Surprise after surprise.
Initially, Marchionne had only hoped Konrad could stir the stagnant waters. Now, he wasn't sure how much of that original, cynical plan remained.
He turned to Todt, his voice barely concealing a newfound intensity. "Is it normal to start setting competitive lap times on a first simulator attempt? Or am I just not seeing this correctly?"
Todt didn't answer immediately, a slight smile playing on his lips as he watched Konrad and the screen.
If last night's street race had been a vague hint, an impulse, then this was confirmation. The focus was shifting. What began as a managerial tactic to provoke the academy drivers was transforming into something else entirely. Konrad was no longer just a tool; he was becoming the main event.
"It is not normal," Todt said, his voice low.
The curve of his lips turned upward. It wasn't just the potential discovery of a talent for Ferrari; it was the simple, pure joy of watching someone connect with a racing car so completely.
"But he knows what he's doing. He is reading the track and the car in his own way. He isn't just setting lap times; he is… understanding speed."
Lap twenty-one.
Everything had been smooth, Konrad having found a rhythm.
However!
Entering the final complex corner before the main straight, he took a radical line, riding the high curb with his right-front wheel. The car bounced violently—
A mistake? Recklessness?
The typical entry speed for an F4 car here was around 120 km/h. Konrad was carrying over 140 km/h. At that velocity, any miscalculation was catastrophic.
It made the observers hold their breath.
Montfatini felt a pang of regret, already making excuses for him. He's young, it's aggressive, he hasn't learned the car's limits…
But Konrad used the bounce. He merged with the car's instability, making it an extension of his intent, using the momentum to "flick" the car through a sharper angle.
The front end twitched. The rear bit down.
The simulator platform shuddered.
The next second, the car shot out of the corner like a bullet, achieving the best exit speed of the entire session.
The trigger was pulled. Speed surged—
160 km/h!
Smoothly onto the straight, the F4 car's performance fully unleashed, accelerating faster and faster. The lap time on the main screen refreshed.
1:34.206.
Solid purple. Today's fastest lap.
The air in the room solidified. All sound vanished.
Montfatini immediately looked at Leclerc. "F2?" he asked, assuming the record Konrad had just beaten was set in the more powerful F2 car.
Leclerc shook his head, his expression unreadable. "F4."
Leclerc was the academy's prodigy, slated for F2 next year. Montfatini had thought Konrad had merely beaten a casual warm-up time. But Leclerc's denial meant something else: in less than thirty minutes, a newcomer, on his first simulator attempt, had broken the benchmark Leclerc had set in the same car.
With one glance, Montfatini and Leclerc understood the implication.
Marchionne's professional composure cracked. He uncrossed his arms and stepped forward, unable to hide his excitement as he looked at Todt.
Todt, however, had grown calm. He didn't respond to Marchionne, his eyes fixed on Konrad, who was starting another lap. The session wasn't over. Could they expect more?
He was correct.
What followed was a display of rapid refinement. It was as if a fundamental connection had been made, and Konrad was now fine-tuning the signal.
On lap twenty-five, he broke the 1:34 barrier for the first time: 1:33.931.
Leclerc's eyes narrowed. To an amateur, the difference seemed small. But in racing, shaving two-tenths of a second off a lap time at this level was a significant leap. The time Konrad had initially beaten was just a warm-up lap, but breaking into the 1:33s required focused, peak performance. It wasn't simple.
Konrad had done it in four laps.
And he wasn't finished.
Laps twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight… not only fast, but stable. The erratic probing was gone, replaced by formidable consistency. The times hovered around the 1:34 mark, a staggering display of control for a first attempt.
Then, the new record was born.
1:33.572.
The fastest lap on this simulator. Not just today, but the historical best.
It was unbelievable. In the space of ten laps, after setting his first competitive time, Konrad had improved his personal best by a total of 0.634 seconds.
This was an F4 car. On a simulator. And after finding the limit, he had pushed it further.
The simulator's engine sound fell silent. The last red blur vanished from the screen.
The air was silent. No one spoke.
It wasn't that they didn't want to; it was that no one knew what to say. No one dared to break the quiet.
1:33.572.
In Formula racing, they say the stopwatch doesn't lie. All answers are hidden in the numbers. The car's potential, the driver's skill—it's all there, clear and undeniable.
This number, laid out before them, was not a pebble causing a splash, but a depth charge. The shockwave was silent, but it reverberated through every professional in the room.
And everyone present was a professional. They all understood, with chilling clarity, what those numbers meant. And what it meant that Konrad Schäfer had produced them in less than an hour.