My Formula 1 System

"WOOOOHHHHHHH!"

In the cockpit of the Outback Red Bull, Luis Dreyer was flumped in pain. He struggled to breathe, weary of every new pain that coursed through his ribs with every inhalation. The impact throbbing through the carbon shell around him translated to his very own body, pounding his head with a severe headache and throwing him into unrecoverable disorientation.

'Ah, gosh! Fuck, damn. I crashed!'

**Luis, talk to me. Are you okay? Can you hear me?**

Dreyer nodded vigorously in pain as if something was bothering him. His head was spinning as he muttered incoherent replies back to his panicked team.

**Copy that, just stay still, mate. Medics's on their way. Car's done, we're retiring. You're safe, okay?**

From the outside, Dreyer's car was a crumpled piece of machinery at its front. The nose was badly crushed into a wide barrier pole at T14 that stood unyieldingly between the sibling corners. After thriving and flourishing for 15 laps in the Monaco Grand Prix, the Red Bull was now lifeless, front wing splintered, and the chassis wedged against the dense steel that ended its impressive run.

Atop the residential building—the house that Dreyer's crash faced—the occupants were awed, astonished, and snapped photos of his wreckage. The rest of the crowd throughout the long stretch of streets and roads erupted through the night.

XXX— Luis Dreyer

"...and we can now confirm, that's Luis Dreyer in the wall at Turn 14! My word—T14 is not a place you want to end your night. The third sector has ended more races than we can count, and the angle he's gone in at—straight on—is a nasty one. The medical team is already on the scene…"

"WOOOOHHHHH!"

"...what a run through T13! Dreyer tries to thread the needle between Moireach on the inside and Rennick on the outside! Two cars already locked in their own dogfight and he tries to wedge through... they squeeze him, nowhere to go…."

"...Dreyer loses his front by the time they've cleared the bend. Straight into the Tecpo pole he goes…!"

"....That's the danger here in Monaco—one mistake, one optimistic move at the wrong moment, and the walls aren't forgiving. The Spaniard is lucky to be talking to his team right now..."

What could Outback Performance say? Everyone in the community always expects the Monaco Grand Prix to produce its share of DNFs, given the circuit's unforgiving nature, narrow lanes, blind corners, and absolute lack of room for error.

They had races in circuits in the F1 calendar where one mistake, either yours or a rival's, could end your race in an instant. The Monaco Grand Prix and Stellar ranked themselves high on this list.

So, every team and driver understood it could be any of them who would fail to finish or walk out with deficient points. The job was to go in with caution, attempt, execute your very best, and walk out with how fate might choose to have it.

Although racing was a gamble, the Australian team couldn't hide their disappointment that their main driver had suffered his first DNF of the season after such a strong run so far.

This result would surely put their grip on fourth place in the standings in jeopardy. With Jimmy Damgaard of Velocità now charging forward in a supercar that looked unstoppable, the pressure was mounting. Unless fate intervened and the season delivered fewer to no more accidents like this one, Outback Performance knew their precious position could slip away just as quickly as it had been claimed.

[Silent Restore +1]

[SYNC BAR: [][][][] 12.5%]

"Holy fuck…"

**Copy that, Luca, any control issues?**

Mr. Ruben steadfastly asked when he heard Luca huff a cuss over the radio. But Luca immediately dismissed it. Perhaps it was the usual snorts and swear words from drivers while racing.

"No, it's fine, I'm recovering. Just… stunned by the crash."

**Alright, you're good to go. Minor scrape on the wing, nothing major. Red flag for Luis, too. Enough time**

"Got it."

Luca stole a glance at his system display to study the schematic of the Z24. His focus was on the left side of the front wing. There, he could see the handiwork of Silent Restore after he had just received appreciable grazing damage because of Dreyer and Moireach.

On the grid layout, the damaged spot now gleamed light green when it was pale pink moments before. It wasn't fully perfect now because Silent Restore hadn't yet been mastered to its peak, but it was past the threshold of worry, and was comfortably at optimal performance margins.

'Just… wow.'

Approaching the fast left of T13, Luca had Luis Dreyer in his mirrors while battling for asphalt supremacy with Ailbeart Moireach. It wasn't the first time this season Luca had gone side-by-side with the Haddock Racing driver, and he knew it wouldn't be the last.

But one thing he'd learned was to limit Side-by-Side King's use in order to prevent his own vanquish. On a slim, narrow track like Circuit de l'Étoile, Luca wasn't even taking his chances.

The duo—Luca and Ailbeart—elbowed themselves through the streets, keeping a thin line between throttle and finesse. Since both drivers rivalled each other in those categories, it was a spectacle of a duo to witness under fluorescence and dazzles.

However, there was Luis Dreyer pestering their flow from behind, eager to find an opening not only between them, but also through Stellar's narrow lanes in order to seal the double overtake and get ahead of the two powerhouses.

The trio, now compressed by the corner sequence's narrow exit line, had to commit or defend like never before. The bottleneck gave room for three possible cars—the spot for your pivotal move—but the exit didn't tolerate competition in the slightest.

Luis Dreyer was moving faster than the three. Supported strongly by his team, Dreyer made the move for a potential double overtake. Instead of gunning for the inside line, which Ailbeart held, Dreyer left the right and dived straight in between both rivals!

An unexpected move from the Spaniard, a move Luca didn't expect, and a move that could have also favoured Dreyer perfectly if he had executed it right.

scrappp!

Luca heard the scrape when he yanked the wheel right to get out of the way of the mad charge splitting him and Moireach in two.

Dreyer's nose had wedged into the vanishing space between them, and in that shuffle of inches, Luca's left front bit hard against a jut in the barriers.

It was one step complete for Dreyer, but being wedged between both drivers gave him a blind spot to the moment of turn curvature, leaving only the apex ahead to guide his assessment.

Luca never had to worry about blind spots like Dreyer because he had the track's structural layout streaming live across his system display. He also had Night Mastery skill maxed, giving him vision as clear as day during this Monaco Grand Prix.

With this, he had no hesitation in abandoning Dreyer's line and also the deathly spot the Spaniard had squeezed him into.

Reading the moment with the practiced precision of countless simulations, Luca cut in sharply behind his green rival, syncing his movement with Ailbeart Moireach, who was at the inside lane.

It was a smooth arc as both Luca and Ailbeart Moireach abandoned Luis Dreyer in a jiffy. The Z24 dove herself into T15, chasing after the R.S.25, and leaving the Red Bull running towards a blockade.

Dreyer's realization of his danger came too late, but his reaction to it was commendably fast and sharp. With a sudden swerve, he narrowly avoided the looming barriers, forcing the car into a desperate drift that was almost fully sideways just to complete the belated turn.

But fate, or perhaps cruel track design, had other plans, for just beyond the saved moment stood the wide pole, solid and perfectly positioned as if waiting all race for his arrival.

A few laps after Dreyer's crash, there were growing murmurs that pointed fingers at the track's questionable layout. Many argued that the pole's positioning, along with several other oddly placed structures around the circuit, posed unnecessary hazards, turning minor mistakes into race-ending incidents.

But that was a camera pole, and there were many more scattered across the 6 km stretch, alongside slimmer ones like the street-light poles that bathed the track in light for night events, and marker poles that signaled sector splits and distance markers to both drivers and marshals.

They were all essential for a circuit like Stellar, whose combination of high-speed straights and blind technical corners demanded constant visibility, timing precision, and broadcast clarity.

Not because one pole was just there that the FIA might begin to consider a revamp of Circuit de l'Étoile with Monaco. The camera pole was simply where no driver ever wanted to meet it, that's all.

"....And that's a tough retirement here in Monaco for Luis Dreyer, ending what could've been a promising night. It's a cruel reminder to the rest of the field that while the walls are the obvious enemies here, it's the track's hidden traps that demand just as much respect. The red flags are away, marshals have cleared the scene, and the race resumes under green..."