The air in the boardroom of Banning & Associates was thin, filtered through a multi-million-pound HVAC system until it lacked any discernable scent of the outside world. It was a space designed to make men feel small, situated fifty-four floors above the Thames, where the city of London looked like a sprawling, chaotic circuit that no one quite knew how to drive.
Ruben sat at the mahogany table, his hands clasped tightly enough for his knuckles to turn the color of bone. Across from him sat Peter Banning.
Banning didn't look like a man who enjoyed racing. He looked like a man who enjoyed the math of failure. He was draped in a charcoal suit that cost more than a set of Soft-compound Pirellis, and his eyes—a cold, surgical blue—never seemed to blink.
"The optics are poor, Ruben," Banning said, his voice a smooth, dangerous silk. He tapped a silver fountain pen against a stack of financial projections. "APXGP is currently a hole in the ground into which we are pouring eighty million dollars a quarter. The return on investment is, quite frankly, insulting."
"We are building a technical infrastructure from scratch, Peter," Ruben replied, keeping his voice steady despite the hammer of his pulse in his throat. "You don't buy a ticket to the podium. You build the stairs. We've improved our wind-tunnel correlation by twelve percent in the last month alone."
"Correlation doesn't pay the dividend," Banning countered. He slid a tablet across the table. It showed a graph of the team's social media engagement and sponsor retention. Both lines were trending toward the floor. "The 'disruptor' narrative is dead. The market is bored with a team that finishes P18. The Board is moving for a vote of no confidence. They want to sell the entry to the Andreotti group. They'll strip the assets, paint the car red, and we'll walk away with a respectable exit fee."
Ruben felt a surge of cold fury. Respectable exit fee. To men like Banning, the team was an asset. To Ruben, it was a living, breathing organism made of two hundred mechanics, three dozen engineers, and the ghost of a dream.
"I've secured a new lead consultant," Ruben said, playing his only card. "A name that will reset the narrative and bring in the 'legacy' sponsors we've been missing."
Banning arched a groomed eyebrow. "Oh? And who is this savior? Someone from the Red Bull stable?"
"Sonny Hayes."
The silence that followed was heavy. Banning let out a short, dry puff of air that might have been a laugh in a more human man.
"Hayes? The man hasn't seen the inside of a paddock since the millennium. He's a relic, Ruben. A walking obituary. Bringing him in isn't a strategy; it's a cry for help."
"It's a story," Ruben corrected. "The greatest comeback in the history of the sport. A legend returning to finish what he started. I've already had preliminary talks with Expira Tech. They're looking for a face for their 'Endurance' campaign. Sonny is that face. He's the bridge between the glory years and the future."
He was lying about Expira Tech. Or rather, he was "predicting" a reality he hadn't yet secured. But in this room, a lie told with enough conviction was often indistinguishable from a business plan.
Banning leaned back, the leather of his chair creaking. "Hayes is sixty. If he puts that car into a wall—which, given his age and the G-loads of a modern car, is a statistical probability—the liability alone will sink us. The press will call us ghouls for putting a grandfather in a rocket ship."
"He won't be in the car for the races," Ruben lied again, his stomach turning. "He's there for development. To fix the car that Pearce is currently driving into the ground. Once the car is fast, the sponsors follow. Once the sponsors follow, the valuation of the team triples."
Banning looked out the window at the gray shroud of London. He was calculating. Ruben could almost hear the gears turning—risk versus reward, the cost of a lawsuit versus the potential of a billion-dollar valuation.
"Three months," Banning said, turning back.
"I need a season," Ruben pushed.
"You have until the end of the European leg. If APXGP doesn't have a title sponsor and a top-ten finish by the time we leave Monza, I will personally sign the papers for the Andreotti acquisition. And Ruben?" Banning leaned forward, his eyes narrowing. "If Hayes dies on our watch, I will ensure the world knows this was your personal vanity project. I'll leave you with the bill for the funeral."
Ruben stood up. His legs felt heavy, as if he were the one who had just finished a triple-stint at Daytona. "He's not going to die, Peter. He's going to make us relevant again."
"Irrelevance is a mercy in this business," Banning said, already looking down at his next file. "Failure is a public execution. Don't forget which one you're choosing."
Ruben walked out of the boardroom, his shoes clicking on the marble floor. He didn't stop until he reached the elevator. Once the doors slid shut, he leaned his forehead against the cold metal.
He pulled his phone from his pocket and looked at the last message he'd received from Kate McKenna. Josh is melting the rears again. The floor is flexing at high speed. We're blind on the data.
He typed a reply: Hayes arrives Tuesday. Get the seat ready. We're going all in.
He knew he was gambling with more than just money. He was gambling with Sonny's life and Joshua's career. But as the elevator plummeted toward the ground floor, Ruben felt a grim sense of clarity.
In the world of Formula 1, you were either the hammer or the anvil. And Ruben was tired of being struck.