Li Lingyu was sprinting, running as fast as her legs could carry her toward the podium straight.
The 2019 season opener had been an absolute rollercoaster. It was a dizzying, heart-stopping ride filled with massive peaks and terrifying valleys. From the overflowing confidence and towering ambition at the season launch event... to the bleak, agonizing struggles of Free Practice... to the desperate, limit-pushing fight in Qualifying that ignited a tiny spark of hope... and finally, culminating in the glorious, blood-pumping, passionate warfare of the Race itself. The Australian Grand Prix had concluded in spectacular, breathtaking fashion.
A brand new season, a brand new challenge—
If anyone honestly believed that just because Ferrari had pushed Mercedes-Benz to the absolute brink last season, they were naturally guaranteed to engage in an equally tight, bloody dogfight this season... then they knew absolutely nothing about Formula 1.
New regulations, new designs, new cars—these weren't just empty buzzwords. Every single season starts from absolute zero. The critical, dominating role played by the rulebook and raw mechanical engineering is what fundamentally separates motorsport from almost every other competitive sport on the planet. Everything had to be discovered and explored anew. Absolutely nothing was guaranteed.
The Australian Grand Prix had brutally proven that point. The new season was going to be an agonizing, monumental challenge.
But just like last season, Kai was fully prepared for it.
Mercedes-Benz had deliberately set out to establish an aura of terrifying, absolute dominance right from Free Practice 1, aiming to plunge the entire paddock into the suffocating shadow of Lewis Hamilton. You had to admit, Wolff's strategy was brilliantly executed. By constantly deploying thick smokescreens throughout winter testing, they had perfectly set the stage for an explosive, awe-inspiring debut at the season opener. If the strategy had succeeded completely, the morale of every single competitor would have been instantly crushed, and Hamilton would have used his actions on the asphalt to aggressively defend his regal aura—
Even without the literal crown, Hamilton remained the de facto King of the Paddock.
It was exactly like three years ago, when Nico Rosberg fought with everything he had to snatch the Drivers' World Championship from Hamilton, only to immediately turn around and retire the moment the season ended. It looked stylish and decisive, but deep down, it was undeniably driven by fear. And sure enough, the very next season, Hamilton returned to the championship throne with a series of unparalleled, transcendent performances, forcing the entire paddock to once again feel his overwhelming, terrifying presence.
The situation was exactly the same now.
Wolff and Hamilton's strategy couldn't have been clearer.
However, Kai was not Nico Rosberg.
Not only did Kai refuse to turn and run, but he launched a ferocious, frontal counter-attack. He delivered a brutal blow straight to Hamilton's head, using his actions on the asphalt to physically destroy Hamilton's ambition of a 'Total Slam'. By forcing his way past Hamilton to cross the finish line second, he also completely obliterated Mercedes-Benz's backup plan of securing a 1-2 finish. He delivered the loudest, most aggressive manifesto possible:
I am here to defend my title.
Everything felt exactly like last season. It effortlessly reignited Li Lingyu's blazing passion.
Passionate! Blood-boiling!
Li Lingyu couldn't control herself anymore. She sprinted with all her might. She had never felt this incredibly hyped, this intensely euphoric. She had never experienced such a powerful, overwhelming emotion that made her physically feel the heat and temperature of her own life burning brightly.
Another season, another massive challenge, another glorious adventure unrolling before her eyes like a magnificent painting. She simply couldn't wait.
Panting heavily and drenched in sweat, she finally arrived in front of the podium. A massive, endless ocean of humanity was swarming in from all directions. The sheer, overwhelming scale of the dense, packed crowd instantly brought back memories of the season opening ceremony just three days prior.
Ah! AHHHHHH!
Hamilton stepped onto the podium. His fans and the Mercedes-Benz loyalists instantly erupted with earth-shattering energy. Every single one of them was screaming themselves hoarse, burning with passion. The massive silver wave crashed forward with the force of a tsunami.
Hamilton, however, looked slightly subdued—
He had arrived with overwhelming, aggressive momentum, yet he was returning with clipped wings.
His vast experience and icy rationality told him there was no need to dwell on it. The battle for the World Championship had only just begun. It was a marathon, not a sprint. Consistency and sustained dominance were what truly mattered. There was no need to lose his temper over a momentary setback. Standing on the podium was still a result worth celebrating.
Yet, the fire burning in his chest felt scorching hot and suffocatingly heavy. With every breath, he felt a sharp, piercing sting. All his towering ambitions for a flawless victory had been unceremoniously silenced, feeling exactly like a brutal, stinging slap across the face.
Damn it!
Gritting his teeth slightly, Hamilton maintained his composure. He controlled his emotions, raised his head, and flashed a polite, professional smile, waving to his fans. At the absolute minimum, he needed to express his gratitude for the passionate support of the local Melbourne crowd.
But the very next second, he was violently sucked into a hurricane. The entirety of Albert Park was flipped completely upside down—
"Captain..."
"Captain."
"CAPTAIN!"
Starting from a distance and rapidly closing in, echoing from all directions, surging from every single corner of heaven and earth. It felt like being completely, inescapably surrounded. There was nowhere to hide and nowhere to run. The rolling heatwave punched through the air, smashing directly into their eardrums and hammering viciously against their hearts. Before they could even catch a breath, they were swept up by the storm, ascending to the heavens and crashing down to earth.
Captain—
One shout, then another. Perfectly synchronized. Deafeningly loud.
Hamilton was instantly transported back to Yas Marina. The lingering, unkillable nightmare violently resurrected from the ashes, instantly choking his throat. And then, he saw Kai step out.
Tall, elegant, and possessing a commanding presence. His slender, well-proportioned frame naturally exuded an aura of effortless swagger with every casual movement. It was no wonder fashion magazines had unanimously dubbed Ferrari's new driver lineup the "Face of the Paddock" and the "Handsome Twin Stars."
Kai stood directly in front of Hamilton, upright and unapologetic, looking Hamilton dead in the eye.
Even though Hamilton was standing on the third-place step of the podium and Kai was still standing on the flat ground below, their eyes met on a perfectly level plane. Kai simply looked up, neither servile nor overbearing, his gaze crashing straight into Hamilton's.
"Brilliant race," Kai said.
Hamilton's chest suffered a heavy, concussive blow. He could perfectly read the message hidden within that gaze. It wasn't a congratulation; it was a formal declaration of war. A demand for a fair, honorable, head-to-head duel. A clash between World Champions. An open, transparent battle for supremacy—
While the Mercedes-Benz fans had spent the entire off-season blindly, willfully distorting the truth, loudly accusing the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix of being manipulated and rigged... Kai was looking straight at Hamilton. Kai hadn't forgotten the filthy, underhanded tactics deployed by the Mercedes-Benz pit wall. He hadn't forgotten the "minor accident" involving Perez in the pit lane. And looking at the highly suspicious, murky relationship currently existing between Mercedes-Benz and Racing Point...
Heh.
It was just a single look, but it violently stung Hamilton.
This declaration of war carried profound, heavy implications. It seemed to hint at the dark, behind-the-scenes reality of today's race. The reason Mercedes hadn't successfully executed their flawless master plan wasn't because they had suddenly developed a conscience; it was entirely because an uninvited guest had repeatedly, violently flipped their chessboard.
Hamilton's eyes darkened. The chaotic, surging emotions within him instantly settled into an icy calm.
"Brilliant race," Hamilton replied, his voice low and solemn. His pupils contracted slightly as he carefully evaluated the young man before him. Even though their eyes were level and they were standing as equals, Hamilton couldn't shake the frustrating, suffocating feeling that he was somehow at a disadvantage.
However, Kai didn't seem to care in the slightest. The corners of his mouth lifted in a smirk. He turned around and walked away, just like that... leaving...
Hamilton choked on his own breath, the frustration swelling in his chest. The next second, Kai stepped onto the podium. The explosive energy that had been brewing within Albert Park cascaded down with the force of a tidal wave, filling every single inch of space between heaven and earth. The entire world began to violently shake.
"CAPTAIN AHHHHHHHHH!"
The sea of humanity surged, jumping, roaring, burning with absolute madness.
Standing amidst the crowd, Li Lingyu temporarily shed her individual identity, transforming into an insignificant droplet of water, merging with millions of her comrades to form a vast, unstoppable ocean. Together, they unleashed a storm upon Melbourne, single-handedly flipping the entire paddock upside down.
As she screamed, Li Lingyu burst into joyful, uninhibited laughter.
She knew the 2019 season was going to be covered in dense thorns, likely even more agonizingly difficult than last year. But she was ready. Led by Kai, she was ready to hack through the brambles, hack through the thorns, and embark on a brand new, glorious adventure, exploring every single unknown possibility together.
The entire paddock was a blazing inferno, its flames magnificently devouring every inch of silver.
Even before Bottas stepped onto the top step, the party had already reached its absolute climax. It left Bottas standing awkwardly on the side stage, thoroughly confused, unsure if he was actually supposed to walk out or not.
After the race, even the official FIA commentators couldn't help but marvel at the spectacle.
"Bottas conquers Albert Park, but Ferrari emerges as the ultimate victor— Melbourne is rapidly becoming yet another global home race for Ferrari. The city has completely surrendered to Kai!"
...
Finally, the brand new 2019 F1 season was officially underway. The season opener concluded spectacularly. It was loud, chaotic, and surging with energy. Focal points and massive bombshells dropped one after another in relentless waves. The intense debates and discussions simply refused to stop; the noise level was absolutely unprecedented.
Bottas, Kai, and Hamilton occupied the top three spots. Mercedes-Benz had seized the initial advantage, taking a solid, dominant first step in the Constructors' Championship standings.
As a side note, not only did Bottas secure the victory, but he also snatched the fastest lap of the race. He became the very first driver to earn the bonus point under the brand-new scoring system. This meant he would lead the Drivers' Championship standings with a perfect 26 points.
However, that was merely the tip of the iceberg.
On one hand, exactly as expected, the battle for the championship had entered a white-hot state right from the very first race. In doing so, it inadvertently perfectly mirrored the narrative of the previous season—
Last year, "Hamilton vs. Vettel" was the absolute, undisputed focal point heading into the season opener. The result? Kai miraculously stole the show at Albert Park, completely shattering all media predictions.
This year, it was Bottas's turn to violently disrupt the highly anticipated duel between Hamilton and Kai. Did this mean Bottas was poised to become the ultimate disruptor of the season?
On the other hand, the competition in the midfield and at the back of the pack was predictably an absolute, tangled mess. Following last season's relentless drama involving financial crises, team transfers, and ownership changes, it was no surprise that this year had ushered in a comprehensive, total reshuffle.
The massive smokescreens deployed during winter testing had only exponentially amplified the uncertainty.
Verstappen, Leclerc, and Magnussen finished fourth, fifth, and sixth, respectively.
Verstappen finished just one step away from the podium. Red Bull had arrived with massive ambition and aggressive momentum, yet they ultimately looked lackluster and dim. You couldn't necessarily say their performance was terrible, but they had undeniably been completely drowned out by the spectacular, high-stakes duel between Mercedes-Benz and Kai. They had been thoroughly relegated to background extras.
Leclerc ultimately failed to replicate the miracle of Kai's debut last season. You could palpably feel the crushing pressure emanating from the paddock's collective gaze. However, a fifth-place finish was still his career-best result in Formula 1.
Magnussen finally avoided repeating the nightmare of Haas's catastrophic double-DNF from last year. Even though Grosjean retired again, Magnussen withstood the pressure to secure a highly impressive finish. For Haas, it was a bittersweet result—their celebrations were undeniably tinged with deep anxiety.
Then, starting from seventh place downward, the field was entirely lapped. Perez, languishing dead last, had actually been lapped a staggering three times by Bottas—
For motorsport professionals, this specific detail was incredibly significant. Because it meant the performance gap between the 'Big Three' and the rest of the teams... was continuing to widen. Even though a single race wasn't enough to accurately judge the entire season, the massive, insurmountable chasm staring them in the face was becoming increasingly clear.
So, what did this mean?
The 2019 season was highly likely to become severely polarized. The 'Big Three' would be playing their own private, elite game, while the rest of the teams engaged in a pathetic, low-stakes brawl for scraps. For live broadcast ratings, this was terrible news. Especially regarding Mercedes-Benz's W10. The tip of the iceberg they had revealed so far already showed them leaving everyone in the dust. If someone couldn't find a way to entangle and slow them down quickly, the suspense and excitement of the season would be snuffed out almost immediately.
In the end, 'garbage time' would arrive far too early.
Precisely because of this looming threat, the true, immense value of Kai preventing Mercedes-Benz's 1-2 finish was instantly magnified. Even if he only managed to suppress Hamilton to secure second place, it was a profoundly rare and vital achievement. Successfully carrying over his aggressive momentum from last season into the new year, Kai was undoubtedly the most massive, agonizing headache currently plaguing Mercedes-Benz. His threat level now vastly exceeded Verstappen's.
No wonder Wolff had spent the entire off-season obsessively plotting and scheming, desperately trying to bring Kai under his control.
Quietly but surely, the entire paddock was forced to take notice. Kai's weight and status within the sport were increasing, ounce by heavy ounce.
Renault's Hülkenberg in seventh, Alfa Romeo's Räikkönen in eighth, Racing Point's Stroll in ninth, and Toro Rosso's Kvyat in tenth.
Hülkenberg and Räikkönen delivered stable, expected performances. There wasn't much to discuss. But Stroll? Kvyat?
One was a wealthy young master who had literally bought his way onto the grid. The other was a 'nepo-baby' who had parachuted back into a seat—everyone still clearly remembered him being demoted from Red Bull to Toro Rosso before being unceremoniously kicked out of the sport entirely due to consistently terrible performances.
The result? Both drivers not only defeated their highly rated teammates but successfully scored points. Things had instantly become very interesting.
Red Bull's Albon finished eleventh. After being shockingly eliminated in Q1, Albon used the race to showcase his solid stability, finishing just one step outside the points. However, finishing behind a Toro Rosso was undoubtedly a bitter pill to swallow. One could only imagine that this seat was going to feel increasingly like sitting on a bed of nails for Albon moving forward.
McLaren's Norris finished twelfth. In Qualifying, he had suppressed two World Champions (Räikkönen and Vettel) to secure eighth place, instantly igniting the hopes and expectations of countless fans. But entering the actual Race, his fundamental flaws were ultimately exposed. He tragically failed to score any points. Amidst all the hype and discussion, the performances of this year's highly touted rookie class had universally fallen below expectations. In a way, this only served to further highlight just how incredibly rare and impossibly difficult Kai's explosive debut last season truly was.
Racing Point's Vettel finished thirteenth. He had departed Ferrari brimming with ambition and absolute confidence, issuing loud manifestos about fighting for the World Championship. He even ignited a spark of hope during Qualifying. Yet, in the actual Race, he lost to Stroll. The massive, dizzying fluctuations in his performance left everyone with a highly complex, conflicted taste in their mouths. So, was the Racing Point chassis simply too unstable? Or was Vettel's era inevitably, unstoppably slipping through his fingers?
Toro Rosso's Gasly finished fourteenth. He had been practically vibrating with ambition, eager to prove himself and demonstrate that Red Bull choosing Albon was a colossally stupid mistake. Yet, consumed by his own swelling desires, he lost control and was completely crushed by the pressure. For the French driver, it was an absolutely terrible race.
Finally, Alfa Romeo's Giovinazzi finished fifteenth.
Behind him were only the two Williams cars and the three drivers who had retired. In other words, in the eyes of paddock professionals, Giovinazzi was the true, de facto last-place finisher.
Pressure, hope, corporate interests, childhood dreams... the sheer volume of chaotic, intertwined expectations resting on Giovinazzi's shoulders was staggering. Countless Italian motorsport fans had dreamed of the day they would once again see an Italian driver piloting a Ferrari. Right up until the season began, the endless debates surrounding Giovinazzi versus Leclerc remained locked in a stalemate. But now, all the noise and chaos had settled.
Of course, the debate would likely linger for a while longer, considering Leclerc's performance in Melbourne wasn't exactly dominant either. But you could clearly trace the trajectory of those hopes and boiling passions slowly dimming and dying out, exactly like a dream fading into a deep sleep.
To see the big picture through the smallest details. Albert Park wasn't just the season opener. More importantly, through this single race, the thick smokescreens had finally begun to dissipate. The true speed and rhythm of the teams were slowly being revealed. The struggles of drivers adapting to entirely new cars after off-season transfers were finally offering a glimpse beneath the surface.
Using the season opener as a window to peer into the overarching landscape of the entire paddock—assessing the positions of rivals, identifying their own fatal flaws, charting the direction for future upgrades, and formulating strategic deployments... and so on, and so forth. The moment the race concluded, the true, grueling work officially began.
During a Grand Prix weekend, despite the frantic, chaotic scramble where people barely had time to drink water and were still crunching data and tweaking setups in their dreams... strictly speaking, their focus only had to be on the immediate present. Qualifying. The Race. Taking it one step at a time, solving one problem at a time.
No matter how busy they were, the objective was crystal clear, and naturally, the required solutions were also clear.
But now, with the season opener completely finished, every single problem had been violently scattered across the table like a handful of thrown confetti. Review, critique, question. They had to ruthlessly scrutinize every single corner. Moving forward, it wasn't just about solving a single, isolated problem. The 'Band-Aid' approach—treating the head when the head hurts, treating the foot when the foot hurts—was entirely useless. They absolutely had to dig deep, investigate the root causes, and establish a clear, comprehensive framework and strategy for the entire season's upgrades and development. Determining the priority and urgency of different problems, while maintaining a holistic, big-picture layout, was absolutely essential.
The burden is heavy, and the road is long.
Things had instantly become incredibly thorny. It wasn't just a massive volume of work; it was profoundly complex. All the problems that had accumulated over the entire weekend finally found a release valve, erupting simultaneously like an active volcano. A dizzying, overwhelming flood of information poured out, completely destroying all order, exposing glaring vulnerabilities in every conceivable direction.
The slightest lapse in attention, and the situation could spiral completely out of control. The atmosphere in the room instantly became thick, tense, and boiling hot.
Loud, chaotic, and sweltering. The massive, convoluted pile of information jammed together in their brains, creating a confusing, tangled mess. Layer upon layer of overlapping voices echoed against their eardrums in an endless, agonizing loop. It was so intense that their overstuffed heads felt like they were filled with a roaring, deafening hum. Their swollen skulls felt like they were literally about to explode.
Back and forth, each person stubbornly defending their own views. Differing opinions and contradictory viewpoints flew across the room.
Perhaps all the viewpoints were technically correct. But different people were focusing on entirely different problems. The constant barrage of competing opinions continuously dragged the main thread of the discussion wildly off track.
Or perhaps, regarding a single, specific problem, there were five entirely different, passionately argued opinions tangling together, yet absolutely no one was willing to compromise an inch.
The season had only experienced a single race. The data collected was highly limited. Yet the mountain of problems staring them in the face filled an entire basket. Different perspectives yielded entirely different interpretations of the landscape. The chosen angle of attack from different specialized engineering departments could vary drastically. The result was that everything descended into a chaotic, impenetrable fog—
It was a nightmare to articulate.
A massive group of people sat crammed into the conference room, engaged in a vicious brainstorming session. They were completely oblivious to the passage of time. Three hours vanished in the blink of an eye.
Yet, absolutely no one had managed to convince anyone else. The only tangible result was that the pile of unresolved problems on the table continued to grow larger and larger. It felt exactly like a weekly script read-through for Saturday Night Live—
A complete, utter joke.
The SF90's lack of mechanical grip in low and medium-speed corners was significantly worse than last season. The front axle response was heavily delayed. During corner entry, the load on the front tires built up agonizingly slowly. There was severe, glaring understeer during the initial steering phase, requiring the driver to make secondary, or even tertiary, mid-corner corrections.
The aerodynamic platform was highly unstable. The efficiency of the floor and the rear diffuser fluctuated violently whenever the yaw angle changed. The car was exceptionally, dangerously sensitive to crosswinds and dirty air.
During long-run race stints, the thermal degradation of the rear tires was far too rapid. The optimal tire operating window was razor-thin, making the car extraordinarily sensitive to the driver's pacing and rhythm.
Obviously, these were all massive problems. One, two, three critical flaws. But they weren't entirely unsolvable. The difference largely came down to the driver's ability to adapt and physically wrestle the car into submission. This was the fundamental reason behind the massive, glaring discrepancy in Kai and Leclerc's single-lap qualifying pace. Leclerc was still heavily stuck in the adaptation phase with the Ferrari chassis.
The truly laughable, bitterly ironic part of it all was that the car's absolute performance limit was incredibly concentrated. The operational window that allowed the car to function at its peak was terrifyingly narrow.
In other words, even if a driver utilized their immense skill to find the perfect rhythm—maintaining a high-frequency pace throughout the race and finding a highly efficient balancing point through pure driving technique—the car fundamentally could not sustain that peak efficiency for very long. The moment the car was pushed past that razor-thin limit, its performance suffered a catastrophic, cliff-drop collapse—
It wasn't a slow, gradual degradation. It was a violent, vertical freefall from 100 straight down to zero.
This was exactly the terrifying situation Kai had encountered during the latter half of the second variable phase and the first half of the third variable phase at Albert Park. Relying entirely on his personal brilliance, he had wrung the absolute maximum performance out of the car. But the machine simply couldn't sustain that level of extreme output. The performance suffered a catastrophic, cliff-drop collapse. If Kai had stubbornly attempted to keep pushing, the inevitable result would have been a violent crash into the barriers and a DNF.
The massive, terrifying hurdle staring them in the face wasn't just whether the car was fast enough. It was: How long can the car actually sustain its peak performance?
Looking at Qualifying: The SF90's absolute limit was slower than Mercedes-Benz. The problems in low and medium-speed corners were exceptionally severe.
Looking at the Race: The SF90's stability and endurance were an absolute, unmitigated disaster. Both Kai and Leclerc had brilliantly managed to carve out opportunities, but in the crucial final moments, the machine had betrayed the drivers. It had practically disintegrated underneath them.
In other words: they couldn't out-qualify Mercedes, and they couldn't out-race them either. What lay before them was a severely compromised, deeply flawed mess of a car.
So, where exactly should they begin?
Of course, this was an incredibly strict, hyper-critical assessment. If Ferrari was only comparing themselves to Racing Point, Haas, or even Red Bull, the SF90 wasn't that terrible. But the team Ferrari desperately wanted to arm-wrestle wasn't sitting behind them; it was the Mercedes-Benz currently leading the pack. Under that specific lens, the problem was terrifyingly severe.
The gap between them and Mercedes-Benz was likely far more absurd than anyone had imagined.
Information, like a tangled mess of knotted yarn, churned violently in his brain. Binotto could distinctly feel the oxygen levels in the conference room dropping. The buildup of carbon dioxide was making his head spin.
Binotto himself was no exception. Sitting in that chair for three straight hours had left his back aching and his waist screaming in pain. He felt like the muscles in his thighs had completely, solidly calcified.
He physically couldn't move.
And then, cutting through the heavy, sweltering, oppressive air, a clear, bright voice rang out. "Mattia, it's lunchtime!"
Looking over, the source of the voice was none other than Kai, sporting a massive, radiant smile.
Instantly, the entire conference room erupted. People slapped the tables and whistled loudly, enthusiastically echoing his call—
Within the Ferrari organization, whether they were traveling to a race or working back at the Maranello factory, there was one absolute, unbreakable iron law: You never, ever delay mealtime.
No matter how critical the task, no matter how catastrophic the emergency, the moment mealtime arrived, the conference rooms and workshops would be completely, utterly deserted. You wouldn't be able to find a single soul.
Even when Sergio Marchionne visited, it was exactly the same. When it was time to eat, everyone unilaterally migrated to the cafeteria or the break rooms. It was an unshakeable law of nature. Absolutely no one possessed the power to change it. If anyone dared to try and stop an Italian from eating, without a doubt, the entire Maranello organization, from the top executives down to the janitors, would rise up in unified, vocal rebellion.
When it came to eating, they were absolutely, dead serious.
No wonder people always said Italy and China shared numerous cultural similarities. On the subject of "Food is the absolute priority of the people," the two cultures definitely had a lot to bond over.
Today was a slight exception. The massive ambition for the new season violently collided with the catastrophic flaws the car had exposed during the season opener. The entire meeting had been far too intense, far too absorbing. They had completely lost track of themselves. The hours had flown by in a flash, and for a brief, bizarre moment, they had actually forgotten it was time to eat.
Now that Kai had spoken up, he effortlessly garnered unanimous, enthusiastic support. The atmosphere instantly became incredibly lively.
Binotto looked down at his watch. A look of helpless exasperation flashed through his eyes. He waved his hand dismissively. "Let's eat first."
With that single command, the heavy, stagnant air in the conference room finally began to circulate. The sounds of chairs scraping against the floor and people stretching and yawning filled the room.
Kai was no exception. He pulled off his headset, stood up, and stretched lazily. Pushing his chair in, he offered a bright, teasing remark.
"If we sit here any longer, we're going to start incubating eggs."
Leclerc followed closely behind him. The two men walked shoulder-to-shoulder out of the conference room. The lighting in the corridor was significantly softer than inside the room. It felt like they had instantly transitioned from a highly pressurized, high-stress world back into reality. The rigid, tense muscles in their necks and shoulders finally relaxed slightly, sending a wave of numbing soreness through their bodies that made them both wince and bare their teeth.
"Kai, are you serious?" Leclerc seemed to still be immersed in his thoughts. "About the W10? Do you really believe this is Mercedes-Benz's most brilliant design in five years?"
Kai met Leclerc's gaze, his expression entirely serious. "Mm. I'm completely serious."
"Of course, we only have the data from one race right now. We still need to gather significantly more telemetry. But based purely on Albert Park, the W10 is truly a masterpiece. It's not just balanced; it's perfectly rounded. It's fluid, it's light. It possesses an incredible degree of tolerance and adaptability while simultaneously retaining terrifying aggressive potential."
"Did you pay attention to the cornering lines Hamilton and Bottas were taking?"
"They were actively choosing entirely different racing lines based on their own personal styles and habits. What I mean is: entirely different entry angles, entirely different entry timings, entirely different mid-corner lines, and entirely different exit angles. Yet, despite all those massive variations, they were both able to maintain the absolute stability of their single-lap rhythm. Furthermore, when they were modulating their pace during my third stint—whether they were accelerating or decelerating—the overall handling of the car required very little adjustment. The car obeyed their every command effortlessly."
He paused, looking directly at Leclerc. "You know exactly what that means."
Balance. Tolerance.
For years, the core design philosophy Mercedes-Benz had stubbornly adhered to was "Balance." But achieving true balance is incredibly difficult. Therefore, they usually had to make sacrifices and compromises in certain areas, forcing their drivers to constantly adjust their driving styles to adapt to different situations. However, if Kai's assessment was correct, it meant Mercedes-Benz had finally found the absolute, perfect point of equilibrium with the W10. They had designed a car that was as close to perfection as the current regulations allowed.
For the entire paddock—not just Ferrari—this was incredibly, catastrophically bad news.
Leclerc let out a slow breath, his expression grim. He was just about to respond when he stopped. "Ah, my coffee. I left my coffee inside. Give me a second."
Hurriedly, Leclerc turned and jogged back. He was just reaching out to push the conference room door open when the voices drifting from inside froze him dead in his tracks—
This!
"...What the hell does he know?!"
"Exactly. He should fuck off, keep his mouth shut, and just focus on driving the damn car. That's his job."
"When the car performs brilliantly on the track, it's entirely his brilliant driving. But when the car performs terribly, it's entirely our fault. He's incredibly skilled at playing that double standard."
"A driver should just do his own damn job. He has no right standing in here, pointing fingers, and trying to teach us how to do ours."
"Fuck him!"
The Italian profanity was followed by a chorus of mocking laughter. Even though their voices were hushed, they dripped with undisguised contempt and intense frustration. A barrage of even more vulgar Italian curses followed. It was the raw, brutal, unfiltered language of back-alley mechanic shops and street thugs, violently assaulting his eardrums.
Leclerc's right hand, resting on the half-open door, paused. He slowly pulled it back. He felt like he had accidentally stumbled into a forbidden, hostile dimension. Although he was perfectly familiar with the profanities themselves, hearing his and Kai's names attached to them entirely changed the context.
Panic. Hesitation. Deep confusion. Finally, turning around, Leclerc prepared to quietly walk away. He would pretend he hadn't heard anything. He would leave all that toxic chaos trapped behind the wooden door. Avoiding a direct confrontation meant it never happened. But as he turned, Kai's approaching figure instantly filled his entire field of vision.
For no logical reason, panic seized Leclerc's heart—
In the paddock, there was a deeply ingrained, unspoken rule: Never unnecessarily antagonize the engineers. This applied even to World Champions. Hamilton, Alonso, Vettel—there were absolutely no exceptions.
Everyone desperately wanted to be Niki Lauda or Michael Schumacher, commanding absolute authority and possessing an undeniable, booming voice within the technical team. But brutal reality almost always ground them down, forcing them into the suffocating, subservient roles of Rubens Barrichello or Felipe Massa.
Therefore, even though Leclerc was the one who had accidentally caught them viciously gossiping behind their backs, Leclerc was the one fleeing in a panic, entirely lacking the courage to face them head-on.
"Kai!"
Seeing Kai, Leclerc called out anxiously, desperately trying to explain this unspoken paddock rule, but ultimately, he was one step too late.
Smack.
With a gentle push, Kai swung the half-closed conference room door wide open. The cold air from the hallway swirled into the room with a soft howl. The atmosphere instantly froze solid.
The group of engineers inside clearly panicked. Their eyes darted wildly, exchanging frantic, terrified glances. They stammered and fidgeted, entirely unsure of what to do. They looked exactly like people who had just been caught red-handed viciously gossiping about someone behind their back—
No, not "looked like." That was exactly what had just happened.
Kai didn't immediately fly into a violent, screaming rage. Even though furious anger was currently boiling in his veins, the more intense the anger, the more he required absolute, icy calm to handle the situation.
Unhurriedly, methodically, Kai rolled up his sleeves. He flashed a brilliant smile and stepped back into the conference room. Upright, confident, with his head held high, he effortlessly forced every single gaze in the room to focus entirely upon him.
Shuffle, shuffle!
The engineers instinctively began to back away. The guy standing in front of them was Kai. The "Captain" of Ferrari. The man who currently commanded the absolute loyalty of the entire Maranello organization. If he decided to throw caution to the wind and beat them to a bloody pulp right now, they would simply have to take the beating. Absolutely no one in management would care about their complaints or protests.
"Ha." Kai laughed outright. His relaxed, effortless swagger easily seized total control of the room. "Relax. I'm not planning to beat you all to a pulp. And it's definitely not because there are one, two, three... eight, nine of you in here, and I only have two fists and couldn't possibly handle you all."
With a single, teasing joke, the engineers suddenly realized how pathetic they were acting. They vastly outnumbered him, yet they were visibly cowering in fear before him.
"Just a joke... just a joke! Why is everyone acting so incredibly serious?"
Kai spread his hands wide, strolling casually into the center of the conference room. He possessed the exact same dark, magnetic, deeply unsettling aura as the Joker in The Dark Knight. Every casual movement, every subtle gesture effortlessly hijacked all their attention. The silence in the room was so profound you could clearly hear the violent, terrified pounding of their hearts against their ribs.
"Since you all seem to possess such boundless energy and clearly aren't the slightest bit tired, let's just keep going."
"As for eating? You can eat whenever you want. After you're all unemployed and sitting on your couches at home, you can eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner every single day. Hell, you can eat seven meals a day and stuff yourselves until you look like pigs. Nobody will care, right?"
The air instantly froze, becoming dangerously brittle.
Leclerc was burning with anxiety. He looked left, he looked right. He was desperately debating whether he should turn and sprint down the hall to drag Binotto back here. If not Binotto, then Mekies would do. But looking at the situation, there simply wasn't enough time. The standoff in the room was on a hair-trigger, ready to detonate at any microsecond. He absolutely could not leave Kai in there alone.
Finally!
Leclerc took a deep breath. He pulled out his phone, dialed Binotto's number, and without waiting for the call to connect, shoved the phone back into his pocket. He turned around and followed Kai back into the conference room. Clenching his hands into tight fists, he straightened his spine and glared fiercely back at the engineers—
He was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Kai.
Kai noticed the movement. He turned his head, glanced at Leclerc, and let out a soft, amused laugh. The smile on his lips widened slightly, his expression perfectly relaxed.
Currently, in the entire conference room, Kai was likely the only person still capable of remaining genuinely relaxed.
During the off-season, Kai and Ferrari had signed a monumental, earth-shattering contract, absolutely guaranteeing his authority and voice within the technical team.
Specifically, the Veto Power.
However, in Kai's view, the true value of the Veto Power wasn't the ability to actually, physically reject a critical upgrade. Its true value was its psychological deterrence. It was raw political leverage.
Ultimately, Kai and the technical team were not enemies. They were supposed to be comrades-in-arms. They were supposed to be collaborative partners, working in perfect unison to forge a world-beating race car.
He absolutely possessed the legal authority to veto the hard work and dedication of the entire technical team, but they shouldn't be standing on opposite sides of a battlefield. Kai wouldn't—and genuinely didn't want to—use that contractual clause as a blunt weapon, acting like an arrogant tyrant and actively hindering their work.
The so-called Veto Power was merely meant to act as a powerful deterrent, forcing the technical team to sit down at the table and engage in calm, rational, equal dialogue with him. That was it.
After all, at the end of the day, Kai knew perfectly well exactly how much he actually knew. He was still fundamentally an outsider. His understanding of the intensely complex, highly specialized world of Formula 1 engineering was incredibly shallow. Wind tunnel testing? Advanced aerodynamics? He was basically just a tourist looking at pretty pictures. There was still a massive, terrifyingly vast ocean of theoretical motorsport engineering he needed to learn.
Kai's true, underlying intention was to accurately and efficiently translate his physical, visceral sensations on the asphalt to the technical team. He wanted them to break away from their absolute, blind reliance on sterile simulator data and raw numbers. He wanted to find a critical fusion point between computational analysis and actual, physical operation. He wanted theory and practice to violently collide and spark true innovation, ultimately forging a genuinely transcendent race car.
In fact, long before winter testing even began, Kai had already formulated his approach. He planned to proceed gradually, step-by-step. He would use hard facts and concrete data to speak their language. He wanted to give them time to adapt, while simultaneously giving himself time to learn the highly complex intricacies of Formula 1 engineering. He wanted to find a mutually agreeable, highly functional collaborative workflow through a process of continuous, respectful friction and adjustment.
For the past month, Kai had actively thought this way, and he had actively operated this way.
But looking at the situation now, it was glaringly obvious that Kai's judgment had been flawed.
A toxic culture. A deep-seated prejudice. A chronic, systemic disease that was burned deeply into their very marrow, forming a rigid, unyielding behavioral pattern. If he chose the 'gentle, nurturing rain' approach—attempting to slowly accumulate quantitative changes until they eventually sparked a qualitative leap—it would be exactly like water trying to carve through stone. It would require an eternity of time and bottomless patience. But the 2019 season had already officially begun. The brutal challenges staring them in the face were arriving one after another in rapid succession. They simply didn't have the luxury of time to patiently coddle fragile egos.
His initial expectations had been wrong. But that didn't matter. Kai firmly believed that acknowledging your mistakes, accepting them openly, and rapidly adjusting your strategy based on the brutal reality of the situation was the absolute prerequisite for becoming a true, elite driver.
If one strategy fails, instantly switch to another.
Right now, the opportunity was absolutely perfect—
It was a crisis, yes. But if weaponized correctly, it could serve as the ultimate fulcrum to completely shatter the deadlock.
Therefore, Kai wasn't panicking. He wasn't panicking in the slightest. Oh, so they wanted a brutal, head-to-head collision? Fine. Let's see who shatters first.
Throughout the entire Australian Grand Prix weekend, Kai had driven the SF90 on the track for over seven grueling hours. The amount of time he had spent meticulously studying telemetry and data off the track was incalculable. He firmly believed that his intimate, visceral understanding of this specific race car was absolutely not inferior to any engineer standing in this room. The person who needed to be panicking right now was definitely, undeniably not him.
One step. Then another.
Radiating an intensely aggressive, overbearing aura, Kai stopped walking. He planted both hands firmly on the conference table and slowly, methodically swept his gaze across the entire room. He didn't blink, and he didn't look away. One by one, he ensured he made direct, unavoidable eye contact with every single engineer present, using the physical weight of his gaze to transmit his absolute, terrifying resolve and unyielding determination.
Sure enough, under the crushing weight of Kai's stare, these engineers—who usually acted incredibly tough and openly sneered at the drivers—instantly revealed themselves to be nothing more than pathetic paper tigers. They uncomfortably averted their eyes, unable to hold his gaze.
However, it wasn't a total surrender. A few of them looked like they were preparing to open their mouths and violently argue back.
But Kai, as always, struck first. He stared dead straight ahead, his voice cutting through the air like a whip. "No. You've all already had your turn to speak. Right now, it is my turn. So shut your mouths, and listen."