Under the Microscope (Book One of Three)

Chapter 24

It's quite long and yeah, I hope you enjoy. It's where artistic liberty comes into play!

***

The track was finally cleared, and I had eaten, brushed my teeth and stretched all over again, ready to get going once again. Everyone had heard that all the drivers were okay, Zhou had been checked at the medical centre, although Alex had ended up in the hospital after being shunted into the wall and then spun across the track. But we were told that he was in fact, okay. I had also had the opportunity to make clear to my parents that I was in fact absolutely fine and needed to go back on track. My mum had been quite tearful, but I had just ended up pushing her into my dad's chest and shooting him an apologetic shrug as he held her, and I walked away. He understood, my mum...well she tried.

"Radio check," I called after getting situated in the cockpit. Now basically in P8 as Russell and Zhou were now out of the crash. There had been some controversy about reverting back to the original grid order but given that the two cars I overtook were now out, I wasn't too fussed about it.

"Loud and clear, Carter. You'll be starting P8, so make your way to that spot on the grid." Rachel said through the comms.

"Confirm."

With the formation lap completed, I sat on the track, ready to restart the race once again. I stretched my fingers as the last cars got into place and the lights went on one by one.

Crap. My start this time hadn't been as good as the last one, but I kept the position up the straight and into the first couple of turns, right on Alonso's tail. It wasn't long until I was getting attacked by Gasly and Bottas and had to give up my pursuit on Alonso and focus on defending against the two much faster cars. I was still in front, by some miracle and great defending against Bottas and Gasly who were stuck racing each other as well as me. However by lap 10 Bottas had finally overtaken Gasly, and it didn't take him long to pick me off either on the straight in front of the stands. Then Gasly had overtaken me and then Tsunoda, but I was just behind them which meant I took advantage of Tsunoda's badly timed overtaking attempt that took both him and Pierre off the track after they spun and I sped through, largely by myself, back into 9th.

In lap 12 however, I got an unexpected call over the radio.

"Verstappen is pitting, he picked up a puncture in turn 8, please be careful riding the curb in case of debris." Mike came on over the radio.

"Copy. How much time back to Gasly?" I asked back, curious to know if he was out of DRS range. He did look to be but I couldn't quite tell.

"3.7" I breathed a sigh of relief; this should give me more time to make up the distance, especially if he had picked up any damage.

I was in fact lucky, and both Alpha Tauri's seemed to pick up damage and had to pit. Meaning that I was now racing Vettel who was gaining on me. Further, Bottas suffered engine failure and had to retire from the race. Eventually, my tires started to lose grip and I pitted, but came out in front of both Alpha Tauri and was actually P11 with just Vettel and Schumacher and Ocon ahead of me, both of whom still needed to pit, which was going to leave me in competition with Verstappen who had pitted twice already, my one-stop strategy helping me close the gap, along with his damaged floor.

However, Ocon's car had a fault on lap 39 which bought out a safety car. "Can I pit?" I ask over the radio, wondering if I can get a fresh set of tires for the last stint, ideally a set of softs.

"Yes, box, box." Rachel replied just in time, and I came in for a quick change before pulling back out of the pits and maintaining my position, now on soft tires with 12 laps of the race remaining. "Fuel levels are good, the safety car is still in effect, try and make up the gap," Rachel instructed and I pushed the car, within the limits, so that I could catch back up to the pack. Mick and Sebastian hadn't pitted and if they chose to do so under the safety car, it would now bring them out behind me. Two laps later the safety car ends and on my newer, more easily warmed tires I performed a double overtake on Vettel and Schumacher and was even able to create some distance as they competed with one another.