle just a split second early and just lightly touching the brake pedal prior to the braking point—feathering both in a way that was completely antithetical to modern open wheel driving technique where you were to be 100% on throttle or the brakes but never partially on both unless correcting for an error—that he felt was giving him an advantage off the apex, as he'd passed a few cars previously or gotten a good run to pass on the main straight previously.

On this occasion, the left front brake disc suffered a “complete mechanical construction failure” as the press release called it; the rear of the car came around putting the PRL03-2 into a full sideways skid across the runoff area to the outside of the corner. Jordan gave the wheel a final jerk to the left before taking his hands away, which meant that only the right rear tire made contact with the safety barrier, and the marshals had responded with fire extinguisher by the time he'd unbuckled and gotten out of the car.

He ended up the last driver classified in 20th place but rued what could've been a top 10 with a bit of luck; he came up and planted a big smooch on Batu's cheek for getting the team's first points (this was a carryover celebration from the previous season when one driver did well and the other maybe didn't have such good luck) in the garage, well after Steph Crowe and Helena had both given the TJUN-ian big embraces.

There was also the additional attention paid to the opening round of the AOGP Series, where Nick Unger and Sammi Carter would be using this second season as a final step towards the team moving intact to the next WGP2 season, to be replaced by a new AOGP team to carry on the building process.

In the same light rain that affected Free Practice for the WGPC team, Nick Unger took the pole by 0.219 seconds, while Sammi Carter qualified 9th for the OCR outfit that had finished fourth in the Constructors table the previous season. The race on the following day saw Unger battling Nepö Kinder from the Oonaftco Oontaz Team over the final 9 laps for the win, but falling short by about 3 seconds at the end, while Carter came up short of claiming the final point for 10th place as Carl Botsman from Chan Racing piped her to the line by 1.3 seconds.

Points for the "Cows" and "Calves" would make for a happy trip back to Haskins ahead of the next WGPC round in Diarcesia.

[Abanhfleft]

Words could never really properly or adequately express the disappointment that William Archer felt when he crossed the finish line at the Liventian Grand Prix at the start of the 20th season of the World Grand Prix Championship far away from the points. He knew that he had already ruined his chances by qualifying plum last in that particular race, but the thing that really stung at William was the fact that this really wasn’t supposed to happen. He was supposed to be the hottest driver on the grid, the driver with the most momentum after he had gone on a roll and taken both pole position and the win in the last two grands prix of Season 19 in Hapilopper and Vilita. William couldn’t help but wonder if the year-long break that had been forced upon the competition between seasons 19 and 20 could have played a part in William being unable to capitalize on his momentum. It could have been any number of factors, but one factor that William was sure was not playing any role at all was the car. William had already taken the Preston PGP-03 for a spin for easily hundreds of laps around different circuits around the multiverse, and he had immediately felt comfortable in the car. William knew that there was inherent speed in the car; he just hadn’t been able to harness it properly yet.

But William also knew that there was no use dwelling in the past. He was unable to replicate his performance from the previous season that had given him pole position in Liventia as well as a place on the podium despite the fact that his DRS was opening up when it shouldn’t due to the rainy conditions. There was nothing else that he could do about this particular Liventian Grand Prix. He would just have to get his title campaign going again in Togonistan. William didn’t have any strong feelings either for or against either Togonistan itself or the Hwoarang Racing Circuit. He did however find it both curious and funny that Togonistan, a place that gave William a combination of vibes from both Africa and Central Asia, had a place and a circuit whose names most definitely gave off Korean vibes. William was not really sure if any of these vibe checks made any sense to anyone else apart from him, so he kept all of his thoughts to himself. In any case, he had to get rid of those thoughts anyway once he went out there to tackle the circuit itself.

Practice itself was nothing to write home about just yet; William’s fastest time during the session put him in 15th place, smack dab in the middle of the entire field. His Preston teammate Rudy Edwards fared much worse, falling all the way down to P26, but since this was practice neither William nor Rudy nor Preston’s staff were really that worried. Practice sessions had almost always been a crapshoot in William’s experience, and no one could really tell who was going to be on the pace for the rest of the weekend just by looking at the practice results. However, this particular practice proved to be eerily prophetic for William, as his final qualifying result saw him land almost exactly where his pace in practice had shown him to be. William went through the first two qualifying sessions with some ease, but once it was time for the final shootout for pole position between the 14 drivers that had survived both Q1 and Q2, William once again couldn’t find the pace needed to claim the top spot on the grid. Well, this was true, from a certain point of view. William didn’t have the pace to claim pole, but on the other hand, he was literally just one tenth away from taking the honor. Once again, the sheer parity between most drivers and teams in WGPC at the start of the season had shown itself, and once again, William Archer had fallen victim to it.

But William wasn’t as disheartened by this result as he had been last week. After all, he wasn’t dead last on the grid for Sunday anymore, so that had to count for something, right? In any case, he had the “perfect” strategy up his sleeve. He was going to do what he did best: overcut the rest of the competition, build as big of a gap as he could on the hardest available compound of tires, and then work his magic on the softest compound in the last couple laps or so. It had worked out so well for him both in Hapilopper and Vilita; why shouldn’t it work for him now?

Unfortunately for William Archer, his engine had other ideas.

Things were going smoothly for William, relatively speaking. He wasn’t moving up along the order as quickly as he would have liked (although that could still be explained by the fact that his hard compound tires were still taking their sweet time getting up to their optimum operating temperature), but at least he also wasn’t falling down the order. Those were the kinds of small positives that William had to take after his less than optimal start to the season. In his heart of hearts, William knew that this was supposed to be the season that he could finally fight for the drivers’ championship, and while the Liventian Grand Prix was not something he would like to remember for years after the fact, he believed that Togonistan was going to be the place where he would finally get the campaign back on track. But once again, fate seemed to have different ideas for him.

On lap 7, William received the one message from his engineer that he wanted to hear the least: “I think we’re seeing an issue with the engine from our end, William. Don’t worry about it yet though; just keep driving, and we’ll see if we can fix it at our end.”

“Hey, man, don’t do me dirty like that,” William said back. “Don’t joke around with shit like that!”

“This is not a joke, William. This is not a drill. We’re seeing some bad data from your engine. We’re not yet sure if it’s just the telemetry or if it’s an actual issue with the engine though so just focus on your driving.”

“But how am I supposed to focus on my driving when you just told me that there’s an issue with my car?”

“We’re looking into it, William, don’t worry,” his engineer replied. “We’ll tell you if there’s a problem but so far, you’re doing just fine.” But just a few corners later, the inevitable happened. “I’m sorry, William. It looks like there’s a terminal fault in the engine. Box, box, box. We’re parking the car now.”

“Oh god, no,” William muttered. “Not like this. Not like this!”

William Archer cut a dejected figure as he climbed out of his stricken Preston PGP-03 once it had been wheeled back into his side of the Preston garage. The race in Togonistan was supposed to be the race where he finally got his campaign to win the WGPC drivers’ championship back on track, but once again the young Fleftic driver was going to walk away from a grand prix weekend without any points to his name still. And, considering the fact that he was the only car to retire from the race throughout the weekend, it only further exacerbated the growing gulf between William and the drivers who were actually consistent enough to get themselves in the points every single week. It took all of William’s restraint to keep his cool while talking to the media about the circumstances of his lap 8 retirement from the Togonistan Grand Prix, but once he was out of the public eye and when he believed that he was all alone, he let out a primal scream and shouted, “OH MY GOD!!!”

The other Fleftic driver on the WGPC grid, Adonis Fitzpatrick, was having a much better Togonistan Grand Prix than his fellow countryman. Through a combination of great pace, a good tire strategy, and some timely overtakes, Donny kept a firm grip on his P6, and that was where he ended the grand prix as well. It was a bit of a disappointment, but only because it was right on the heels of Donny getting a podium on his very first WGPC race. Also, Donny did get lapped by the race leader Cocoabo #23 (aka Fast Cocoabo), but then again, only three other cars didn’t get lapped by the bird so Donny was more willing to look at the positives of this particular stage of the campaign. However, being that he was also a close friend of William’s, Donny knew that the events in both Liventia and now Togonistan were most definitely not doing William’s mental health any favors. Donny paid William a visit at the Preston GP’s HQ, hoping to find his friend before they went out for another meeting of the “young guns” between the Flefts, the TJUNs in Lane Carter and Batu Tüvshinbayar, and potentially the Tumbrans of Ted Pressley and Sophie McCreary. However, what Donny found in William’s room was disturbing for him to say the least.

“...so now you’ve decided that now is the perfect time for you to come back just because I’m not in the championship fight at all anymore?!” William shouted. “Where the fuck have you been when I was winning races!? Yeah, that's right! I remember that you were nowhere to be seen when I won in both Hapilopper and Vilita! Where the fuck were you when I was successful, huh?!”

“William?” Donny asked hesitantly. “Are you okay, bro?”

William turned around in surprise when he heard Donny’s voice, and for a brief moment Donny saw a look on William’s face that made the younger Fleftic driver look both scary and scared at the same time. And then William saw Donny, and the look on his face became purely one of fright and shock. “Donny?” he asked in a much softer voice. “Donny, is that really you?”

“I mean, last time I checked, I’m still Donny,” the older driver shrugged. “Who were you talking to back there, man?” he asked nervously as he slowly approached William the way that one would approach a dog known to bite at any moment. “You can’t say that I haven’t been there for you every single day though, right?”

“What are you talking about, bro?” William asked. “I know you've been with me every step of the way, man! Unless there's something that you haven't been telling me.”

“I think you might be the one who isn't telling me everything,” Donny said. “I mean, who were you talking to? Just before I went in here, I mean.”

“What?” Then William finally seemed to recognize what Donny was talking about, although when he made that realization, he suddenly became nervous. “Oh, that. It's a long story, Donny. I won't bore you the details. I've just been talking to myself, trying to find a way to deal with my goddamn engine blowing up on me on lap 8 just earlier.”

“You seemed to be getting into a real argument with yourself then,” Donny said. All the while his eyebrow was raised, suggesting that he was skeptical that William was telling him everything, but he decided that he wasn't going to push the issue too much right now. “Anyway, have you already figured out a place where we're going to hang out with the TJUNs and the Tumbrans?”

“Wait, that was supposed to be tonight?! Fuck!” William cried out again. “Fucking DNF really got me forgetting about basic shit like this! Argh! Yeah, I don't think this little get-together of mine is gonna happen anytime soon. I'm just not ready to do anything else today. I just wanna mope around by myself tonight. I don't think I'm gonna be fun to be around with for the rest of this week. Besides, I don't think Ted could have come tonight as well. He said he wasn't sure if he would be able to bring Janne or Sophie so he'd rather not show up just so he wouldn't be the odd one out.”

“Well, you gotta tell Lane and Batu that the gimmick is canceled,” Donny said. “Or at least you're gonna have to reschedule it because of what happened this afternoon. I'm pretty sure they'll understand. You don't want them to be hanging around the place waiting for something that's not actually going to happen.”

“Yeah, maybe I should do that,” William said after a few moments. He took out his smartphone and began composing a short email for Lane Carter.

TO: Lane Carter
FROM: William Archer
SUBJECT: Sorry

Hey man. I'm sorry if this is a little bit last minute but I don't think we'll all be able to hang out right now. I'm just not in the right mental place to do anything else right now after my retirement from the race earlier today. Hopefully a better time will come later on this season. Again, I'm sorry for the last minute cancellation. I hope you understand why I had to do this. But I promise, we'll all get together at least once this season.

Regards,
William

For his part, Donny was both disappointed and relieved that William had decided to cancel the get-together with their fellow young drivers. He was disappointed because he wouldn't get to see and talk to Batu again just yet, and he was relieved because he wouldn't get to see and talk to Batu again just yet. Adonis still wasn't sure what kind of relationship he wanted to have with the poor guy, and though sometimes it felt like fate was trying to force them to cross each other's paths, on this night Donny felt like he had been given a break. There was no way of knowing how long this was going to last before fate tried to put the two of them together once again, and all Donny could really hope for at this moment was that he would finally manage to figure it out before then. But while he was doing that, he fired off a text to Batu Tüvshinbayar to inform him that the planned get-together after the Togonistan Grand Prix was not going to go ahead.

William jst sent an email 2 Lane. Dnt thnk well b meeting 2nyt. Sorry bout dat, bt I dnt thnk William’s in d mood 4 anything after dat DNF. Again, I’m sorry.

---

That was now two weekends that William Archer had had to write off in his pursuit of the WGPC drivers’ championship. This really was not the start to the season that he had envisioned getting when he saw the schedule. More and more, he was beginning to think that that year-long gap in between seasons 19 and 20 had affected the momentum that he thought he had built up at the end of the previous season. All of the momentum from those two victories in Hapilopper and Vilita had seemingly gone up in smoke, and so far, the blame was equally between him and the car. William was the one who had failed to put his car in a respectable position at the Liventian Grand Prix, a race where being five tenths of a second away from pole position was only good enough for last place. But then in Togonistan, it was something in the PGP-03’s engine that had gone kaput just when it looked like William was finally going to breach the points paying positions. William didn’t know which was a more disappointing outcome, but he knew that having both happen to him at the start of the new season was a quickfire way to kill his chances of winning the championship.

Once again though, William would have to put these two setbacks in the back of his head. Once again, the coming Cocoabo Preservation Grand Prix would have to be the race where he would finally get his title campaign back on track. William had to get his campaign back on track here in Cocoabo Park; one-fifth of the season was already in the books, and once the checkered flag had been waved over there, that would be an entire third of the season done and dusted. Yes, it was still technically possible to get back in the game with only seven races left to run, but William knew that the sooner that he got his momentum back, the better. That was just being logical. Also, he had been told by Preston that they had finally managed to isolate the source of the fault in his engine (it was a problem with the control electronics), and that they had removed the offending part and fitted in a new CE for the Cocoabo Park race. William thanked the engineers and crew for their work, although privately he was hoping that what they said was true and that the new CE wouldn’t develop any new faults of its own come the weekend.

William looked like he didn’t do well in practice, finishing only as high as P23, but yet again that was just an effect of the relative parity between the teams in the competition and the fact that no team was running the same practice program throughout the session. And even then, the gap between William and the fastest driver on the circuit, Lane Carter, was only 15 hundredths of a second. Add to that the fact that there were light showers all over the circuit for the practice sessions and the resulting spread between the drivers was also slightly understandable. However, all of that meant nothing at the end of the day, and it would be on Sunday when everyone would finally show their true pace and figure out where they really were as things stood.

As with practically every season of WGPC before now, the circuits were allowed to choose the qualifying method that the drivers would have to go through in order to determine their classification for Sunday, and the Cocoabo Park Circuit had chosen one shot qualifying as their preferred method. This meant that every driver had only one shot at putting in the fastest lap that they could, so they all had to make that one lap count. However, one disadvantage of one-shot qualifying was that the teams who had to come out first (determined either by practice times or position in the drivers’ or constructors’ championship last season, no one could really tell) were at a disadvantage as the track would not yet have rubbered in as much as when the later drivers went out for their laps. In any case, William didn’t really know or care when he was supposed to come out; all he knew was that he was going to go out there and blast in the fastest lap that he could.

“All right, William, it’s your turn,” his engineer said. “Get out there and show them all what you’ve got.”

“Copy,” William replied curtly, and then he blasted off from his garage, into the pit lane, and into the circuit. William made sure to hit his marks on his out lap in order to turn these things into muscle memory, with the obvious hope that this was going to translate into a blistering qualifying lap. Once William hit the final turn and found himself on the main straight, he opened up the Preston PGP-03’s “Double DRS” and gunned the throttle.

Long, long left turn! Another left turn! Right kink! Left! Short straight! Another left! Right turn with a tighter and tighter radius! Left kink! Not a true left hairpin! Chicane! 90 degree-ish left! Sweeping right! The real hairpin! And one more easy left before the final stretch!

“That’s 43.447, William,” his engineer called out once he had crossed the line. “That’s the second quickest time on the board so far! Just three tenths behind Cruisin. Great job out there!”

“Yeah, I knew it,” William nodded back. “I felt really quick out there, guys. Good thing the time reflects it as well. Thanks, guys. I know last week was a big disaster, but this is where we finally start the comeback.”

Only one driver would end up going faster than both William and R.L. Cruisin, and that was Pressley Racing’s Bryce Yannec. Yannec turned in the fastest lap in the qualifying session, going two hundredths faster than the Tropicorp Colourworks veteran driver in what was honestly an insane lap from the Mertagnian driver. Yannec’s pole position was a great outcome for Pressley Racing, especially after his teammate Sophie McCreary’s lap was only good enough for P16. On what was only a tangentially related note, William remembered that Ted Pressley had bowed out of the planned meeting in Togonistan because he didn’t want to be the odd man out who couldn’t bring someone to the get-together, and William wondered what exactly was the issue between Ted and his countrywoman. Was it anything to do with the fact that Sophie drove for Pressley Racing, which was owned by Ted’s father? William had heard the rumors that there was some sort of wedge between the elder and younger Pressley stemming from Ted’s time in WGP2, but he didn’t really know the details to that, and he wouldn’t really want to be the person that tried to pry into that. But William figured that he would try to talk to Ted sometime soon.

With his P3 start for the Cocoabo Preservation Grand Prix, William Archer knew that he was in a great position to finally get the ball rolling on his WGPC Drivers' Championship campaign. He had already endured two weekends without scoring any points at all. That was not how his third season was supposed to go, especially after he had already won the last two races of Season 19. William knew that he was sounding like a broken record at this point with how much he kept coming back to the momentum he had built up last season, and what he had now seemingly lost in the first two races. Now William was in a great position to capitalize. He wasn't starting from dead last or the middle of the pack anymore. He was in P3. If he could take advantage of the slipstream from Bryce Yannec then he had a shot of taking the lead and holding on to it. William had a knack of never relinquishing P1 once he got hold of it, and this race was a perfect opportunity for William to do just that. And getting 25 points at this stage of the season, when consistency was still pretty much a figment of the imagination for a lot of the drivers on the grid, would put William right back into the title picture. All he really needed to do was have a clean, mistake-free race, and the dream would be right back on.

Unfortunately for William Archer, the racing gods once again had other plans for him.

To be continued…

[Valentine Z]

Part 8 – Fire, Unpleasant, Brimstone, Asphalt, Retire.

1st Cpt. Angela Stella Trista Josephine Natalie Rv. E. Tps. “The Eternal Explorer” Bethany Alyssa Valeska Payton. Mikayla Gosling Josie Rowan Serenity Chelsea Lynette Hannah Tan Fang Ling nearly had this one. The course was a little challenging for her but once again, it was not something that she was not struggling too hard in. 8th on the qualification, means that she should have been able to do relatively well in the actual race, at least in terms of the timing and racing itself. The pit stops and occasional mess-ups are problematic, yes, but it was not as if the Cygnus team was throwing her under the bus; she never once thought that they were doing that. Instead, these kinds of things are on the more of “Shit happens” territory, and sometimes, once just have to simply accept that. This time, however, something else that happened, a relatively large screw-up that affected a lot of the fellow drivers around. At the 15th lap, Angela was feeling a little exhausted from the driving, but she was not down just yet, not by a long shot. With 32 more laps to go, she was sure to make it, and she definitely was not wet noodle in terms of physical strength and endurance. The most pit stop saw her team frantically discussing strategy changes and decisions. On top of that, the numerous retirements from drivers – including the more well-known and best of drivers by most opinions – have retired. With 3 drivers having been knocked out, Cygnus getting nervous for both Angela and Brendan was wholly understandable. For the most parts, Angela was doing great going around the lap, even the turns that she was having a little bit of problems with. She was even breaking too much at times because, in her words onto the radio, “Better to be safe than sorry! I would like to go faster but, I don’t know. I don’t do this turn that well.”

Two more laps have passed, and it was time for Angela to tackle the last half of the course. “Okay. Gently does it, Angela. Gently. Does it,” she said onto the radio and to herself, perhaps simply making sure that her team hear her thoughts, or something to that effect. “I won’t call it misery, but maybe anxiety. Anxiety loves company, or something,” she added on, waving around Turns 9 to 11, then 12 and 13. Piece of cake, she thought. Those turns were relatively easy, and with other drivers not around her, she was going to do it. If not a win or a podium, she can, at the very least, catch up to Brendan and perhaps even follow him. It was all relatively safe and sound decisions, one that would not involve her aggressively overtaking other cars. “Turn 14 is approaching, be careful!” Angela remarked to herself, gripping the steering wheel, hitting on the brakes gently. At least, she thought she was being gentle.

There was a familiar sound, followed by her losing control of her car suddenly. The steering wheel seemed to have possessed a life of its own, and so did the car. “Oh shit!” Angela yelled out into the radio, her voice interspersed with the sound of skidding tires, “Brake lock! I can’t control it! I can’t-“ CRUNCH! was the sound that the car made when she hit the right side of the car onto the wall. The g-forces that she got were not a problem, thankfully so, mostly because she hit “right” and did not have excessive forces on any one of her body parts. She felt like someone punched her on the helmet, but otherwise, her head is intact, and is definitely still on her body. Hopped up on adrenaline, she adjusted her car seat quickly, pressing a series of buttons to jumpstart the car to a more driveable state, as well as feeling the levers. “The brakes are probably gone,” she thought, with significant lack of force or resistance from the pedals when she stepped on them. “Yeah, I think they are severed, or something,” she added on. It took a few more seconds for her to respond to the frantic radio. “Are you okay, Angela?” Carol quickly asked, to which Angela replied with a positive. “Yeah, I’m fine. Look, I will see if I can make it through the end of the race. Brakes are partially out, but if I slow down on time, I should be fine. Might not make it to the podium or points, but I can give it a try.” The team, to their horror, watched as the mangled mess of #84 slowly drove along the course. The engineers have determined that it was in pretty bad shape, and from the temperature gauges, it was a matter of time before Angela’s car started going up in flames. “The driver seat’s kinda hot,” she sounded off. With a bit of quick discussion and with Angela approaching the starting point and the pits, the decision was made, for her sake.

“Angela, sorry, the car looks pretty bad from here,” Carol said. “If we kept going, we’d probably be shown a meatball flag; our fate’s all but sealed. Let’s retire the car, please. Full set 1 and be careful into the pits.” It was something that she did not want to hear, but for the time being, it had to be done. After all, the car was in a pretty bad shape, and the temperatures were quickly soaring, coupled with her being trapped in her own body sweat from humidity. The track was dry, sure, but she could not work with the general humidity of the place. “Sigh, okay,” she said, acknowledging Carol’s request and making her way to the pits, “I’m coming in. I’m so sorry, guys, that was my fault.” And for the rest of the race, Angela hung her head, defeated and embarrassed. Sure, it is absolutely normal for a driver to crash and retire, but being this early, along with missing out on her points, really made it sore for her. To add on to her injury (not necessarily an insult), it would seem that Brendan was in a better spot than her, even going as far as to challenger her friend from another team in a good way. For Brendan, it would be his best race yet.

Zastępca Strażnika Adriana Krystal Desiree “Cudowny Manipulacja Światłem” Venus Kowalski Faith Stanisława Engelse I. Cherise Krystyna Zaborowska Sztormowska Pamela Alina Re. T. Lillian knew that someone was coming to her, and they were approaching her fast. A familiar-looking car, she thought it must have been Angela, her friend. That thought and IF statement lasted for a total of 53 nanoseconds, as she quickly realised that Angela got DNFed. “Brendan!” she exclaimed onto the radio, “Brendan Faloe was catching up to me, and catching up really fast!” As it seems: The two cars thundered through the Cocoabo Forest and into the turns- but it was harder now, as the soft tires were beginning to have their troubles. Adriana was on overdrive mode, running sextillions of calculations in her head, all of these then translated into output for her human mind to digest, as well as for her body to do all these subtle changes and movements to her body – her hands turning the wheels with such precision, and her feet calculating the amount of force that needed to be on either the brakes or the accelerator. However, at the end of the day, Adriana’s calculations and her mind – as fast as they are – were unable to thwart the plans that Brendan had, to simply overtake her. With slightly more aggression in terms of overtaking, Brendan took full advantage of it and left Adriana onto 5th. “Damn it, not now!” Adriana exclaimed, a bit uncharacteristic of her in terms of attitude, but the Valentians knew that she would get a little too competitive at times, as much of a sweetheart as she is at all time.

“I was gunning for podium, I will not let that guy deny it!” she said onto the radio, much to the anticipation (and a little bit of fear) from the Eminent team. Again, it all comes down to the number of DNFs that have strewn this race, and both Adriana and her team obviously did not want to be part of the wreck. “Roger that, Adriana. But please be careful – you are already in a good spot, it’s okay if you cannot be 4th or get the podium! We’re still getting points, your credit from the first race was more than good!” Adriana acknowledged, “Thanks, friends. Don’t worry, I will do my best and to be careful. Please tell Anneliese that I send her the best regards and luck as well. Let us do this!”

Around the curves, around the turns, the cars zipped through with much finesse and precision. Brendan, defending his place and proverbial 4th throne, was not going to let anyone come in and have it. Like a castle siege, Adriana was throwing everything she got at him, and precisely so – all the moves calculated, all the forces and Newtons down to one decimal place, all the banking data accounted for, Adriana was very well operating like a strategist. It was, however, still not enough. She was getting closer to him at times, like a gate slowly bulging in, but all-in-all, it was simply an illusion, or perhaps the way the gate is designed. It flexed and bent inwards, but there was no sign that it was going to break anytime soon. “Tsk, come on! Daj już spokój!” she started shouting out – not necessarily out of anger, but Adriana was simply really getting into it. There was the Turn 14 that Eminent warned her about, the one that caused the DNF of her friend from another team, but that was not going to stop her as well, she thought. “I really do feel bad for Angela, though. That was just unfortunate,” she remarked, “I have to finish this, for her!”

Many laps, many turns, many breaks, on the dry race course. She was going to make it, she thought. “Storm the proverbial castle, barge in and attack!” she thought, by then she really getting into it, making many more obvious comparisons to the various RTS games that she have played. The gates have been broken, and it was up to her to get in, take back her position, and to finish off the rest if possible – Skiia, Ryker, Sophie – if she can do it. However, as she was gunning at Turn 14 as fast as she could, she realised that she had to hit the brakes a little more than usual, to which she did. That was not a problem in itself, at least, not yet. It was the fact that the cars have already been on the track for many laps, and so some of the parts were getting understandably worn out. Case in point, her brakes locked, but not in the way that Angela did. “Initiating emergency manoeuvres!” she sounded off on radio, making careful turns even after hitting the gravel. “Okay, that’s the end of it,” she trailed off, grateful that she didn’t crash out like Angela did, and so was driving much more cautiously. “Another time, Hussar,” she sighed, but later took it all in good grace. With the finish of 5th, there were still points, after all, and she was more than happy to take it. She even approached Brendan after the crowds have calmed down, not to mean any harm to him, and instead to simply offer a gesture of sportsmanship – an offer to handshake, and even a hug if Brendan wanted. “Hey, Brendan! I’m err… I’m sorry about Angela today. A great congratulations to you too! You gave me a heck of a challenge!”

[Tropicorp]

Vialiv Takes Maiden Victory in Cocoabo Park

WGPC20 Supplier Performance Standings (After Race #3)
[1] - 68 :: Tropicorp Racing Supply
[2] - 53 :: Phoenician/InMotion
[3] - 33 :: Brústeinn
[4] - 20 :: Tabtac

Cocoabo Preservation Grand Prix, Cocoabo Park Circuit, Cocoabo Park :: After picking up two race victories - one Sprint and one Feature during the 5th World Grand Prix 2 season and finishing Top 3 in the overall Driver's Standings, it was no surprise that Skiia Vialiv was a driver in demand as teams looked to fill their seats for the 20th World Grand Prix Championship season. Vialiv had limited experience at the top level, having served during World Grand Prix Championship Season 19 as the official test driver for Tropicorp Racing Aelund and contested a mid-season event for the team. Despite going separate ways from driver Sara Luna, however, the re-branded Tropicorp Colourworks team did not call on Vialiv to partner iBen Toralmintii but instead turned to unheard of Chromatik driver Ji-So Yeong for the second race seat. While retained as a test driver for Tropicorp Colourworks, Vialiv was given then freedom to sign as a race driver for another team so long as that team was using Tropicorp Tyres.

One team that Vialiv had fought regularly with during WGP2 Season 5 would all of a sudden come calling. Urotovsky-Gatutin was making the move from WGP2 to WGPC for Season 20 and while they would be taking Fleftic driver Adonis Fitzpatrick with them, they would not be renewing the contract of Adabian driver Shalmaneser Kalhu. That left an opening and Vialiv was quick to sign on the dotted line when the opportunity presented itself, not allowing UrGa any time to re-consider their position as veteran drivers like Olivia Stone remained on the sidelines.

Two races into the World Grand Prix Championship 20 season there may have been some who questioned the UrGa decision to jump in and secure Vialiv for their foreign seat early in the offseason as the Tropicorp-Licensed driver would fail to score any points in the first two races of the season. Although an overly aggressive strategy was to blame for the 14 teams final placement in Togonistan, it didn't change the fact that Vialiv wasn't even classified in the Drivers Standings or Toys 4 All Rookie Standings due to not having any points to be classified with.

That would all change, however, as the WGPC arrived back in the Greater Vilitan Cove Area, making way for the first time in its history to the Cocoabo Park Resort largely funded through Tropicorp Grants. Vialiv would have a big family presence at the track and it would pay off as she would qualify in the 5th position - earning her best starting position of the season. From there, Vialiv would only get faster. After avoiding a collision between William Archer and Bryce Yannec, Vialiv was in the Runner-Up position behind veteran driver R.L. Cruisin who was looking for their first victory of the season. This time, with Vialiv in podium position, the UrGa Motorsports team decided to play a race winning strategy, pulling Vialiv into the pits a full two laps ahead of Cruisin and getting clean race track to cut down the deficit. By the team Cruisin pitted they had lost the gap and would actually come out of the pits in the third position behind both Vialiv and Ryker Lane.

Cruisin's day would go from bad to worse after contact force the Portland-Carvenlo driver to make an extra pitstop to change the front wing. Vialiv, however, would cruise herself off into the sunset, opening up to a 16 second advantage at the finish over former series champion Lane to claim her first ever World Grand Prix Championship victory. As the Tropicorper celebrated on the podium with the veteran Ryker Lane and Tumbran Rookie driver Sophie McCreary who picked up her first ever podium, it was a validation of everything they had been through. After coming up on the karting circuit in Vilita, Vialiv was nearly swayed into Stock Car Racing. When a last minute bid to gain a seat in the Everlong Contenders Series failed, Vialiv returned to open wheel becoming one of the first drivers to join the Vilaye EnergySport program when the Vilisorma based beverage company bought out the Montagne team just a week before the start of the 4th World Grand Prix 2 Season. On a rainy Friday at the newly constructed Alikki-Corra Street Course, few outside internet gaming and VT Racer Pick 'em Circles were familiar with the name Skiia Vialiv. That would all change in the rain when Vialiv put the #14 on pole position in her first ever World Grand Prix 2 Qualifying Session. Now, just 3 seasons later, Vialiv's career trajectory has made it fully into orbit. All the doubts as to whether or not UrGa Motorsports made the right call in hiring Vialiv after two pointless races to open the season: Gone in a flash. As the #14 with its livery-conflicting Orange tires shook the branches of the Cocoabo Forest trees in its wake, Vialiv was racing toward not only a checkered flag in the Cocoabo Preservation Grand Prix, but also toward acceptance as not just one of a large swath of Rookie Drivers taking on the 20th World Grand Prix Championship campaign, but as a Grand Prix winner, forever catpulting above those drivers that had competed and never won a Grand Prix and establishing herself as more than just a rookie driver that a team took a chance on to pay the bills, but as a driver that would likely become part of the very fabric of the World Grand Prix Championship series for seasons to come.

SKIIA VIALIV ✓

@Skiia

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Thank You Thank You Thank You @UrGa and the entire team, the @TropicorpRS family, @CocoaboPark, @Vilaye for supporting me in WGP2 and everyone else who has supported getting me here to the top of the podium in #WGPC!!! Incredible!

Tropicorp Engineering sign Akhdari driver in Oil & Sand Trade Deal

Cocoabo Preservation Grand Prix, Cocoabo Park Circuit, Cocoabo Park :: While it is certainly not uncommon for relatively unknown drivers to compete in regional level circuits such as the Atlantian Oceania Grand Prix Series, one of the names on the entry list for the AOGP Season opening Cocoabo Preservation AOGP at Cocoabo Park certainly produced some additional scrutiny, not only because the driver was unknown but also due to the rumors about the mechanism by which they acquired the seat. While Tropicorp has never entered the Racing Fuel business, instead relying on CoCoCo partner CoCoGas and other third party suppliers, there was nevertheless still a need for raw materials such as Oil and Sand to go into the manufacturing process for Plastics, Lubricants, Ceramics and Glass among other things that come out of the Tropicorp main campus and in particular those in support of Tropicorp Engineering R&D and the Off-The-Shelf Tropicorp Racing Supply services. While neither part has confirmed any deal, it seems as if Tropicorp may have found a new supplier for at least a portion of its Oil and Sand needs in neighboring country Jabal Akhdar. Those are the latest rumors after Akhdari driver Jaasim el-Rafiq signed to drive the second Tropicorp Engineering car for this AOGP season alongside the teams returning driver Lilo Adinora. There was no major press announcement surrounding el-Rafiq's signing to the team but reports are that as part of the deal, Tropicorp will be receiving discounted Oil supplies from Jabal Akhdar as well as purified desert sand that will greatly reduce processing required in comparison with the deposit encumbered sand from Tropicorps' local beaches.

While some may have questioned the merits of the deal - if such a deal was made, it seems to thus far have worked out well for the Tropicorp Engineering AOGP team. While the teams primary driver Lilo Adinora was fast around the Cocoabo Park Circuit and qualified on the outside pole position, an early race incident with Marfield Racing driver Roy Marshall would ultimately knock both out of the race and slow the field down for the Yellow conditions. Upon the race resuming, el-Rafiq had the full attention of the Tropicorp team and would use strategy to get ahead of a large swath of cars, using great defensive skills to hold up the pack and hanf on for a 5th place finish - worth 10 points in their first AOGP race and putting Tropicorp Engineering 4th in the constructor standings heading into week #2.

[Auruna]

Cocoabo Park Circuit, Tropicorp
Cocoabo Preservation Grand Prix
Race - Lap 3

Racing through the Cocoabo Park Circuit, Laura is minding her own race, comfortably placed in her starting position after a messy start. She fell back a bit before regaining the positions through a series of overtakes on the circuit with now straights which played to Laura's advantage in her skill through winding roads. It felt like she's back. She continues to push, putting all effort into her driving, putting pressure on her car as she starts her third lap of the race. Laura guides Aina through the forests, with precision through corner after corner. She feels a good result coming from this race, she just needs to reach it at the end.

Just halfway through the lap, when it seemed to be going well, Laura experienced a sudden jump in engine revs. Confused at that time, she takes a quick glance on her steering wheel while easing off the throttle. While figuring out what's wrong, Erik immediately came on the radio to inform her. "Bad news, transmission failure, transmission failure. Pull over Laura. We're done here unfortunately."

It was that dreaded transmission failure, it returned to ruin Laura's race once again. It was unexpected at this point but she couldn't do anything. Laura could only pull her car over to the side, gently letting it settle there under the wave of a yellow flag until it was deemed to be enough for a full safety car.

Don't worry Aina, it's not your fault... it's not. Laura whispered before getting out of her car. Then she just walks away from the scene shaking her head, disappointed.

After reaching the PB garage, Haru immediately rushed over her to comfort her with a warm embrace after a long time. It felt weird to Laura as it surprised her for a moment but it felt... nice. Haru didn't say anything during it, he felt that it was enough and hoping Laura just didn't mind it. She was on the verge of tears before that, and now she could just smile and say.

"Kiitan... Haru." ("Thanks... Haru.")

---

Diarcesia

Tankery, it was a sport that was slowly gaining popularity in Auruna but a big thing in Diarcesia. It was something that Laura had heard of before but it didn't interest her and just passed it off as a niche sport. Although this time, after an invitation by Sam to watch a tankery match, Laura agreed out of curiosity. It would be fun. She thought as she follows Sam throughout the event.

Lyceum of Myrtia, the Diarcesian school would be competing against, surprisingly, Näkirakoska Academy from Aurun. It was a familiar name to Laura as it was the school she attended during high school before transferring to another school in Karalinne. And now, she's watching them compete. It was unreal for her to witness this kind of competition, she still couldn't believe that there's a large following. It definitely sparked her interest and now she's just following along.

Later...

After the first few shots of action, Laura watched in awe of the power presented on the field. She never felt invested in any other sport apart from motorsports but this could be one that she could follow, even the one back home. This match made it interesting to her for some reason. As the action unfolds, Laura watches closely on the monitors while quietly cheering on. It was unusual for her to become a spectator, a somewhat passionate one at that but she was clearly into it.

After an hour, neither team penetrated through enemy lines until one tankery club decided to take matters into its own hands: someone sitting behind Laura stood up on his seat with a beer bottle in hand as he screamed commands at the monitors and making obscene gestures...

"Ai jÿme tana!" Laura exclaimed as she instinctively ducked. Looks like there are more passionate ones surrounding her, something she was prepared to encounter but it still managed to surprise her in every way. This resulted in a chuckle from Sam. Laura didn't notice it as Sam decided to keep quiet about it as the two go back to watching the match after Laura took a quick look behind her.

Back to the match, as Näkirakoska put up a fierce defense as several of Myrtia's attack the Aurun lines. Meanwhile, a trio of Schkeska T-77s complete an encirclement of two Apsychia tanks alongside the main defending force to wipe them out before moving onto the other flanks being the flexible element of Näkirakoska. It was shaping up to be a close match between the two as they exchanged fire, and their numbers gradually dwindling down. With Laura cheering along the crowd of spectators as the match goes on, it was quite oddly charming to see her invested in something else. The match progresses, Näkirakoska splits into smaller, more maneuverable groups to try and throw off Myrtia and get to their rear. It was successful at first as T-77s pop up unexpectedly near Apsychias, knocking a few out until Myrtia's experience prevailed after dealing a huge blow to Näkirakoska during it.

After a while, both teams are down to a handful of tanks and the more experienced Myrtia had the upper hand. Näkirakoska attempt to scatter in pairs but Myrtia managed to thwart any of Näkirakoska's attempts, leaving them with three tanks left to Myrtia's five at this point. Using their remaining T-77s, Näkirakoska tries to even out the odds with the trio moving in to secure three eliminations at the cost of two. The last Näkirakoska tank then led the two Apsychias to a chase until a last stand in an attempt of an ambush. The final Näkirakoska T-77 managed to eliminate one Apsychia but before it could reload, the remaining Apsychia located where the T-77 is and fires off a shot, knocking it out and Myrtia taking the victory after an intense second half of the match.

The crowd cheers at the end with Laura being pleased with the event even though her home team didn't win, she still enjoyed it especially being with her teammate. It looks like she has a lot to talk about while they head out as Laura couldn't stop her mouth when she found something interesting to talk about.

"Thanks for coming, Laura. I enjoyed it. Let's do this again soon." Sam said after the match ended.

"Ahh... I enjoyed it as well!" Laura excitedly replied. "I can't believe I missed out on a lot until now. I finally have something to look into back home. Also, I think I need to take you to something similar in Auruna. Not sure if it will go through but I can't wait to hang out with you again." She said before going on with what happened in the match even though Sam personally witnessed it. It was just nice to spend some time with her teammate outside of WGPC race weekends, something different to what they usually go through.

It was fun to experience.

---

Viska Factory
Sterlennau, Auruna

After the Cocoabo Preservation Grand Prix, where Viska finished P8 with Sara Luna from P22, one thing seems to be clear: Viska has the race pace nailed down but qualifying was still a struggle. Even Aaron Deering, who eventually retired in the 25th lap of the race, was close to breaching the Top 10 for his first points of the season. Jöna and Artur immediately brought up the issue and started to find out what to do as well as consulting Hori about the qualifying pace, trying to figure out what they can do to minimise the risk of qualifying low as it was hindering their push for points although it resulted in a spectacular climb through the grid during the race.

Hori started to look into it. She knew that Viska's design philosophy doesn't focus on absolute straight line performance as well as single-lap pace, instead, they focused on overall race pace. Hori sought to change something about this. Maybe it was due for another engine overhaul or another design change to the chassis, she wasn't so sure about what to do. After gathering a select few of the most experienced technical personnel, Hori and her team start to research for more improvements.

It was still a struggle for the Aurun team but things were looking up as they finished in the points in the previous two races and all were by Sara Luna. The team continues their recovery as they regain their composure in their racing operations. And back at the factory, work was still non-stop and even the team's test driver for this season, Kinu Luminna had been sleeping within the factory while helping the continuous development of the car. Viska still pushed on.

Meanwhile, the two drivers are continuing with their practice sessions on the simulator as well as a few sessions on Viska's test circuit on certain days. It was necessary to gather some data on their setups and driving. It was even a training session for Aaron Deering (to work out some kinks on his driving) and a few of Viska Juniors in other MNA series for the chance of driving an actual WGPC car and to prepare them for whenever they became a candidate for the WGPC project. Few notables drivers are included like Iina Konoa from AEC, and Uka Markov from AtMA. It was certainly going to be another busy week for the team in preparation for the next race at Sigurd Ring.

It was something that Artur looked forward to, spending some time in Diarcesia before to help the start of PB's WGP racing career, he felt like he knew the place although he could rarely travel there due to his now strict schedule. Maybe in the mid-season he could go but for now, he focuses on being Viska's strategist. At his office, he closely analyses the circuit layout, coming up with different scenarios and strategies to ensure some points but he feels like they could even grab a podium here with the help of Sara Luna. And maybe even Aaron could get a chance this time, hoping that he doesn't retire again. Only their fortune could dictate if they could even stand a chance in getting it.

But Artur still believes in it.

The snowstorm rages on, laid down by the furious gods. The eagle can't fly, the wolf can't walk. Both were cold but they try to push on. It was until the fox reaches them when they felt the warm safety of the world as the fox drags them over to a cave, out of reach from the harsh outside.

They had another chance.

Another light.

[Chromatika]

Cocoabo Park Circuit

Lily McCloud - or "Rachel Stevenson", as she was known here - sat in the Tropicorp-Colourworks section of the stands, watching the race unfold. In all her years of working as a bodyguard for the Chromatik Secret Service, she had never been to a World Grand Prix race; it was an entirely new experience for her, and she wasn't going to let the opportunity pass her by without taking full advantage. She loved any kind of sport - and watching them was one of the few joys that she took personally. As a lifetime Wirr Tsi fan in the Chromatik Red League, she knew what it was like to watch with rapt attention; now, she turned that kind of attention to the race at hand.

Her charge, Ji So-Yeong, was both the most vulnerable and the least at the same time while racing. Lily had had to admit from the very beginning that during the race, there would be no way for her to protect Ji - it was impossible. So, she had learned all about race car safety and configuration, and as the supposed personal assistant, was allowed to view the final pre-race schematics so that she knew everything would work as intended without sabotage. However, as soon as the race began, Ji would be on her own - and the fact that there would be no way to target Ji individually without endangering everyone else on the track at the same time meant that Lily could afford to actually pay attention to the race instead of just worrying about th esafety of her client.

Starting in ninth place, Ji had been doing relatively well through the first ten laps, not gaining a spot, but not losing one either; a few drivers had already spun out as the curves of the track took its toll.

Then, Lily watched with morbid fascination as Ji So-yeong finally tried to make a move - and, taking turn four too aggressively, couldn't compensate. As the #13 car spun out, Lily grimaced.

Tropicorp-Colourworks had been hoping that Ji would complete her first race that would land her on the podium.

Instead, Ji had suffered her first DNF in the WGPC, and there was nothing that Lily could've done.

As she caught herself feeling bad for Ji, McCloud had to admit a simple truth: Ji So-yeong was a likeable person, and she found herself enjoying the assignment more than just the usual professional amount. The feeling wasn't completely unfamiliar - she had been doing this for a while - but it was unexpected.

With more to sort out, Lily turned her attention back to the race - while keeping an ear out on her earpiece for Ji's well-being. Thankfully, she confirmed she was fine.

Tropicorp-Colourworks would have both of its drivers not be able to finish the race, and sit at the bottom of the standings, the only team to not score a single point yet.

Ji was at the bottom.

---

Office of the Premier, Capital Building
Chromia, Capital District, Chromatika

The hour was late as the lone solitary figure sitting behind an office desk nervously watched the clock tick past midnight, her white hair shining in the gleam of moonlight that came through the window. Thankfully, Hélène Embroise had an established reputation of working well past midnight when the occasion called for itself - the maintenance staff had all bid her adieu, and she was absolutely alone in her office. It had been a good thing to establish early on in her Premiership, as it allowed her to have some very discreet meetings without most people knowing it.

Chromatika was still dealing with the invasion from Yesopalitha's abyss on Myana Island. The situation had been going on for more than a month now, as the Chromatiks, with their Yesopalithan allies, continued to gain back ground, a couple hundred feet at a time. Though the casualties weren't that high, it was taking a lot of time - and despite the rest of the nation's doing their best to handle those that were displaced, Chromatika was reeling.

She really couldn't afford anything else going on - so why did she get a cryptic message for the first time since her election as Premier? Why was it that the ones from the Shadows considered now a great time to summon her?

Of course, she didn't have much of a choice - The Shadowed Hand had so many strings and hooks - but still, they couldn't control the fact that she was peeved.

Right on time, a figure clad in all black appeared at the front door. It wasn't clear how they had gotten there - one moment they weren't, than they were.

"Premier," came the heavily distorted tone, as if put through a voice modulator, "Thank you for your time. We know you've been busy with the crisis on Myana Island, and you have our full support in getting that resolved."

"So that wasn't you guys, then?" she retorted, "I was curious, but I didn't assume so, because you guys are a bit more direct than that - you wouldn't have used creatures from another country's parallel universe."

"No," responded the voice, "Definitely not."

"So, if you're not here for that, than why are you here?" pressed Embroise.

"Are you aware of a certain trial that will be happening soon, the one that involves the drivers, Ji So-yeong and Anola Melani?" responded the figure, who had somehow become invisible again.

"Yes," was the reply from Embroise. It was a highly sensitive affair - mostly because the Spade Party and the Red Party had taken a hole of Melani's death and asked for an official investigation given just how events had unfolded. Political lines were being drawn on who could've been responsible, and though she was the face of the New Light Party, Embroise was also the Premier - she had to serve justice. On top of it all, Ji So-yeong's survival gave everyone the chance to learn of the truth, but also opened the can of worms on what it could be. The Chromatik driver had refused to tell anyone, saying that she didn't want her testimony to sway one way or the other.

"I'm afraid we have some bad news regarding that area," the voice continued.

The next words that Hélène Embroise heard would shake her to the very core - and put the testimony of Ji So-yeong right next to the situation on Myana Island/

"The explosion and the murder of the Melani family may have been a rouge cell of ours. They are still at large, they are still dangerous, and we need your help to track them down."

[Mlima Kijani]

Selection of articles from Kijani news media.

Náttmörðsdóttir says "race" may be a factor in assessments of her performance

Kijani racing driver Lillý Náttmörðsdóttir has dived into the normally delicate world of race relations after criticism of her early season driving form in the WGPC series. Náttmörðsdóttir, who yet again failed to record any points after finishing 12th at the Tropicorp Grand Prix, said she "did wonder if race was a factor" in why she had been largely written off by motorsports journalists and faced a persistent whisper campaign that she might be dropped by team Sivaleinen. "The fact that I'm not doing very well in the race is, and this is very sad to say in the 21st century, the sort of negative stigma that might be motivating some of these very hurtful stories," said Náttmörðsdóttir, adding: "I believe in equality for everyone regardless of sex, creed, political orientation (except communists), sexual orientation, and how badly you suck in the race, but it seems that some of the motorsports press just aren't as open-minded as me."

Náttmörðsdóttir's drive in Tropicorp was seen as something of a disappointment after achieving big improvements in qualifying compared to the first two races of the season, as well as the course being on relatively more familiar soil, in Atlantian Oceania and amid jungle conditions. Though she improved her finishing place substantially, she was still well off the points and more than a minute behind winner Skiia Valiv. Teammate Kingston Walcott finished 10th to claim another point for Sivaleinen, who have thus far been entirely dependent on the Delaclav driver in terms of the constructors' championship. Náttmörðsdóttir said that as a "proud Kijani" she was "not going to be defined by her [total inability to win a] race" and challenged journalists to look beyond her "[stunning mediocrity in] race [conditions]" when assessing her. She added however that she was trying to be "more analytical" about interpreting her performances and not to be weighed down by "overly lofty expectations".

"You might say I'm a race realist," she said.

Kijani pirates blamed for tanker seizure

Pirates from Mlima Kijani are behind the seizure of AOPIC oil tanker Khanabjah, say intelligence reports from the Vilitan Bay. The tanker, delivering a shipment of oil to Tropicorp from Jabal Akhdar's state petroleum company AOPIC, was seized in the early hours of last night as pirates on speedboats forced the ship off course. The seizure was confirmed when the Verdean flag, under which the ship sails for reasons of a) tax registration and b) seeing how just many layers of puppetwank we can get into here, was run down and replaced by the black flag favored by Kijani pirates. The seizure is intensely embarrassing for AOPIC, who had recently signed an oil deal with Tropicorp and will now have to prove themselves capable of delivering on the terms of the deal.

The rise in piracy in the last decade has mirrored Mlima Kijani's increasing instability, though most pirates are drawn from the western provinces, rather than the southern ones. "Poverty is the motivating factor," says professor of international security studies Karanja Muriũki. "The west doesn't have the abundant mineral resources of the center and east, nor the relatively developed urbanization of the north; these are desperate people." Last year Kijani pirates captured a Græntfjaller vessel, and the Græntfjaller Navy have reached out to offer assistance in resolving the situation, but many in Atlantian Oceania may be uneasy about Græntfjaller vessels returning to their waters after the Akhdari standoff. "A ransom payout for the release of the crew and, far more important, the cargo, is more likely," says Muriũki.

Evidence of extreme drug resistance in TB outbreaks in Southern Mlima Kijani

Concerns about overuse of antibiotics have come to a head as doctors treating patients in Southern Mlima Kijani report the latest strains of tuberculosis are showing "extreme drug resistance". The cessation of hostilities in the south had brought hopes of a humanitarian follow-up mission, with treatment of infectious disease high on the priority list, but spokespersons for the International Medical Committee That Exists Solely For The Duration Of This Article (IMCTESFTDOTA) said that the outbreak of TB was going to be difficult to bring under control because of this new issue. Extreme drug resistance is defined as resistance to three or more antibiotics.

Particularly troubling is the interaction of XDR-TB with VODAIS, a situation that threatens to "destabilize health care systems in the south of the country entirely", according to the reports, which also notes that almost 50% of the patients are themselves hospital workers include nurses and custodial staff. "We are going to see a cycle where there are whole districts where the hospital is closed, and the infection will only spread." Poor management of antibiotic regimes and lack of drug education and awareness have been blamed. The IMCTESFTDOTA said they would continue to research new antibiotics, but admitted "this isn't a profitable area for drug discovery".

Also in the news:

• Protests as water diverted from reservoir to irrigate Presidential Arboretum
• Evidence of torture by militant groups uncovered at recaptured prison site
• Environmentalists first sighting of Kijani Bottle Nosed River Dolphin in years

[Former Citizens of the Nimbus System]

Second City Airport, the Second City, the Nexus Wardship of Former Citizens of the Nimbus System
29th of May

Olivia purses her lips as she steps into the atrium of the Second City Airport. The light playing across the polished floor from rain funnelled down through the glass roof doesn’t merit a more pleasant thought as it often does when she’s here.

His life is going to be that much more difficult, and he’s going to be fine with it because that’s just who he is, but that doesn’t make it right, and –

She shakes away the train of thought. She is certain that she did the right thing for Pressley back there, consequences go to the Maelstrom. And, granted, the meeting with Cygnus went well after that – there was promise.

Maybe they hadn’t seen the inevitable fallout yet.

Olivia closes her eyes.

“‘Liv!”

There he is…

That tone was… Excited?

Indeed, when she opens them and sees her companion, there is something she can’t quite place about Baxen… A lightness in his step when he walks towards her, more ‘bob’ than his usual ‘glide’, perhaps? Huh. Maybe he has other news, thank Imagination… She raises a tired smile and a wave. “Hi.”

“Hello!” Baxen smiles, a gleam in his eye. “Turbulence on the flight over?”

“Not especially, just…” Olivia stops dead. Then she places a hand on her hip. “You’re teasing me. You only ever tease me when you’re aware of something that I’m going to like but I’m not yet.”

The gleam intensifies.

Olivia sighs, chuckling. “Talk to me, Baxen.”

Baxen near-grins, proffering his tablet. “Little need for that when you can see yourself.”

Olivia looks at it. That Turorian messaging site – ‘Twii.tur’, right… ‘Trending in Hapilopper’?

…

Ah – okay. Well then. That’s… That’s a lot.

Olivia blinks, her face going through shock, confusion, excitement and back again as she tentatively raises a finger to scroll through.

And that’s even more. Imagination. How…

It only continues; through clips and memes and any number of other forms, the message is the same. The Hapiloppian online community looked on as Olivia practically spat in the face of their country’s media culture – and enjoyed it very much.

“I… This isn’t all just sarcasm, right?” Olivia looks up with unbelieving eyes.

Baxen smiles. “No, ‘Liv, it’s called being impressed. And entirely deserved – you were authentic, passionate and determined.” He leans in a touch. “I think that a few people will be regretting ignoring that at the moment.”

Olivia lets out a single laugh. Then she opens her arms, nearly falling forward as she clutches at Baxen, and that laughter, born of relief from long hours of worry and now expressed in the arms of her best friend, spills forth freely.

The right number of moments pass, and so eventually Baxen hauls Olivia up to stand on her feet. “Back to the apartment, then?”

“Mmm…” She nods. “Mmm.” She paces forward; he falls into step alongside her. “Imagination, don’t really know where to – oh, has there been anything back from Cygnus?”

“Only a note, expressing thanks for both your willingness and your clarity on our red lines.”

“‘Red lines?’”

“Entrenchments.”

“Ah, right.” Yeah, not being able to leave if a seat comes up would just be a non-starter. “Sounds promising.”

“Very much so. I’m hopeful that we can have a productive dialogue on the matter.”

Olivia smiles.

Good.

In Motion Workshop, Celina Community, the First City, the Nexus Wardship of Former Citizens of the Nimbus System
6th of June

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THE ALTERNATIVE TYRE SUPPLIER CHAMPIONSHIPS: THE BRISE OF BRÚSTEINN

I’ve never claimed to be any good at making puns! (My wife would gladly tell you the same!)

We’re three races into the WGPC 20 season and already almost a third of the way through… Let’s see how things are shaping up for our tyre manufacturers.

The major story is, of course, the dominance of Brústeinn in the Unity Championship. That dominance thus far can be put down to the efforts of rookie Sophie McCreary and her back-to-back podiums, despite her teammate Yannec being yet to score a point. On the one hand, it could be argued that this only indicates that it’s too early in the season to make meaningful judgements – but on the other, if McCreary keeps putting in consistent performances the overall results will continue to impress, as Ryker Lane demonstrated in his own debut season. In any case, I’m rooting for her! Treat her well, Pressley.

As for the others, Tropicorp have slightly closed the gap on both Tabtac and Phoenician-In Motion, propelled by Adonis Fitzpatrick’s early double podium and, of course, Skiia Vialiv’s dominant win last week. The figures, arguably, understate their potential – Tropicorp-Colourworks have yet to get off the ground, hampered by their pre-season organisational woes, but if they manage to recover their form they’ll replace a major weakness for their works supplier with a major strength. Of course, on our end, we’re hoping that Viska does the same! Of the three second place contenders, only Tabtac’s position is unambiguously representative of performance.

Just as predicted, Tropicorp and Phoenician-In Motion have performed significantly better in the Elite standings. For Tropicorp, the early race-winners Cocoabo #23 and Skiia Vialiv are their torchbearers; Anneliese Devereux is in a similar position for us but joint honours for the second go to Ryker Lane and Adriana Kowalski Lilian*, whose podiums and consistent points have brought them into contention. Behind, McCreary’s run of form has brought Brústeinn within touching distance of the larger suppliers; without a field of lower-scoring drivers holding either back in these rankings, however, here Brústeinn are far more reliant on Yannec performing consistently. If he can convert his at-times considerable pace into solid performances, we more established suppliers may have a force to fear on our hands!

Celia Speck, Co-Founder

*Or, to give her her proper name, Zastępca Strażnika Adriana Krystal Desiree “Cudowny Manipulacja Światłem” Venus Kowalski Faith Stanisława Engelse I. Cherise Krystyna Zaborowska Sztormowska Pamela Alina Re. T. Lillian. Having worked with her during the Nexus Racing Driver Academy Series, I know full well that she’s just as impressive as her appellation!

---

Previous Post
The Alternative Tyre Supplier Championships: This Time with Consistency!
Celia Speck

[Lisander]

<< Previously | Next >>

XV. THE BULLETIN


Motorsport in the Principality is very well represented. In this edition of The Bulletin, the quarterly newsletter of the Fédération du Sport Automobile we bring you all about Motorsport in Lisander this week. With Anneliese Devereux at Eminent, Team Azhaar making their AOGP debut, and Camden preparing for their first season in Astyrian Formula One, there was no better way to start the FSA centennial year celebrations.

In the last race of the WGPC, the Cocoabo Preservation Grand Prix, Anneliese Devereux had difficulties to go up, overtaking her opponents, but made a good recovery race, finishing 13th, even after a not good Qualifier. With the victory in the first race of the year in Liventia, she is still in third position in the classification. Eminent, for its part, remains among the best teams of the season, with a fine job from the team of engineers led by Carolina Lasseps. It's a long road, and things don't always turn out as expected, but the FSA continues to give its full support! We will see our beloved purple cars again this weekend in Diarcesia!

The new generation is also gaining space. Last weekend, as a supporting event to WGPC Cocoabo Preservation, the AOGP was on the track for the first time. And the young Filipe Brava and Lianna Rasianoara made their debut in the category, as X-Link Team Azhaar Pro Racing drivers. The team, which is a spin-off of Team Azhaar Pro Cycling, the cycling team that contests the Carbonnere Lisander Cycling Tour, has re-emerged as another possibility for Lisander riders to pursue careers in international open-wheels, beyond AstyF2 and WGP2. Brava, third in the last Formula 3, finished the race in 6th, while Rasianoara, the young Alicean-Merinean, finished 15th. The drivers finished the race with much praise for the car. "It is very reminiscent of the FH170 we used in testing. The last time a Lisander team used the FH170T, the results were great, especially for Athan Lille, now at Breuer, an AstyF1 team.

And speaking of AstyF1: Another team that also took to the track this week was Camden, albeit unofficially. The team from Sirenia presented their challenger for Astyrian Formula One to the world, taking a few laps on the track at their new hub in Varen Livet, Valkea. The blue pegasus return to the top echelon of motorsport after two seasons, set to forget the problems that marked their brief stint in the WGPC in season 17. The FSA continues to follow and support the work of its oldest squad, and we look forward to their homecoming. Not that Valkea is a bad place, but we want all that technology here, to continue supporting national motorsport!

---

A legal-historical note
by Mariano Laval, FSA President ad interim.

The FSA (Fédération du Sport Automobile), formerly Motorsport Lisander and Lisander Autosports Board, hereby clarifies facts regarding its "hasty" name change. In fact, the Lisander Autosports Board, founded in 1967, was established as an entity associated with the Fédération du Sport Automobile. However, this name, initially due to a potentially collective human error within the registration sectors of the government and the entity itself, which was then enhanced by a series of marketing and organisational strategies, ended up being forgotten. The "rediscovery" of this register ended up causing problems in a financial audit, in view of a huge liability to be paid.

Our predecessors did a rebranding and forgot to update the necessary records, so we owed decades of taxes that we didn't even know existed. Motorsport Lisander being the only venture in the entity with "cash on hand", we had to use all its resources to pay the astronomical amount we owed. It was the only possibility left, after all the Lisander Autosports Board has always been an advisory board, with no paid positions, managed in a gracious capacity for the love of the sport. Fortunately, having the principality government as our creditor (through the National Revenue) and investor (through the National Sports Fund) meant that the situation was resolved without us losing large sums of money.

All's well that ends well, and to avoid further problems in this regard, the legal advisers aware of the situation have unanimously admonished us to close down the legal entities Lisander Autosports Board and Motorsport Lisander, in order to avoid further problems with the tax authorities. The "new" FSA, about to turn a hundred, is being restructured, to act doubly as National Federation and Championship Promoter, under the auspices of the National Olympic Committee.

Some members were somewhat displeased at the adoption of the FSA name, acronym and logo (based on a stamp we found in old documents dating from 1928). In fact, the correct acronym should be FEA, considering the current orthographic agreement and the native language. But in the act of the foundation of the entity (Official Letter 01/1924), the entity was registered with the Gallicisms. There is also, in documents of that time, the spelling "Federação dos Sports Automobilísticos". It is a well-documented historical fact that during the first decades of the last century there was a strong euronization in the nomenclatures, since Lisander was a nation that received tens of thousands of immigrants of various origins, and many of them were people who loved motor racing. Finding ourselves, finally, facing the issues previously presented, and also considering the centenary of the institution, we decided to adopt the original spelling of the register.

We thank you for your patience and assure you that beyond the names and spellings, our wish is always the best for Lisander Motorsport.

Mariano Laval
FSA, Chief Operating Officer ad interim
National Sports Fund, Director

[Commonwealth of Baker Park]

There were no immediate answers to the failure of the brake disc and the drivers were told that the team was sending all of the info and the entire production batch up to PRL to see if they could replicate the failure and for a quality analysis; the attention turned to the next round in Diarcesia on another new track that they had zero data on.

Jordan looked over the telemetry from the race to see if his improvised technique at turn 14 had really been an advantage over Batu's normal on/off pedal style; he and Sunil Choudhary didn't make any definitive conclusion, and as it was something that JC didn't think he'd utilize again no more extra effort was spent on it.

The layout of the Sigurd Ring meant that it would be worth a couple of days running at Drummond Vale to work on setup and some more qualifying run testing, as the usual practice time was nearly always directed towards race trim.
The AOGP team would run at the factory for a couple of days while the main team would head to the Vale; Wednesday and Thursday of the week in between rounds had Jordan and Batu each getting about 250 miles of running (to save time, everyone stayed overnight at the track, which was also served as a bit of spirit building) and the program completed to the satisfaction of Paul Valentini.

Sammi Carter and Nick Unger were buoyed with optimism after the weekend at Cocoabo Park where they picked right up where they'd left off from the end of the previous AOGP season. The team internally felt like they were one of the top contenders in the series based on their previous performance and the way the new car design had improved on the strength from the previous iteration.

[Tumbra]

CUTOFF

for Practice and Qualifying at Sigurd Ring

[Tumbra]

Week 6: Practice

Conditions:      	Dry
Lap Record:      	00:01:33.080
Session Length:	75 minutes
Nation:         	DCS
Circuit:        	Sigurd Ring

Drivers have 75 minutes to complete as many laps of the track as they like

POS # ▍DRIVER                           	FASTEST LAP	GAP TO LEADER
 1 50 ▍Sara Luna                        	00:01:40.741	00:00:00.000
 2 13 ▍Ji So-Yeong                      	00:01:40.769	00:00:00.028
 3 14 ▍Skiia Vialiv                     	00:01:40.791	00:00:00.050
 4  7 ▍Anneliese Devereux               	00:01:40.834	00:00:00.094
 5  9 ▍Batu Tüvshinbayar                	00:01:40.867	00:00:00.126
 6  1 ▍iBen Toralmintii                 	00:01:40.873	00:00:00.132
 7 33 ▍Sam Blaatschappen                	00:01:40.897	00:00:00.157
 8  5 ▍Rudy Edwards                     	00:01:40.920	00:00:00.179
 9 37 ▍Laura Haukanna                   	00:01:40.995	00:00:00.254
10 88 ▍Ted Pressley                     	00:01:41.019	00:00:00.278
11 51 ▍R.L. Cruisin                     	00:01:41.027	00:00:00.286
12 94 ▍Ryker Lane                       	00:01:41.066	00:00:00.325
13 74 ▍Adonis Fitzpatrick               	00:01:41.129	00:00:00.388
14 84 ▍Angela Tan Fang Ling             	00:01:41.227	00:00:00.486
15 40 ▍Adriana Kowalski Lilian          	00:01:41.271	00:00:00.531
16 12 ▍Darian Vilau                     	00:01:41.325	00:00:00.584
17 17 ▍Janne Laukkanen                  	00:01:41.341	00:00:00.601
18 24 ▍Jordan Crowe                     	00:01:41.421	00:00:00.680
19 11 ▍Lane Carter                      	00:01:41.421	00:00:00.680
20 23 ▍Cocoabo #23                      	00:01:41.703	00:00:00.963
21 91 ▍Kingston Walcott                 	00:01:41.772	00:00:01.031
22 10 ▍Lillý Náttmörðsdóttir            	00:01:41.968	00:00:01.227
23 71 ▍Brendan Faloe                    	00:01:41.996	00:00:01.256
24 87 ▍Bryce Yannec                     	00:01:42.025	00:00:01.285
25 42 ▍Sophie McCreary                  	00:01:42.049	00:00:01.308
26 28 ▍Aaron Deering                    	00:01:42.406	00:00:01.665
27 96 ▍William Archer                   	00:01:42.770	00:00:02.030
28 19 ▍Dom Falepeau                     	00:01:43.096	00:00:02.355

Week 6: Qualifying

Conditions:      	Dry
Lap Record:      	00:01:33.080
Qualifying Type:	One Shot
Nation:         	DCS
Circuit:        	Sigurd Ring

POS # ▍DRIVER                           	FASTEST LAP	GAP TO LEADER
 1 71 ▍Brendan Faloe                    	00:01:35.279	00:00:00.000
 2 84 ▍Angela Tan Fang Ling             	00:01:35.486	00:00:00.207
 3 24 ▍Jordan Crowe                     	00:01:35.515	00:00:00.236
 4 10 ▍Lillý Náttmörðsdóttir            	00:01:35.698	00:00:00.419
 5 14 ▍Skiia Vialiv                     	00:01:35.734	00:00:00.454
 6 87 ▍Bryce Yannec                     	00:01:35.798	00:00:00.519
 7  5 ▍Rudy Edwards                     	00:01:35.891	00:00:00.612
 8 96 ▍William Archer                   	00:01:36.055	00:00:00.776
 9 11 ▍Lane Carter                      	00:01:36.449	00:00:01.170
10 13 ▍Ji So-Yeong                      	00:01:36.570	00:00:01.291
11 51 ▍R.L. Cruisin                     	00:01:36.904	00:00:01.625
12 40 ▍Adriana Kowalski Lilian          	00:01:37.051	00:00:01.772
13 74 ▍Adonis Fitzpatrick               	00:01:37.066	00:00:01.787
14 94 ▍Ryker Lane                       	00:01:37.276	00:00:01.997
15  7 ▍Anneliese Devereux               	00:01:37.597	00:00:02.317
16 50 ▍Sara Luna                        	00:01:37.623	00:00:02.344
17 42 ▍Sophie McCreary                  	00:01:37.656	00:00:02.377
18 33 ▍Sam Blaatschappen                	00:01:37.705	00:00:02.426
19 28 ▍Aaron Deering                    	00:01:37.832	00:00:02.553
20  1 ▍iBen Toralmintii                 	00:01:37.880	00:00:02.601
21 19 ▍Dom Falepeau                     	00:01:37.958	00:00:02.679
22 23 ▍Cocoabo #23                      	00:01:37.969	00:00:02.690
23 37 ▍Laura Haukanna                   	00:01:38.010	00:00:02.730
24 88 ▍Ted Pressley                     	00:01:38.274	00:00:02.995
25  9 ▍Batu Tüvshinbayar                	00:01:38.386	00:00:03.107
26 91 ▍Kingston Walcott                 	00:01:38.424	00:00:03.145
27 12 ▍Darian Vilau                     	00:01:38.649	00:00:03.370
28 17 ▍Janne Laukkanen                  	00:01:38.849	00:00:03.570

[Diarcesia]

TT's Peculiar Experience: Orb is Inextinguishable

Diarcesia

“Gentlemen, ladies, and whoever else we have here today; I want you all to know that it is with a heavy heart that I am announcing this now. It has been an honor to work together with you all so far. I will step down as Phoenician CEO at the end of the current season."

The Phoenician staff members look around in disbelief as one another after reading their boss's words on the computer screen before them. Some drop their heads onto tables or desks while others raise theirs up towards heaven seemingly in prayer: “Lord, please take us out of this hellhole!” One member even tries fainting but fails miserably as his head bangs right into his desk when he goes down - rather than just relaxing peacefully there like a normal person would do if they were pretending to faint… The more stoic ones merely stare blankly at each other for what seems like hours without uttering a single word… Until finally one voice breaks through the awkwardness: "Are we dissolving or something? Or are we just being sold?"

The group continued to read the statement.

"No, it doesn't mean Phoenician will cease operations or will be sold to another company," it continued. "I'm sure the company will be in a good place with my capable successor's stewwardship. If it brings relief - I have the highest confidence in our results and our standards of craftsmanship; rather, this decision is more along personal lines."

One staff member stretches out his hand to rub his eyes. "What a load of bull," he whispers. Another one nods in agreement and adds, "Don't tell me she was kicked out."

When they get to the end of the statement, many are left with their mouths agape: "Céline Boucher?! That's impossible!"

The Nexus Wardship

Théotime Traver tiptoes his way to the only vacant chair in Céline Boucher's office, a low-lying recliner. After he sits down, he places his hands and face on top of each other on the armrests. "Yes," he says finally to break what could be an awkward silence had it been anyone else but him; "Céline is taking over."

"But how!?" Theodora exclaims as she leans against the room corner away from Théotime before continuing more calmly: "I mean - I know she's quite smart and all that… But by Arkess! That’s really unexpected!" She shrugs her shoulders. “That said, I don't doubt for a second that she can do it – after all those years working with me back in WGP2 as the head of engineering!” A small grin forms across Theodora’s lips; “She was so nervous then when we first met… Now look at where they have gotten themselves! Wow."

Théotime nods slowly while scratching his chin contemplatively before raising one finger into the air with excitement like someone who has just come up with an idea of something great. “Hey - you know what? Maybe we could help her a little bit!”

Theodora rolls her eyes. “Oh please, Théotime - you know what she would think of that!” She shakes her head disapprovingly at him before smiling again. “But seriously now; I wouldn't say no to it." Her face darkens as she continues: "Just the fact that we're talking about Céline like this… It's weird."

"We're waiting for her, right?"

"To discuss a different topic. I am undoubtedly a part of the investigating group now."

"Alright. What did we discover?"

"I don't know yet. I am going to find out more about the Nexus." Theodora pauses for a moment before continuing: "Théotime, have you heard anything that could help us solve the case? Anything at all?"

"The origins are still unknown. I do know that the Nexus was the fount from which Imagination emerges. The Nimban I work with, Zoran, knows more about it. He shared that the Nexus is at the heart of a massive conflict.

"So, the Nexus is an energy source?"

"Zoran says it's more than just that. Better ask him."

Theodora nods. "It could be dangerous if someone, who isn't involved in the conflict, got their hands on it." She pauses. "I think that's Céline," she remarks as the office door opens.

Sara, the Tiger, and the Flock of Cocoabo

Cocoabo Preservation Grand Prix
Race Day

Sara prepared herself mentally and phsyically, determined to repeat her performance from the Grand Prix of Togonistan and make her way through the field. There, she made it through 15 places forward to go on and grab a point in the race, and now she was ready for more. The garage was pretty sparse, compared to how it would be like hours later: only Pleiades awaited Sara as the other drivers chatted amongst themselves.

She started by stretching herself out after sitting down for so long; she usually would go out of her way to find some space away from others but this time around, there were no such options available. She decided that she might as well take advantage of one another's company while they wait - if nothing else, at least her routine would keep her mind occupied until it's finally time to head over towards the grid. It should be enough to get the blood pumping.

"Hey, Pleiades," she said after a while. "Let's do this. Täitä etteremät."

When the lights went out to signal the beginning of the race, Sara focused on maintaining a steady pace and conserving her tyres for the greater goal: a points finish. She had an inkling that she might be able to make it through the field if everything went according to plan, but like a good strategist, she didn't want to go all in just yet. She knew that it would take time and patience - something which was in short supply during this chaotic season, and the chaos amidst Laura Haukanna's early retirement.

She kept her eyes on the track ahead of her while also paying attention towards what's going on around her. Even though her mirrors were perfectly fine, Sara relied more heavily on situational awareness to detect her surroundings. In terms of overtaking opportunities as Sara and the pack she was in approached turn 4 at lap 8: there was one car ahead of them but nothing seemed too difficult so far. The track should be wider here; perhaps Adriana Kowalski from Eminent could show how its done? It'd certainly help Pleiades move up two places if Sara could follow the Valentian's lead... but would she? As Sara thought about this question, some drivers started putting into action their moves before reaching turn 5: first, Kowalski, at the front of the pack overtook the car ahead of her down the inside; then, Aaron Deering attempted to do the same but lost momentary control of his vehicle in turn several track positions.

"Whoa!" Sara blurted out as she saw Aaron in her mirrors.

She looked back to see the incident in detail: Deering was forced into rough terrain. At first glance, there were no issue, but it started a chain reaction of events that culminated in him being asked to retire the car on lap 25.

"Oh, wow...that's unfortunate," Sara remarked as she heard the news. "That looked like it hurt."

In this race, maintaining a consistent midrange speed is queen. She needed to utilise the Re:Genesis's acceleration and high top speed to make daring overtakes whenever possible. Sara's own race went well enough, but with others retiring left and right, she found herself within reach of the points zone. The Cocoabo Forest was a location that Sara felt more at home a bit more than many others - after all, it was one of those that she raced in her WGP2 season - so this would be her chance to put her knowledge into action again....

"This is it!" she said as she crossed over to P8 on lap 40. "If I can just keep this pace up..."

At that point, Sara found herself in an intense battle with a hotshot driver and fellow Diarcesian Samantha Blaatschapen from Aldauren's Pryfors Bilar team. She had closed in on her for a number of laps and was now determined to overtake.

"Come on, Sara," Sam muttered said as she focused all of her effort into keeping the car planted to the track. "I'll never let you get ahead of me."

A few laps later, Sara was ready to make her move: the pair of them were braking for turn 1 and she waited until the last moment before ducking out on the inside. She had done this a couple of times throughout practice so far, but it seemed that no one would fall for that anymore. Once they reached turn 2 (the apex of which Sam had previously held), Sara came in from behind and went around her on the outside - just like she did at Togonistan's turn 12! It was an incredible maneuver executed with precision and without a single error made; perhaps something only possible by someone who'd spent their formative years racing around this very circuit... but as soon as it happened, Sam got the upper hand! Sara's gain in position was fleeting.

"Damn it!" she yelled. "Come on, let's go! Let's get past her again, Pleiades."

Sara took a deep breath to calm herself down and get back what she had lost. She braked later than Sam for turn 4 and tried the same strategy again. However, Sam exhibited equal skill and defended her position effectively.

"Come on, Pleiades," Sara said. "Let's go! What are you waiting for?"

Frustrated but determined, she regrouped her mental resources to look for other opportunities to make progress. As she continued her pursuit, Sam's advantage dwindled bit by bit. But so did the laps, and it was not enough. The older Diarcesian finished P8, unable to overtake the younger.

[Nico Hulkenberg]

THE HÜLKENBERGER HERALD
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WON’T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE KINDER

COCOABO PARK - Nepö Kinder’s AOGP career got off to an exceptional start, as the Hülkenberger starlet stormed to victory at the Cocoabo Park Circuit. Starting fifth, the rookie expertly made her way up the field, benefitting from a safety car and fighting with polesitter Nick Unger until the very end, finishing three seconds ahead of second and a whopping seventeen seconds ahead of third-placed Sebastien Dupont.

An ecstatic Nepö said this in her post race interview: “We didn’t have the qualifying we’d have wanted - I think the showers threw us off slightly, neither of us had a particularly good session - but we more than made up for it in the race, that’s for sure. I’m delighted to have my first win on my first attempt in AOGP, and I just have to say a massive thanks to everyone at UrGa and Oonaftco Oontaz for putting their faith in me.” She continued: “I told them they wouldn’t regret their decision, and I can only hope that I’ve maybe turned a couple of heads as a result.”

Her victory marks the first of its kind from any Hülkenberger in an international single-seaters competition, beating fellow countryman Dario Nülkeschlager - who still holds the accolade of first Hülkenberger to win in any sort of international competition, with his sole fluke rally win remaining in the history books. “Of course, I’m happy for her.” began Dario. “We talked often during our time in HMG Challenge GT, and I couldn’t imagine someone more deserving. She’s put in the work, she’s put in the hours, and now she’s got the trophy to go with it. If she could continue that run, then who knows - maybe you’ll be seeing a lot more of her. I truly hope so.”

With Nepö’s popularity skyrocketing as a result, we can only imagine that the sponsors are rolling in. Speaking of rolling, have you ever wanted to own your own, metal, engraved rolling pin? Are you sure? Well, if you want to own a premium rolling pin - perfect for baking the finest pastries there is - make sure to come on down to Edwin Luchen’s Premium Kuchen Supplies! All Herald readers will receive a 10% off voucher on any rolling pin, whether titanium, stainless steel, or any other metal. Offer does not include Rammstein.

[Togonistan]

Cocoabo Park Circuit
Race Day

''I'm losing power!'' Darian said to his radio as he was driving his 29th race lap. So far, his drive had been solid. Starting 13th, the Togoni was currently sitting on 9th place and was well within the competition to get his first points of the season. However, something felt wrong. The car suddenly started lacking the kick it had, it didn't pick up quite the pace Darian needed right now.

''Okay, we are checking.''

From there on, radio silence. Eyes on the track, Darian kept pushing the Kaylan car forward. Lap 30... still no response from his race engineer. ''What is going on? I am starting to struggle here.''

''Everything looks okay from our side.''

''Okay? I am losing speed, it... doesn't feel okay at all.''

''Looks okay from our side. Carry on, you're doing well.''

Carry on he did, for another lap until suddenly, a loud bang could be heard from the engine. Spectators gasped as they saw car number 12 starting to produce a thick cloud of smoke and the orange-green machine end up stranded on the side of the road. ''F*cksakes!''

''Darian are you okay?''

''Man the engine just f*cking exploded!''

''Are you okay?''

Darian didn't respond to the last one and started climbing out of the car instead as track marshals made their way over to tow the T190 away from the trackside. Ignoring all the people and cameras, Darian walked back to his garage, where the mood was grim. Xander stood with his arms crossed, staring at a screen with a blank expression. Vladimir, Darian's race engineer, had his face hidden into his palms as he sat on his chair, still trying to comprehend what had just happened.

The new improved engine... it was supposed to be more reliable than the old iteration. Was it just an unlucky incident that shouldn't have happened? Was it just a one-off fault in manufacturing? Or maybe, just maybe... had the powertrain development department just lied about it?

Sigurd Ring
Race Day

''This is it,'' Xander said as he gave the Kaylan team their traditional pre-race speech in the garage. He let his tired eyes go over his team members, giving them all a tired look. All in all, he looked tired. ''Race day. I am not going to lie, we are far from the position we want to be. The qualifying didn't go all that well, but what we need to do is keep our heads clear and keep doing our job. Starting from the back does have it's own advantages, and we will use them today. Hard compound tyres, keep the first sting as long as possible and we go on from there, depending on what the situation on the grid is at that point. Questions?''

The team shook their heads, although in reality, a lot of them had started questioning a lot of things recently. With the team principal gone to start doing his own preparations, pit crew members Eli and Kahu exchanged some looks with each other.

''What's up with him?''

''No idea man. He has never kept it that short before.''

''I know dude. Something has gone to his head.''

''Could be the results.''

''You think? Man, it's Xander. That dude is a giant, he won't let himself be taken down by something like this.''

''Constant bad luck makes even the toughest amongst us break down.''

''Damn,'' Eli sighed and looked at Xander sitting down on his chair further away, ''what are we gonna do now? I mean, hell, if even Xander can't keep himself together anymore, we are gone.''

''No. We keep trying,'' Kahu said and turned around to start stacking up tyres for the race.

''Easy for you to say. I mean, my mood is killed right now. We ain't even got a chance today, let's be real.''

''Then pray to the spirits,'' Kahu replied and brought out the traditional wooden bear totem he was always wearing around his neck. He gave the totem a kiss, before sliding it back under his shirt and carrying on with the tyres.

Eli just shook his head. He still couldn't wrap his head around the fact that Kahu actually followed the old spiritual Togoni beliefs. However, he was not the one to judge him on that. Instead, he zipped his fireproof suit up and started getting ready for the race himself.

[Tumbra]

ted
Cocoabo Forest

What was Janne Laukkanen trying to do?

First the Abovian wanted him, then the Abovian ignored him, and now he was trying to cosy up to him again? Ted didn't know what Janne wanted from him — or even if he wanted to continue their one-off fling from Aboveland; and the mixed signals he'd gotten from him afterward? It was almost a bit too much for him. But first — think, Ted! The question!

"The success of Pressley Racing has certainly taken the WGPC grid by storm, beating out seasoned and decorated rivals from the onset. How do you think your father was able to put together such a competitive package with no prior WGPC experience, and would you consider making the switch to your namesake team in the future if they continue at the sharp end of the grid?"

He sighed, though took note to not make it look so obvious; this was a question he'd been mentally preparing himself for. Slowly, he began his well-rehearsed answer, droning on; enunciating his words, while not swallowing any; and also not overpronouncing any words.

"I had the privilege of driving for my dad's team in the Tumbran Super Formula series — great racing series, by the way, you should check it out if you've got the time, and I'm really not just saying that because I won it once — and thus I was privy to the early stages of the WGPC project that was being developed. Ah, I think one of the strengths that Pressley have had is our very talented engineering team; we-uh-they were able to look at some of the best projects on the grid, apart from the more out-there ones, and I think they were able to replicate some of those successes in the series with the additional technical support from Kaylan. Ah, I won't comment too much on the intricacies of the future grid; I don't think many expected Viska, for example, to change their entire line-up from last season till now; and who knows what the future holds. For now, I have a contract with Kaylan, and I intend to see that contract through. Thank you."

The second half was kind of a lie; the Kaylan T190, for lack of a better word, hadn't been too competitive, and he wasn't expecting too much from it for the rest of the season. He'd already begun considering alternatives, but the seats on the grid were sparse, to say the least. Colourworks had one Vilitian Union seat, and Ji So-yeong looked like she'd be there for a while. Carvenlo and Preston seemed to prioritise stability; so did VTGP, but he didn't fancy driving next to Lane Carter. Or a sentient bird. Losing to a TJUN-ian was one thing, but losing to a sentient bird? Viska seemed to be the realistic alternative for him, especially if Aaron Deering was dropped; but he didn't know if driving next to Sara Luna would help or harm his career. Plus, they weren't exactly the most competitive team on the grid about now. Apart from that, seats were scarce...but he also wanted to win.

And he really didn't know if Kaylan was the best place for that right now.

Thankfully, there were no follow-up questions; the press conference ended almost immediately afterwards, and the drivers were soon ushered out of the room. Janne, however, seemed to hang onto him; and after all, he did tell the Abovian he wanted to talk after the press conference. Quietly, ignoring the befuddled looks of the stewards who ostensibly wanted to direct the two of them back to the pitlane, he led Janne down what seemed like a maze of corridors, before finally emerging into the humid air of the Cocoabo Forest paddock, where he was at least reasonably certain they wouldn't be disturbed.

He checked his surroundings to make sure nobody was there, before he realised that, actually, he'd wanted this meeting for a long while; he'd wanted to, well, let himself be free with the man with whom he'd technically broken the law with in Aboveland, but had scarcely left his dreams since. His heart was racing, pumping; full of adrenaline, but he knew he had to take things slowly.

"What is it, Janne Laukkanen? What do you want with me?" he said, grasping the slight Abovian by the shoulders, and waiting for his response.

sophie

"Oh, and...I don't know how old that box of cigarettes in your pocket is, but you probably want to finish smoking the whole pack within two days."

What a way to let Ted know she was a smoker now. A bad one, at that.

Sophie McCreary stared at the somewhat grey sky. She knew that the weather forecast for the race would be that there was no rain, but it still looked slightly foreboding. She was away from the hubbub of the grid, behind a wall of tyres belonging to God knew who — she suspected it was the Tabtac tyres, because she'd never seen the markings before — but that didn't matter. She needed her white and beige deathstick; she needed it now.

Quietly, making sure there weren't any fuel sources around, she surreptitiously grabbed a cigarette from a box she'd stowed away in this very location, took her lighter, lit the cigarette, sat on some stairs, and breathed.

The impact was immediate; she immediately began feeling calmer, the mellow smoke rising from the lit end of the cigarette slowly, dancing across the room. Her poison of choice was the Triple Eights brand, which had also, somewhat non-coincidentally, been the first brand she'd been exposed to at the age of six when she saw some fast cars going around track, one of which had some numbers on it. She'd asked her dad what it was, and had been told not to ask that question again, but that curiosity was always there.

And now? She was basically on her own. Tumbra Tobacco's arms extended wide, and they certainly sold their products almost anywhere there was a tobacconists'. Open flames and cigarettes were basically banned here, but they didn't typically look too curiously at the belongings of the drivers.

Another whiff.

She'd first begun as soon as she was legally allowed to; snuck out of her place the moment she turned eighteen, ran down to the nearest convenience store, and presented her ID and asked for a box of Triple Eights. Her curiosity was finally sated; and while she spent her first stick essentially coughing — in what she later was told was a regular occurrence for first-time smokers — she liked the experience. And so she went back for more.

Always on the down low, of course; nobody could find out that she was smoking, and she didn't want to face the awkward questions on why she was smoking. In truth, what had started as curiosity had become a crutch; racing was stressful, everyone was allowed one vice, and she'd picked smoking. She knew that smoking was bad — every fucking time she stared down at a picture of a tarred lung, or a blackened liver, or a scarred mouth, she'd considered stepping away; but the nicotine rush calmed her. Amidst the high-octane, high-speed pace of the Tumbran motorsports circuit, smoking with a few older drivers on the grid during her time in Tumbran Super Formula was a good way to make friends too. Jeremy Crawford was a notable smoker; his poison of choice was the Westmond Wind, a powerful menthol cigarette that left a chill in your lung after. He'd been the only one to not really judge her for it; the rest just looked at her with a sense of pity, but Jeremy didn't care.

She missed Tumbra. She was beginning to think, that despite her success in Liventia and in Togonistan, that stepping onto the WGPC stage was a mistake. Her chat with Ted proved it too; now she knew that she was just a way for Charlie Pressley to get back at his son, she genuinely felt like the colour had gone out of her efforts in the championship. She was already thinking about life beyond WGPC; maybe decamping to Tumbra, or to Anaia, where she'd heard that there was an electric racing championship in the works, was the way forth. She didn't really feel attached to the grid in the way that Ted or his dad did; and while her early results might have made her reconsider, she felt more than anything that bar an exceptional offer, this might be her one and only season in WGPC.

The cigarette reached the end of its lifespan. Sophie took care to really take care to stamp out the embers — she was not going to be responsible for any explosions today — and calmly set off to find her place on the grid.

[Trans-Dniesters]

Hwoarang Racing Circuit
ZX-Flow Energy Grand Prix of Togonistan
The final laps of the race

“Fast Cocoabo has crossed the line, Skiia,” Illarion Osipov reported to his assigned driver, Skiia Vialiv. “There’s only one more lap left in your race. Keep it together, keep it clean, and bring the car back in one piece.”

“Unacceptable,” muttered Yakov Leonidovich Yurievsky, “financial advisor” of the Urotovsky-Gatutin Motorsports Division, from the back of the garage. He, along with most of the team’s top brass (including team principal Vasily Semyonovich Gatutin), was watching the Grand Prix of Togonistan on large monitors mounted behind the rows of seats where the engineers and data technicians paid attention to the telemetry coming in from the cars of both Adonis Fitzpatrick and Skiia Vialiv. While not necessarily starting on opposite ends of the grid, both Fitzpatrick and Vialiv found themselves quite far away from each other at the start of the race, and that gulf between the two never really looked like it would be closed within the 76 laps of the grand prix. Yurievsky had made no secret of his disdain for the Tropicorp driver which only seemed to grow with every passing day, and the fact that Vialiv had gotten lapped for the second time in two races only added fuel to the raging fire burning within the elder statesman. “Completely unacceptable,” Yurievsky muttered once again.

Gatutin knew that Yurievsky was saying that not for his own benefit but so most of the other leaders and stakeholders in the team could hear what the “financial advisor” thought about this particular development. Gatutin knew that he could have said something to put Yurievsky back in his place, but at the same time, he didn’t want to give off even more of an impression that there was dissension within the ranks in front of the stakeholders (he had a feeling that Yurievsky was already doing that all on his own) so Gatutin held his tongue on the “financial advisor.” Instead, he turned his attention back to the race. He pushed the call button marked “SKIIA” and said to the driver, “Keep doing what you’re doing out there, Skiia. You’re doing good work.”

Cocoabo #23, aka Fast Cocoabo, finally crossed the finish line for the last time as the checkered flag was waved for the end of the Togonistan Grand Prix, putting an end to what was frankly a miserable day in the office for one side of the UrGa garage. At least Donny Fitzpatrick managed to keep hold of P6, the place in which he started at the beginning of the grand prix, and brought home a decent haul of points for the Pridnestrovian constructor. It was a bit of a disappointing result considering that Fitzpatrick had managed to claim his first ever podium back in Liventia, but seeing as UrGa hadn’t really expected to be right in the thick of things in the constructors’ fight, the team was going to take every single point that they could get throughout the season.

“Are you satisfied with these results, Vasily Semyonovich?” Yakov Yurievsky asked Gatutin as the engineers were packing up. The stakeholders had already left the garage for the obligatory post-race shoulder-rubbing, so now both men felt that they could express themselves more freely. “Are these the results that you want the team to have?”

“You’re not the only one who’s disappointed with the combined results of the team at this point in the season, Yakov Leonidovich,” Gatutin replied in a soft but exasperated tone.

“You? Disappointed? What gives you the right to be disappointed with these results?” Yurievsky shot back. “You were the one who decided to sign Vialiv as our second driver. You were the one who wanted to have a driver whose style was completely antithetical to our philosophy! And now you’re telling me that you’re disappointed that the driver you hired for being the complete opposite of what this car is supposed to be good at is not giving you the results you wanted? No! No! You do not get to enjoy the privilege of being disappointed about Vialiv. You brought this upon yourself, Vasily Semyonovich! You had the chance to put the interests of the team above your own selfish desires and you blew it! And you blew it for what? A season-long free supply of tires?”

“Yakov Leonidovich, you blathering idiot, how many times do I have to tell you that Tropicorp had no say at all in the deal to bring Vialiv into the team?” Gatutin hissed. “Not every deal made has to have a net positive benefit for you. Just because you can’t find anything that you can milk out of Vialiv and Tropicorp doesn’t mean that it’s not a good deal for the rest of the team!”

“This isn’t even about the finances anymore!” Yurievsky continued. “This is about the fact that Vialiv is dragging down this team with her lackluster performances in the last two grands prix! Where else have you seen a team that isn’t looking at other options when one of their two drivers is clearly underperforming? Especially when you compare her performance to that of her teammate? Adonis has already got a podium to his name! Do you really think Vialiv is going to get anywhere near that this season?!”

“So is that what you’re angling for now, Yakov?” Gatutin asked. “Do you want to replace Vialiv after the midseason tests?”

“All I’m going to say is that it’s a distinct possibility,” Yurievsky shrugged.

“And who the fuck are you going to get to replace Vialiv? Nattmordsdottir?” Gatutin asked skeptically. “Look, just because you saw some rumors that Sivaleinen are maybe planning a driver swap mid-season doesn’t mean that you can wish it into reality. And in case you haven’t noticed, she also got lapped in this race as well. Twice! Do you really want to swap a driver that’s gone down two laps for someone who’s gone down by three?”

“Or you could have had Olivia Stone in that second seat,” Yurievsky retorted. “But because you pulled that bullshit of not telling them that the test was now for a reserve driver role instead of the second seat, there’s now no way of telling if Stone will ever entertain an offer of any sort from us. And all because you wanted to have Vialiv in the team, Vasily, when you could have had a veteran presence in there to help out Adonis and won’t get lapped by a bloody freaking bird.”

“If you’re so hung up on the fact that it looked like we burned our bridges with Stone then why don’t you get to work trying to fix it?” Gatutin said.

“What do you think I’ve been trying to do this whole time?” Yurievsky said back almost immediately. “You go on and continue with that Sisyphean task of bringing Vialiv up to our speed, Vasily Semyonovich. Meanwhile, I’m going to go and, as you said, mend the bridges that you burned down with that preseason test stunt of yours.”

TO: Olivia Stone
FROM: Yurievsky Yakov Leonidovich
SUBJECT: Apologies

Здравствуйте.

Please do not be alarmed that you have received this email. My name is Yakov Leonidovich Yurievsky, and I am the financial advisor of the Urotovsky-Gatutin Motorsports Division. First of all, I would like to express to you my deepest and most sincere apologies for the way that my team, my company has conducted itself with regards to you and your fellow drivers who attended the team’s preseason test in Myrilsk earlier this year. You were misled into thinking that you were taking part in that test to determine who would occupy the second seat in our team when in reality it was only for a reserve driver role, and for that I am truly and deeply sorry.

Secondly, I am writing this email to you not in my capacity as the financial advisor of UrGa Motorsports but as a man and employee concerned for the wellbeing of the corporation that I work for. I am sure that you are well aware of the current situation of Urotovsky-Gatutin with regards to both the drivers’ and constructors’ championships for the 20th season of the World Grand Prix Championship. I am growing more concerned by the day that the team has made the wrong choice in terms of their driver pairing, and therefore I have decided to take steps into solving this problem. Apologizing to you for the conduct of the team is step one of this process. I offer my apologies to you as an olive branch, as there is a distinct possibility that Urotovsky-Gatutin will have to enact a driver change in the middle of the season and your name could be on top of the list of potential replacements due to your performance in our preseason test.

However, please do not take this as an official offer to take our team’s second seat just yet. I reiterate that I am writing this email to you in a personal capacity, not as the financial advisor of UrGa. Circumstances currently prevent me from making an official offer to you, but should the team maintain its current course of not getting results from one side of the garage, I suspect that I shall be getting the official go-ahead to extend this offer to you sooner rather than later. Once again, I apologize for the unfortunate lies that my team has fed you in the preseason, and I hope that this will not get in the way of you potentially agreeing to drive for Urotovsky-Gatutin for the second half of the season. I personally look forward to that moment, and I hope that I can convince my fellow members of the UrGa board on the benefits of this potential partnership.

Respectfully yours,
Yakov Leonidovich Yurievsky

---

Much like William Archer over in Preston GP, Vasily Gatutin and one half of the Urotovsky-Gatutin Motorsports Division garage would have to get over yet another disappointing result in Togonistan in the hopes that they could get a better result in the next grand prix, which happened to be at the Cocoabo Park Circuit in the Cocoabo Forest. On paper, it wasn’t a track that really suited UrGa and therefore there was a bigger chance that their misfortune, and the misfortune of Skiia Vialiv, could continue on in Vialiv’s home track. However, given that the car appeared to be quite adaptable (at least in the hands of Donny Fitzpatrick), there was still more than a little bit of hope in Vialiv’s side of the garage that a respectable result was still in the cards.

However, the potential improvement of Vialiv’s results was far from the only thing that was on Gatutin’s mind at the moment. The second season of the Atlantian Oceania Grand Prix Championship (or AOGP for short) was about to start at Cocoabo Park as well, with the race being run in support of the Cocoabo Preservation Grand Prix. Urotovsky-Gatutin’s reserve driver Nepö Kinder had been offered up by the team to their long-time racing partner Prince Bismillah bin Kudarat from the Sultanate of Oontaz, who was looking for drivers to fill his team after he and his long-time racing partner Edmundo Ximenes had hung up their helmets and retired from the sport. One of the drivers from Prince Bismillah’s academy, Khalifa Benabderrazik, a driver who had already taken part in the Aurun WGP3 Series and was earmarked to spend a season in AOGP to continue building up his racecraft and related skills. Taras Matviyenko, UrGa’s driver relations officer, had already been brought over to the garage that the Oonaftco Oontaz AOGP Team (the aforementioned Prince’s team) was using for the weekend to introduce Kinder to the Prince and her new team for the season.

Gatutin was poring over the data from the practice sessions, trying to figure out where he or the team could find ways to help Skiia Vialiv narrow the points gap to her teammate and make her a more competitive entity out on the track when he heard a knock on his door. “Come in!” he called out.

The door opened, and in stepped Gatutin’s younger sister, Olga Semyonovna Gatutina. She was more notable as being the team principal of Urotovsky-Gatutin’s NSSCRA operation, but for today, she was a guest of the team and not one of its primary stakeholders. “Hello, brother!” Olga called out as she entered Vasily’s office.

“Olga!” Vasily said back as he set aside his tablet computer and stood up to greet his sister. “What are you doing here? I thought you would be… wherever NSSCRA should be this week.”

“It’s actually just down the coast somewhere,” Olga replied, referring to the Tropicorp 500 at the Tropicoast Beach Course. “In any case, NSSCRA has an off week so I decided to stay behind here and then head over to Cocoabo Park once WGPC came around. Besides, the only driver that I’ve got in the playoffs got knocked out in the first round so at this point, we’re only keeping the team out there for the sake of getting those owners’ championship points. Not that we’re anywhere close to challenging for that as well.”

“Owners’ championship?” Vasily repeated with a raised eyebrow. “Is that similar to the constructors’ championship that WGPC has?”

“Yes, and no,” Olga replied, nodding and then shaking her head. “It’s all so complicated. But what I do know is that it’s the drivers’ championship over there that is the most prestigious, and the one that all the teams want to win.”

“Thank you for the reminder why I decided to entrust the stock car operation to you, sister,” Vasily said. He then led Olga over to his desk and asked, “So what brings you here to WGPC? Do you need to take a break from your drivers once again?”

“Not this time, brother,” Olga shook her head as she sat down on the chair opposite Vasily’s on the other side of the desk. “I thought Wilma Cärinthen’s pregnancy was going to be the start of a disastrous season for us, and maybe out on the track, it is a disaster, but as far as managing my drivers are concerned, I’ve actually had the best time of my life watching over Yudin and Kosaryova.”

“I keep having to remind myself time and time again that neither one of your drivers are actually Pridnestrovian,” Vasily chuckled softly to himself. “Well, I know that Kosaryova’s family came from Pridnestrovia before they fled to Abanhfleft due to the chaos surrounding Stepanenko’s taking over the government after Umayev died, but Yudin doesn’t have a single drop of Pridnestrovian blood in him, correct?”

“Not as far as I am aware,” Olga shook her head. “He’s a full-blooded Ceroatian. He’s also probably the greatest positive contribution that Gil Archer has given UrGa in his short career with the team. If Archer hadn’t been so adamant that there was talent in Yudin and brought him into the fold then I probably wouldn’t have a driver for one of those two cars for the next decade or so.”

“What about Kosaryova?” Vasily asked. “Are you going to retain her for next season or are you going to give that car right back to Cärinthen once she’s healed up from delivering the baby?”

“Oh, I’m giving it back to Cärinthen, all right,” Olga replied with a nod. “That’s always been the plan. Kosaryova was brought in as a one-season replacement, and she knows that as well. Frankly, Vasily Semyonovich, if you ask me, I think she’s actually relieved about the whole deal. I don’t think Agata ever expected to be back in NSSCRA after she lost out on the Everlong title a few years ago, but she was still the only other UrGa-affiliated driver that I had on short notice so when Cärinthen announced her pregnancy, Kosaryova was the only one I could bring in quickly without going through all of the hoops.”

“You’re a lucky woman, Olga Semyonovna,” Vasily said. “You’ve already got your lineup for next season locked down and confirmed. Meanwhile, I’m over here just a little bit worried that I won’t have the same lineup in my team come the second half of the season.”

“What are you talking about?” Olga asked. “Is the old man up to his old tricks again?”

“What do you think?” Vasily said. “I’m pretty sure that Yakov Leonidovich has always had it in for Skiia Vialiv ever since she first tested out for the team back when we were still WGP2. I’ve had her pretty much at the top of my shortlist ever since she first set foot in Myrilsk, but just before I could make my pitch to the board, the man has already beaten me to it and offered up what he described as ‘better options’ for the team. You remember how that turned out, da? First we had that major, Zoomtwat, who looked like he stepped right out of a painting from the Revolution of 1910. It turned out that Yakov was tasked by the KGB or the Foreign Ministry or whatever to recover the Scepter of Saint Bogdan from the major, and had that not happened, the damned major would have turned one of the most sacred objects in the history of Pridnestrovia into goddamned golf clubs. Golf clubs! You should have been there, Olga. That was probably the only time you would have seen the old man look like he was at a complete loss for words.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Olga nodded. “So is Yurievsky really trying to push Vialiv out of the team already?”

“What do you think?” Vasily asked back. “And her record so far has not been helping her case at all. She even got lapped by her own teammate in her very first race for us! It’s almost as if she wants Yurievsky to kick her out of the team! I know that that’s not true, of course, but the way that Vialiv has conducted herself so far, at least out there on the track, is not showing that to the casual observer. And if you know the board as well as I do, Olga, then you know that they’re not really the types to pay too much attention to anything other than the finishing order. I think that’s one reason why Yakov Leonidovich finds it so easy to get the board to do what he wants.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” Olga shook her head once again. “I still remember the time the bastard went behind my back and literally forced Wang Dinggu out of the door when I was preparing a new contract for him.”

“Honestly though, Olga, just between the two of us, do you really think that you could have made Wang the oldest NSSCRA champion in history?” Vasily asked his sister. “We all know that there are teams out there with the aim of making the youngest champion, but you went in the complete opposite direction and decided that you wanted to crown NSSCRA’s oldest champion instead. What’s the logic behind this? And do you really think that you could have pulled it off?”

“I definitely thought that it was possible,” Olga replied. “The only issue I really had with Wang was consistency, and judging by the results that we’ve had after he was gone, I’m still not sure if it’s him or if it’s our own equipment. In any case, you don’t need to be a dominant monster in NSSCRA to win titles over there. One win is enough to get you into the playoffs, and then after that, just be consistent enough throughout the playoffs to stay in that top four before being the best placed driver in the championship race in Newmanistan. You don’t even need to win that race to win the title! Just be in a higher place than the others in the top 4 and you’re as good as gold.”

“And you think that Wang could have done that?” Gatutin asked. He had been a vocal supporter of his sister’s actions ever since she took over the company’s stock car operations, but even Vasily had to admit that what Olga had just described was not pushing the limits of credibility if not outright tearing through it.

“Perhaps, or perhaps not,” Olga replied simply. “But we’ll never know because Yakov Leonidovich thought that Wang was harming his bottom line, and because he’s the financial advisor, the board also thought that Wang was hurting their bottom line as well. Look, Vasily, I don’t know how invested you are in Skiia Vialiv but you better hope, you better pray, that she gets a good result sooner rather than later. And even then, that’s no guarantee that Yakov won’t still play his cards and get the board’s approval to kick her out of the team too. Wang won a fucking race, and he still got the sack! I’m warning you, Vasily, if Yurievsky wants something done, there is no force on this earth that will stop him from getting what he wants.”

“Why, thank you for that inspiring pep talk, sister,” Vasily said with a sarcastic smile. “You’ve given me all the confidence that I need to keep this matter from escalating further.”

“Always happy to help my older brother,” Olga said with a sarcastic smile of her own.

Little did the Gatutin siblings know that there was about to be a twist in the tale about to be shown before their very eyes.

To be continued...

[Chromatika]

Hotel Room
Post Ramngardian Grand Prix Quafliying
Sigurd Ring, Diarcesia

"P10 is not bad, if I've learned anything in the few weeks of following you in this sport," Lily McCloud was saying in Ji's room the night after qualifying, "The security here is great, I'm very certain that nobody will try to go after you while we're here. You should be able to just focus on the racing and let everything else take care of itself."

It had only been about two weeks since she'd joined Ji's squad as her personal assistant (while secretly being her bodyguard), but she had found herself becoming fast friends with the Chromatik driver. Though socially aloof, Ji's attitude of doing everything with 100% sincerity and the humility with which she behaved counted a lot in McCloud's book. Ji was doing the best she could under the circumstances, with all the scrutiny coming down on her, all the stresses of being a certified driver on the WGPC circuit, and her internal demons of trying to do better than the woman she was replacing in Anola Melani. Though Lily didn't know all the circumstances behind Anola's death - she hadn't pressed yet - it sounded like a lot; she wouldn't have been dispatched if it wasn't.

"I was P9 last time, and look where that got me," Ji answered a bit dejectedly. She had the worst butterflies possible when it came to this race. Her team was the only one to not score a single point so far in the season. Sure, iBen hadn't been that great either, but he was a known veteran who had a proven track record of showing up - she was the rookie that the team had taken a chance on, and she was letting them down. Her team hadn't treated her any worse for it - they were consummate professionals - but she could feel the pressure on herself, even if most of it was self-imposed.

"Every race, you learn, right?" Lily reminded Ji, putting a gentle hand on the racer's shoulder.

Ji looked up at Lily and sighed. "I guess so," she responded, "And it's not like I can do any worse than not finishing."

"That's the spirit," Lily said, smiling.

Perhaps it was the lighting in the hotel room, or the fact that Ji was a lot more comfortable around Lily than when they had first met, but Lily couldn't help but notice the light bouncing off of Ji's eyes. The messiness of her hair as she had taken it out of the ponytail. The distinctive scar that was on the left side of her face.

"Uh... Lily?"

Ji's voice brought Lily back to reality, and she blushed.

"Sorry," she stammered, "Not sure what came over me there..."

The look on Ji's face was one of surprise as well, though Lily could also tell that the dark-haired woman was also blushing.

"I'll let you get some rest," Lily broke the silence by saying.

As she got up to leave, she could tell that this was a point of no return. If she did something, it would count, but if she didn't do something, it would also count as well.

'To hell with the rules,' she thought to herself.

"Go kill it out there tomorrow, all right?"

She went in to give Ji a hug, then, before the racer could react, pecked Ji on the lips before turning around and leaving the room.

As she made her way back to her own room, her heart racing, Lily McCloud couldn't help but beam, remembering the shocked look and flush on Ji's cheeks.

[Mlima Kijani]

“So how does this qualifying work?”

“It’s one shot.”

“Ayy I’ll drink to that,” said Lillý Náttmörðsdóttir, downing a shot of wodka.

“No, Lillý…” Cole Sewell sighed. He was having trouble getting on the same page as the impulsive young Kijani driver, and he didn’t think having her get drunk was going to much to improve her performance. She’d put in a pretty mediocre practice run on the Sigurð Ring, and as the mechanics went over the car ahead of qualifying, he was talking with the driver. Because of how poorly she’d done they didn’t have long before she’d back out on the course.

“The way it works, Lillý, is we send you out on a flying lap. And then it’s just one shot.”

“Ayy I’ll drink to that.” She downed another shot.

“OK firstly, where are you getting the wodka from? This is a WGPC pit area, there shouldn’t be random bottles of hard liquor lying around. And secondly, that’s not what it means! This is important, please try to pay attention?”

Lillý, two shots of wodka to the good, tried her best to focus. “OK. So it’s just, start, go round, and that’s the time?”

“That’s right.”

“And it’s called…”

“If I say it are you going to drink again?”

“No,” she grumbled, making a show of pushing the glass away.

“Good. Yes, it’s called one shot.”

“So it’s just, one shot?”

“Yep.”

“One opportunity…”

“GOD DAMMIT LILLÝ PUT DOWN MY MOM’S SPAGHETTI!”