For most people, driving is about controlling a machine. This is true; the vehicle is the foundation of everything.
But true driving is more than that. It is a process of perceiving the machinery, a way of touching the road and understanding the world through the feedback from tires and asphalt.
When you begin to understand a car's language, comprehend how it responds to the road, to vibrations, when its center of gravity and its rhythm sync with the driver's own heartbeat, then driving is no longer just control. It becomes an extension of the self.
For Konrad, this feeling was still vague—a subtle intuition, a latent instinct.
He trusted it. Without conscious thought, he lifted off the throttle half a beat early before the corner entry. His body subconsciously braced for the weight transfer, his movements fluid. It was like finding an invisible path, walking on solid ground.
The S-bends. A precise entry. The car was stable, balanced on a razor's edge, carving a twisted line through the complex sequence. For a fleeting moment, his body and the race car moved as one, tracing a perfect 'S' before he got back on the power at the exit. The speed climbed past 100 km/h effortlessly, the world blurring into streaks of light and color in his peripheral vision.
In that instant, Konrad, the simulator, the track—they merged.
"Anticipatory car control!" Montfatini's eyes widened. This was a trait of the top drivers. His heart began to hammer against his ribs.
Lap 16.
Another unorthodox move.
In a slow right-hander, Konrad deliberately got on the throttle half a beat early, letting the rear of the car step out slightly. He didn't fight it. Instead, he used that brief instability, harnessing the inertia and the car's own physics to pull the rear wheels into a line that defied textbook logic. And yet, he and the car stabilized, kissing the inside curb, using every millimeter of the track to shoot out cleanly.
The speed wasn't high—maybe 65 km/h—but it conveyed an intense, elegant tension, like a tango. A push-and-pull that was slow, graceful, and utterly captivating.
Racing had become a dance. Rhythm and melody flowed naturally, the music interpreted through body and machine.
The lap time? It was irrelevant. No one was looking at the stopwatch anymore. They were just watching the screen, following the simulated car as it carved its path. Driving had become art. A performance. A pure, technical enjoyment.
Leclerc watched silently, a pulse throbbing at his temple. He didn't know whether to call Konrad a genius or a madman. The line choices, the brake control—constantly dancing on the edge of control—it was utterly reckless and completely electrifying.
Marchionne stood to the side, his perpetually furrowed brow slowly relaxing. "You're sure he's a rookie?" he asked, his tone layered with new meaning.
Todt allowed himself a small smile. "All the evidence suggests he is. He's just... experimenting."
Marchionne raised an eyebrow, glancing at his friend.
Todt gave a light shrug; the scene was exceeding his expectations, too. "His turn-in points, his braking rhythm... there's no established pattern. He's running on pure instinct."
"And yet... it works?"
After he said it, Todt himself tilted his head, a glint of amusement and deep interest in his eyes. Though retired from the front lines, the passion for the sport that was in his bones was stirring.
Marchionne's eyes gleamed. So, their 'catfish effect' could work? Perhaps even better than planned?
Everything, as Todt had said, hinged not on Konrad's success, but on the fresh, unconventional approach he brought. The goal was to stir the pond, to make the academy drivers feel a sense of crisis. And by that measure, Konrad was executing the plan perfectly. Looking at Montfatini's focused intensity, at Leclerc's captivated stare, the plan was working.
However, Todt didn't respond. He simply gestured for Marchionne to keep watching. His own intuition was sounding an alarm.
He had a feeling this young man might deliver more than just a stir.
The outside world had ceased to exist for Konrad. He was one hundred percent immersed, his entire being consumed by the universe of speed inside the simulator. Even the g-forces seemed to fade, washed away by a continuous surge of pure focus.
From the eighteenth lap, everything changed.
The earlier experimentation was over. The data he had been collecting—the feel of the brakes, the weight transfer in the corners, the throttle response—snapped into a coherent understanding. The car was no longer a foreign object to be decoded; it was a tool he knew how to wield.
Konrad was no longer probing or hesitating. The car suddenly came alive.
To be precise, it wasn't sudden, but a natural culmination. All the signs had been there, and now they were unfolding in a spectacular display.
He did not disappoint.
"Push" is the term in Formula racing for accelerating with full power, extracting every last drop of performance.
Konrad was now pushing, but it wasn't a reckless, wild charge. It was a controlled, aggressive acceleration. Speed poured out with a new certainty, the clear roar of the engine a testament to his command.
It was a display of pure, applied skill.
His cornering arcs grew bolder, the tires skimming the track's edge with surgical precision—no wasted motion.
His braking points were delayed to the absolute limit, yet always precisely controlled. His throttle application on corner exit was seamless. His steering corrections were minimal. Every slight slide of the car's tail was caught and used to aid the turn.
All his earlier probing and experimentation were now paying off. The stuttering, intermittent feeling vanished. The lap times began to drop. Lap after lap.
All eyes in the room were locked on the screen. What should have been a monotonous session of lap grinding had become a captivating technical demonstration.
Lap 19. Lap 20.
On the electronic display, a striking green light flashed.
Personal Best.
In Formula racing, the stopwatch is the ultimate truth. Every lap is recorded and categorized by color.
Purple: Overall fastest lap.
Green: Personal best.
Yellow: Slower than the previous best.
Not just for the full lap, but for each individual sector of the track, the colors provided a clear, immediate picture of a driver's progress.
Marchionne was stunned. Twenty laps?
Only twenty laps?
If this outsider had never driven a Formula car, perhaps not even a proper kart, and was experiencing a professional simulator for the first time, yet had completed the entire cycle of learning, adapting, improving, and breaking through in just twenty laps...
Then they were witnessing something rare. Not magic, not poetry, but the raw, efficient processing of a mind built for this. The interface between man and machine had been established, and it was terrifyingly fast.
His heartbeat quickened, thrumming in his ears. The plan for a simple "catfish effect" suddenly felt dangerously modest.