Driven (40 page)

A
ll afternoon Sabatino was impossible to talk to – to reason with. She scowled, fumed, and grumped her way through every meeting and conversation. Nothing seemed to placate her.

Straker decided to stand back, and let her rage play out.

Backhouse, working with a gang of mechanics in the garage all afternoon, gave the defective gearbox every last chance. He had it removed, placed up on a sterilized workbench, dismantled, and assessed for repair – component by component. But one of the gear clusters had failed; bits of it had worked loose, and, having caught between two moving parts, had ruptured the cassette. There was no way it could be repaired reliably enough to stand up to seventy-one gruelling laps in the race. Grimly, Backhouse instructed the gearbox be replaced and that the team file the change with Race Control.

Sabatino’s ten-place penalty was announced in the paddock at four o’clock that afternoon.

She would now have to start from thirteenth on the grid.

Nine places behind her Championship rival.

The points Sabatino needed to secure the title were suddenly a long way out of reach.

S
traker found Sabatino in the motor home. She was still sullen and uncommunicative. He tried twice to converse and be supportive, and both times she snapped back. After one more try, he stood up, grabbed his phone and, deliberately in her hearing, rang the team driver: ‘Bill, can you come to the motor home, please – to take Miss Sabatino back to her hotel?’

She glowered at him critically, as if to challenge his right to make any decisions on her behalf.

Hoping she might still co-operate when the driver turned up,
Straker ducked out of the Ptarmigan motor home to find a little privacy – some distance away. On his iPhone, he searched the web to find a number. Using the link on the website, he dialled it. ‘Could I speak to the manager, please?’

There was a pause – some clicking – some excruciating bossa nova muzak – before a Portuguese-accented man came on the line.

‘João Asturias,’ he said, ‘how can I make your day better?’

‘Mr Asturias, thank you for taking my call. I have an emergency – and I need your help.’

Asturias sounded suitably concerned and receptive.

Straker explained what he was after. ‘Can you do all that for me – in a bit of a hurry?’

‘Of course, Senhor, we can – and will – do it, with pleasure.’

Straker, thanking Asturias profusely, rang off and returned to the turquoise motor home in time to see Bill, the team driver, pull up alongside.

Climbing back into the Ptarmigan headquarters, Straker walked up to Sabatino, careful to take her firmly by the hand – not the wrist – and led her down the steps to the waiting car.

H
er mood barely changed during the drive, or as they rode the lift up to her floor in the hotel. Taking the key card from her, Straker opened the door, and stood to one side to let her into her suite.

She was immediately taken aback.

The room was dark – not black – but dark – unlit by electric lighting. Instead, there was candlelight. Masses of candles flickered from every flat surface on the inside. Soft music – Dean Martin – could be heard wafting over the sound system. Sabatino was about to turn round and react to Straker, when a Portuguese voice came from inside.

‘My lady,’ it said, ‘I am Senhor Asturias, the manager of the hotel. And I offer our compliments of the house,’ and wafted forwards holding a silver tray on which stood a bottle of Taittinger, a flute already filled, and a half-pint glass of Guinness.

This greeting – from a stranger – took the puff out of Sabatino’s reaction.

Almost automatically, she reached out for the Guinness, and took a sip. Her eyes becoming accustomed to the change in light, she noticed a padded massage table had been set up over by the drawn curtains, stacked with a number of neatly folded fluffy white towels. An immaculately dressed Chinese girl wearing a dark blue Nehru-collared silk jacket was in attendance. On a low table beside her was a small incense burner offering up an intoxicating scent – as well as several bottles of aromatic oils and a warming plate holding a collection of large rounded flat stones.

Asturias, having placed his tray of drinks down on a portable stand, proceeded to walk forward, and, with an outstretched arm, invited Sabatino to move into the bathroom. Here, again – with no electric lighting – the space was lit with hundreds of candles, spectacularly reflecting off the wall-sized mirrors. Next to the bath – filled to the brim and almost overflowing with white foam – was another portable stand, this one supporting a large tray. On it was a crisp white linen cloth hosting silver cutlery, and an array of plates with collections of exotic fruits, pastries, meats, cheeses, and four different types of chocolate. In the corner of the tray stood a slim and elegant silver vase holding a single rose.

Sabatino, turning round to face Straker, said: ‘This is all a bit cheesy, isn’t it.’

Straker exhaled with an exaggerated blow. Shaking his head, he walked forward and threw the electric light switch on in the bathroom and killed the music. Against the earlier dimness, the numeruos bright spotlights were almost blinding, even hurting eyes.

‘Okay, João, take it all away,’ said Straker and started indicating – with a series of wildly dismissive hand gestures – that Asturias should pick up all his cheesy paraphernalia. ‘But … João, please leave
me
the chocolate … if you will?’

‘Ah, er, hang on,’ stammered Sabatino, spinning round. ‘Hang on, a minute,’ she said loudly, holding up a hand to try and halt the removal.

Straker glared at her, the diagonal folds of skin above his eyes intensifying his stare more than ever. ‘You don’t want it taken away then?’

Sabatino turned round to look back at the bath and the tray of goodies waiting beside it. Sheepishly, she shook her head.

Straker threw the bathroom switch back the other way, immediately restoring the room to the much softer and flickering candlelight, and re-engaged Dean Martin. ‘Sense at last. João, thank you,’ and turned away from the door, allowing the hotel manager to withdraw. As Asturias passed, Straker smiled, shook the man by the hand, and patted him on the shoulder as he let him out of the suite.

When the door was closed, Straker heard Sabatino say from inside the bathroom: ‘This is okay,’ – her resistance clearly de-energized since the Yes or No showdown of a few moments before – ‘but,’ she added, trying to restore her sense of control, ‘you can let the Chinese girl go. I’ll ask Colonel Straker to perform the massage, if he’ll be so kind?’

A
fter an hour in her bath – and a more spirited go at the tray of snacks than Straker had expected – Sabatino climbed out and walked through into the bedroom. There, she climbed up onto and lay face down on the masseuse’s table. Straker, rubbing some oil on his hands, began his attempt at massage, hoping he’d be able to stretch out the limited number of moves and techniques he could think of.

The limits of his repertoire were never tested. Before he ran out of ideas, the gesture of the unsolicited pampering had finally got through to Sabatino. Fewer than twenty minutes later, they ended up in bed together. This time, they seemed to make love rather than – as on previous occasions – perform gymnastic sex.

Lying beside each other afterwards, they were both pretty near spent.

A matter of a few minutes later they fell into a nap.

Two hours on and they were bathed again and changed.

Straker, continuing his religious silence of the afternoon, said
nothing about racing, the Championship, the Qualifying session, the gearbox, or her place on the grid. Sabatino began to show a little more appreciation for his attempts at a distraction. By seven o’clock, she was even enthusiastic about the idea of a light meal somewhere out, but nearby. Straker let the idea be entirely hers.

A
fter supper, he walked Sabatino back to her hotel.

‘I’m happy to go to my room,’ he said as he kissed her gently on the cheek, ‘to give you a decent night’s rest before tomorrow.’

‘Where’s this Mama stuff keep coming from? I haven’t finished with the Colonel, yet. Not yet. Not by a long way.’

W
ith his efforts to distract Sabatino throughout that afternoon, evening and night, Straker was grateful to have also been distracted from his own concerns.

But lying in bed after she had dropped off to sleep, he couldn’t calm his thoughts.

Following the official Qualifying session, Straker had been pleased and relieved. With Sabatino in P3 and Aston in P4, she had been well positioned for the Championship – staying ahead of Aston. And, from Straker’s point of view, in P3, she would have been well in front of the suspected collision threat from Adi Barrantes – the proximity threat, as he called it, Barrantes being a long way down the grid behind her.

But now – with the gearbox penalty, and the ten-place drop to P13 – Straker could only fixate on Adi Barrantes’ Massarella.

Barrantes was lurking there, now, in P6.

In order for Sabatino to get back up to the front of the pack – to get close to, let alone retake the advantage from Aston – she would have to get past the menacing black Massarella of Adi Barrantes.

The proximity threat was back.

And the risk – and stakes – were higher than ever.

N
ext morning the weather had cleared. None of the threatening clouds were left. Sublime sunshine bathed Interlagos – the land between the lakes – and Sabatino awoke refreshed and seemed completely refocused.

‘Nine places? It’s just nine places,’ she said as they were both wearing white towelling robes and eating breakfast in her hotel suite. ‘I’ve got a second advantage per lap on each car between me and Aston. This
is
doable,’ she declared as if coming to an understanding.

Straker continued to say absolutely nothing. He was still distracted by the threat of proximity and intentional collision.

B
y mid-morning, the cars were out on the grid. Sabatino’s Ptarmigan, now in P13, had its new gearbox. Exhaustive checks had been carried out overnight to ensure there were no possible complications or snags with the change of such a major component.

Sabatino walked onto the grid. While trying to get to her car, she was repeatedly bombarded with media interview after interview. It began to dawn on her the kind of a mêlée that would follow if she did succeed today. If the press were like this now, what would they be like if she actually won the World Championship?

Finally climbing into her car, she was grateful to escape the attention and to enjoy a moment’s peace. Sitting there – isolated – with time to reflect, she suddenly realized that she
was
back in the zone. They, Ptarmigan, had rid themselves of all that trouble with Massarella, which removed a considerable amount of stress, and – today, now – she had become resigned to the ten-place drop for the replacement gearbox. This race might be tougher than needed, and certainly tougher than any of the team had expected, but she realized she
was
ready to take her fight to Paddy Aston.

On the hooter blast, her adrenalin started to kick in for real. The grid cleared and, with Sabatino’s engine finally running, she absorbed the thunderous noise of the cars all around her.

She was grateful.

The intensity of the sound helped to occupy the entirety of her attention.

The lights came on and the Formula One runners pulled off on their formation lap for the last time this season. Round they went, all swerving, zig-zagging, accelerating, braking – every driver busily working temperature into their cars in their own way round the 2.7 mile circuit.

Sabatino spent half the lap changing up and down the gears, making doubly sure her new gearbox was working and reliable. It felt good – better, even, than the last.

After Bico De Pato, Turn Ten, she let the cars to her front pull away, to give herself a longer run on a stretch of clear track. Pumping her right foot, she accelerated hard and threw the car round Junção, Turn Twelve. She nodded to herself.

The car felt good.

The conditions were ideal, and her car’s set-up was pretty much spot on.

S
traker, back on station in the motor home with all his surveillance equipment, watched the field re-form, each car slotting into its designated place on the grid. He was completely focused on the two black Massarellas in P2 and P6.

S
abatino looked down. Her temperatures were all good. She blipped the accelerator. The Benbecular sounded fantastic and ready.

This was it.

One red light came on.

Sabatino felt her heart rate quicken.

Two red lights. She breathed deeply, and exercised her fingers.

Three red lights.

Four.

Five.

Wait … Wait! … WAIT!

GO!

The engine roar around her was deafening. Cars screamed forward off their spots. She hurtled forwards. Accelerating. Accelerating fast.

Suddenly, the car in front darted to the right. In nothing less than a reflex, Sabatino did the same. A Sauber had stalled on the grid. It was stationary. The cars behind had to swerve violently to avoid ramming straight into the back of it.

How
didn’t she hit it? – skimming past it by only a whisker.

In the run down to Turn One, and the intensifying bottleneck of cars all trying to squeeze through an ever-shrinking space, one part of her brain had already registered that the Sauber had held a place ahead of her but behind Aston.

She’d clawed back one place already.

She was twelfth.

Turn One, at the top of the upcoming Senna S, was
the
corner for overtaking on the circuit. To take the challenge to her Championship rival, this was where she was going to have to do most of the work that afternoon – to be bold – and to take every opportunity that came along, however tenuous.

But not this time.

In the mêlée of the start, she was happier to get round safely, and get herself under way.

Into the corner they ran.

Every car was now in, through, or half-out of Turn One. Front runners were already accelerating, streaming down the hill through the Senna S. From six rows back, Sabatino could see the field jostling and squabbling for position spread out down the hillside combination of turns – a right, left, then a more gentle left – below her.

Suddenly there was a smash.

Two cars had come together at the bottom of the first right-hander.
A Lotus had lost its back end – after being bumped? – and was sliding across the track. Then slam! Another car smashed straight into its back wheels. Debris flew outwards, right across the circuit.

Some of the debris was turquoise. Wouldn’t that be Cunzer in the other Ptarmigan?

Sabatino flinched to find a way round these now-stationary cars and the lumps of wreckage lying slap-bang in the middle of the track. To avoid it all, she had to dive out to the left – wide to the outside. Holding her breath, she had no choice but to drop a wheel over the edge onto the grass. She prayed she didn’t lose the back end. Exhaling deeply a second later, she fully regained the tarmac – keeping herself in the race.

She rounded Turn Three and pushed on down Reta Oposta. The long straight gave her time to think. Poor Helli going out – and the Lotus. But then she had a Darwinian thought – verging on
Schadenfreude
. Hadn’t she just gained another two places? That smash, then – to her – was actually
good
news.

She cleared through the apex of Turn Five. She looked at the field down the track in front of her. There were two Red Bulls and a Mercedes. Weren’t these guys – after the stalled Sauber and the collision of her teammate and the Lotus – now P7, P8 and P9?

Didn’t that make her tenth?

She accelerated hard and chanced a look in her mirrors. There was a stretch of clear track behind – indicating no immediate threat of being overtaken herself.

She settled down to catching the cars ahead. The front runners were speeding down to Turn Six. Finally letting the Ptarmigan go, she realized the set-up and conditions were married up perfectly. Now she had to use them.

Immediately ahead of her was a Mercedes, currently in P9.

Radioing in, she asked: ‘Is Helli okay?’

‘He’s fine.’

‘Have they cleaned up the Senna S?’

‘No.’

‘Any sign of the safety car?’

‘Highly likely. There’s crap all over the road.’

Even better, she thought. The front runners may have built up the beginnings of a few seconds lead between them already. But the safety car would see them all bunched up again tightly – keeping her well and truly in touch with the leaders – at least for a little while longer.

Within ten seconds the letters SC appeared in the LED display on her steering wheel. Sabatino yelped in delight. A few moments later the field had been concertinaed up again – the first nine cars in front of her forced to crocodile round nose to tail – behind the safety car. Aston, still retaining P3, hadn’t been able to get that far away from her. Not yet.

It took three laps for the marshals to clear the debris from the Senna S.

As the pack rose up the hill from Turn Thirteen the next time round, the lights suddenly went off on the roof of the safety car. Fifteen seconds later, it was ducking into the pits.

They would be racing again soon.

The Ferrari at the front accelerated hard into the long pit straight, aiming to get himself away from the bunched-up pack behind him and to re-establish his lead.

Being bunched up might make it easier to mount a challenge to the car in front, but exactly the same opportunity was created for the guy behind. There was some protection from this – being prohibited from overtaking, at least until they crossed the line. Once over it, though, all cars were free to mount a challenge – or be challenged. Sabatino was pleased it was more the former. She took great delight in the Benbecular engine’s furious purr immediately behind her, giving her all the power she wanted as she pelted up the long start/finish straight.

Crossing the line, her few extra horsepower were working to her advantage. The Mercedes, in front of her, was fast, but the Ptarmigan felt quicker. Using her speed, Sabatino closed in and right up to the Mercedes’s gearbox. She started taking a tow.

The two cars crested the rise – when suddenly Sabatino reckoned she had a shot. Timing her moment to the last minute, she remained tucked right up – a matter of inches – behind the Mercedes. Three hundred yards from the braking zone, she swung left, out of the Mercedes’s slipstream, setting her jaw at a move down the inside of him into Turn One.

Slowly but surely, she gained on the car in front.

She only had a few hundred yards to run before the corner.

Would it be enough?

Could she stake her claim?

Come on! she yelled into her helmet.

She powered on. With nothing less than full commitment.

‘Lift, you bastard, lift!’ she screamed at the Mercedes.

She
held her nerve. But so did the Mercedes. They were side by side. Did she have the line? Would he concede? Would she have to lift off, after all?

She held out … And out.

She
wasn’t
going to bottle first.

Then it happened.

He
lifted.

The Mercedes lifted off!

It felt like she suddenly shot forwards, as the Mercedes – visible through her peripheral vision to the right – quickly dropped back under braking. But she was still going into the corner hard and fast. Could she control the car into, through, and round Turn One? Would the Mercedes just need to be patient, watch her run deep and wide – and simply cut back after the corner?

Watching all this on the monitors, the Ptarmigan team were holding their breath. Straker, on the edge of his seat, willed her car round the corner. From an overhead camera, the shot showed the turquoise car’s sharper angle into the turn. A small puff of blue smoke came off Sabatino’s front-left. Then was gone.

Would she get by on the first turn of this complex only to have the Mercedes come back at her through Turns Two and Three?

She felt the car go a little here and there.

Sabatino wrestled with the wheel, the brakes, and the yaw of the car.

She held her nerve.

She was getting round … round? … round!

She’d done it. She’d taken her man, fair and square.

With all the risks, she was now up to P9.

She was closing in!

Recovering down the hill on the far side of the corner, the Ptarmigan headed down the long straight, the Reta Oposta, flying back up to top speed. Ahead of her now Sabatino could see a Red Bull in P8. He was, maybe, one second further down the track. Along the straights, that length of time at this speed looked like a mile. But as they swung through Turn Six, and were soon in the succession of curves, sweeps, rises and compressions all the way from there to Turn Twelve, the gaps closed right up. But the design of the Interlagos circuit offered few genuine overtaking places through this section. A driver might make a mistake, and create an opportunity to pass, but at this late stage in the season, with the cars so well used to the Formula – and in the dry – it was going to be unlikely. By the end of this segment, as she rounded Subida Dos Boxes, Sabatino had nevertheless closed the gap and was all over the Red Bull’s back end. After that turn, Fourteen, the Red Bull and she had the three-quarters-of-a-mile drag up the hill on the long left sweep until they reached Turn One again, where she’d just jumped the Mercedes.

Up the hill they raced, the Ptarmigan giving Sabatino all it had. But it wasn’t quite enough. She didn’t quite get the tow.

A
nd so it remained for the next ten laps.

S
abatino was frustrated, but not despondent. A couple of times she radioed the pits, wanting to know where Aston was – how fast he was lapping – whether it looked like he was making any headway on P2, or whether, God willing, he might even be overtaken. But no.
Everything, for Aston, was running normally – all going his way to secure the World Championship.

Lap twenty and they saw the first of the pit stops.

To Sabatino’s delight the Red Bull in front of her pitted earlier than expected. She hadn’t been aware of his dirty air, but the moment he was out of the way, she found an extra couple of tenths per lap. So much so that when she pitted herself, five laps later, she was nearly up with the other Red Bull in P7.

Sabatino remained on the same compound tyre and was fuelled to lap fifty-eight.

Out she went again.

Re-emerging, though, she was met with a surprise. She found herself in front of a Lotus. What did that mean? Where was the Red Bull who’d been in P7?

She radioed Backhouse in the pits.

‘He’s about a second behind you.’

‘
Behind
me? You’re kidding?’

‘No, he’s just entering the pit straight.’

She looked back in her mirror. ‘I’ll be … Where does that put us, best guess?’

‘Could be good for P6.’

‘
P6!
’

‘And where’s Aston?’

‘Still P3.’

Sabatino juggled the numbers – and yelled. ‘That’s good enough! We’re only three points apart. We’re equal – that would make us equal. With my number of wins, I’d be World Champion.’