Alice's world began slowing down, the red light lit up one by one as she controlled her breath. Her mind was cleared and she was on high alert, waiting for the lights to extinguish. The lights went out and away goes Alice as she began her qualifying lap.
The BMW M6 GT3 began roaring through the circuits, and the crowd cheered as she sped through the straights. She began positioning her car on the left-hand side of the track and entered the hairpins smoothly, following the ideal line. After turning around the hairpins, Alice got onto the first straight of sector 3.
On the straights, Alice began pushing the pedal to the metal and reached the top speed on her vehicle. Alice glanced at her gauges on the dashboard to monitor the car's top speed. As she got closer to the chicane, she began slowing down and entered the chicane with ease. After exiting the chicane, she pushed the car to its limit and it roared throughout the track. As Alice sped through the straights, Alice got a radio transmission from the manager.
"You're doing well Alice, keep it up!" The manager said to her.
Alice kept silent, trying to maintain her focus on the remaining track ahead. She followed the ideal line and turned into the corner that led up to the final sector. Alice navigated through the twists and turns flawlessly without error. After a few turns, she emerged from the chicane and got back onto sector 1, where she sped through the long straight and crossed the finish line, ending her first lap and unto the second.
"2:13 Alice. You're doing a superb job!" The manager told her.
"How far am I in the leaderboards manager?" Alice asked him in a serious tone.
"You're in 30th place right now. Keep your head down, Alice." The manager said.
"Alright, I'm turning off the radio, I need to focus." Alice told him.
"Understood, contact us back if you need anything, over." The manager told her.
Alice switches off the radio used to communicate with the team. She now has all the focus in the world for the last two laps. It's all on her now to help bring them glory to the team. As Alice continued her race, Sugimoto was in the paddock area, trying to find Ghazali, who had run off from the Akinabalu garage. Sugimoto frantically looked all over the paddock without him in sight, after minutes of searching, he saw him at a fence surrounding the Akinabalu circuit area.
As Sugimoto got closer, he saw Ghazali staring out at a distance, a field filled with green grass as far as the eye could see. Ghazali's glasses shone from the sun as he stood there, quietly. Sugimoto went to stand beside him, Ghazali noticed him and casually fixed his glasses.
"I'm sorry for what happened today Sugimoto, I made a grave error and it compromised your lap time." Ghazalo told him.
Sugimoto looked at him, noticing that Ghazali was filled with guilt as he was the one to be blamed. He felt sympathetic to him, knowing that Ghazali was deeply frustrated with himself for this. There, Sugimoto decides to correlate with him.
"You don't have to beat yourself up Gaz. Don't put your blame on yourself." Sugimoto told him.
"I am supposed to be the team principal. I could've prevented this from happening but I've only made it worse! I got mad at my team despite it being my fault. I am to be blamed for this!" Ghazali frustratedly told.
"Everyone makes mistakes Gaz. It was an honest mistake after all?" Sugimoto told him.
"This was a mistake that could've caused you to be eliminated from the race!" Ghazali argued.
Sugimoto remained silent for a bit, realizing that he could get eliminated from the race if the other competitors did well. But this doesn't deter him.
"So what if I was eliminated from this round? You'd still have another driver who still needs you, a team that relies on your leadership Gaz. Besides we still have a lot to go after this round right?" Sugimoto told him.
