Chaos. Turmoil. The roar of the simulated engine.
A wave of dizziness washed over him. His inner ear protested the violent shifts in direction and g-forces, making the world tilt. Yet, inside the storm, Konrad's mind grew quieter. He was fully immersed.
He forgot about the tryout. He forgot about Maranello. He forgot about the men watching him.
Inside the simulator cockpit, there was only the car, the track, and the problem to be solved.
This wasn't about proving himself anymore. It was about the pure, technical joy of driving. Of understanding a new machine. It was a complex equation laid out before him, and he was methodically working through the variables.
Montfatini's initial spark of interest had faded back into professional neutrality. A rookie was a rookie. That first-corner save must have been a fluke, a lucky reflex. Since then, Konrad had been tame, his pace unremarkable, his lines cautious. He was just like every other newcomer.
Perhaps, Montfatini thought with a pang of disappointment, Todt's legendary eye was finally dimming with age. He said nothing, maintaining his professional demeanor as he continued to observe.
But then.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Montratini's trained eye began to pick up on a pattern. What had seemed like hesitant, clumsy driving was something else entirely.
Konrad wasn't crashing randomly. He was probing. Testing limits.
Involuntarily, Montfatini leaned forward, his focus sharpening. He found himself being drawn into the puzzle Konrad was solving.
Inside the simulator, Konrad was in a state of deep concentration. On the surface, his driving was inconsistent—sometimes aggressive, sometimes hesitant, his pace fluctuating wildly. It looked chaotic.
But Montfatini began to see the method. This wasn't recklessness. It was deconstruction. A driver using his most primal instincts to reverse-engineer the logic of an unfamiliar machine. He was ignoring the lap time display completely, immersed not in setting a fast time, but in making mistakes. He was actively creating problems to find their solutions.
"Is he... running experiments?" Leclerc murmured, his brow furrowed in disbelief. "Why?"
Montfatini didn't answer, but he glanced at the Monegasque driver. The academy students were all talented, but their approach was standardized, learned from the same textbooks. Perhaps they could learn something from this outsider's raw, intuitive process.
Konrad was solving a problem with no standard answer. One mistake per lap, one solution per lap.
Understeer, oversteer, late braking, early throttle—a novice would usually drive conservatively to hide their weaknesses. Konrad did the opposite. He wasn't afraid of looking foolish. He was using each error as a data point, building a sensory map of the car's behavior in his mind, like charting an unknown territory.
You forget the questions you answer correctly, but you remember the ones you get wrong. That was Konrad's principle.
But the real question was: what kind of person had the nerve to use a once-in-a-lifetime Ferrari tryout as a laboratory for trial and error?
Montfatini had no answer.
Inside the simulator, Konrad was fully engaged. This wasn't a test; it was an exploration.
As the laps progressed, the mistakes began to decrease. His turn-in points became more precise, his exit trajectories smoother. The tires no longer screamed in protest but whispered their grip. He wasn't wrestling the machine anymore; he was learning to dance with it.
Tenth lap. Turn 4.
A classic technical corner, tight on the inside with a blind exit—a rookie trap.
Konrad did not choose the conventional braking point.
He braked later.
He compressed the margin of error to its absolute minimum.
Leclerc's hands twitched, his body mirroring the inputs he would make. He knew instantly that the braking point was too late. His heart jumped into his throat.
The simulator shuddered. The rear of the car started to slide.
But in the next instant, Konrad's body was already braced, his hands applying a subtle counter-steer, his right foot feathering the throttle. The slide became a controlled rotation, not a loss of control. The car's rear snapped back into line as it exited the corner.
Perfect turn-in. Perfect exit.
Montfatini sucked in a sharp breath, his body leaning forward involuntarily before he caught himself.
So. Was that luck, too?
No.
Konrad hadn't been surprised. He had anticipated the slide. He had left himself the space to react. He had answered the challenge of Turn 4 with pure, calculated instinct.
In just ten laps, he had deciphered the fundamental control logic of the steering and throttle. More importantly, his spatial awareness of the car and his feel for its dynamic balance were crystallizing, building a vivid, internal model at a startling speed.
Montfatini expected the German to start pushing for a fast lap now.
But he was wrong.
Konrad didn't rush to show off. He didn't recklessly chase speed. Instead, he entered a state of rhythmic meditation.
He wasn't in a hurry to break limits because he was building his own method of progression.
His throttle control was no longer brutal; it was like a musician fine-tuning the pitch of a note. The steering wheel no longer saw violent sawing motions, but precise traces of the racing line.
It was like watching a composer sketch the first motifs of a symphony on a blank sheet—seemingly chaotic notes gradually connecting, forming the foundation of something greater.
Fourteenth lap.
Approaching the high-speed S-bends, Konrad did something unexpected. He lifted off the throttle half a beat early.
No warning from the simulator. No data trace suggested it. It was pure intuition. That slight, early lift transferred weight to the front axles, generating extra downforce for a sharper, more precise turn-in.
The decision came not from a manual, but from the conversation between his body and the machine.