Apex

A/N - For those who might have seen this title in this category and thought 'Chapter Four?' the first three are found in another category (Incest). Each chapter from here on out will focus on two or three races in particular from each season. The idea is that at least one of the races will focus on the category this chapter has been submitted to.

Nearly every other story I've written for this category previously would probably be classified as a Mature / Romance. As I won't be introducing a full-on romance anytime soon, I'd classify this as Mature / Erotic Couplings.

Australian / British standard English. There is a good chance of reading the following: lots of profanity, characters drinking, typos, and bad grammar at times.

Proofreading and editing suggestions provided by OhDave1. Any mistakes are still mine.

Comments are appreciated as always.

Feedback by email is always welcome. Enjoy chatting with anyone who likes my work.

*****

Rookie season. Getting to grips with the big show.

*****

Testing had gone well. It helped that I'd spent the past two years testing occasionally for the team so even though I would be considered a rookie, having never competed in a Formula One grand prix before, I would enter the season having spent plenty of time in the cockpit of a Formula One car.

Testing began in February with my teammate and I putting in plenty of laps at Imola before we joined the rest of the teams in Spain, spending a week at Jerez, before the teams packed up and moved west into Portugal to spend a week testing at Estoril. By the end of testing, Minardi were in their usual position of knowing we'd be in the midfield. Depending on the circuit, we'd either be on the edges of the top ten or mired down near the back of the grid.

Flying out to South Africa for the first grand prix of the season, I flew with the team, my teammate, and the flight also had a few other drivers on the grid. Mum was with me as I knew that she'd likely be with me for every race, at least during my first season. Pierluigi Martini, my teammate, was happily married, and his wife was next to him.

We arrived on Tuesday, a couple of days before the first practice and qualifying sessions that would begin on Friday. Being one of only a couple of rookies on the grid, I relaxed on Wednesday at the hotel before I ventured to the track on Thursday with the team. The mechanics were busy preparing the cars for action on Friday. I spent time walking up and down the pitlane, watching other mechanics busy at work. Quite a few drivers were around and many were friendly, walking up and introducing themselves, shaking hands and many were curious as to how I was feeling.

Thursday was also my first time to speak to the assembled media. The drivers for Lotus, McLaren, Ferrari and Renault received most of the questions, but a couple of Italian journalists, and the lone Australian journalist, asked me questions about how I was feeling. I admitted to a little nerves but also excitement at finally being a Formula One driver, and I was looking forward to qualifying and then the race.

"Nervous?" Giancarlo asked as I joined the team for breakfast on Friday morning.

"I think I surprised even myself by getting a good night's sleep," I replied.

"Remember. The practice session is about setting up the car for qualifying and the race," Fabrizio stated, "All we want you to do is go out and set a couple of fast laps, come back to the pits, give us your feedback and we'll make the necessary changes before we'll send you out again."

Giancarlo cleared his throat. "Marco, all we want from you this weekend is to qualify for the race. Don't think for a second that you're going to get close to the McLaren's, Lotus, Ferrari's, Renault's, Brabham's... Even the likes of Ligier and Tyrrell might be ahead of us this weekend."

"Our battle will be against the likes of Arrows, Eagle, Cooper, while we should be ahead of the March's and BRM's," Pierluigi added, "And the likes of Osella, Coloni and Ensign probably won't come close to qualifying anyway."

"I don't care if you end up twenty-sixth by 3pm on Saturday, Marco," Giancarlo added, "As long as you're on the grid for your first race, we'll be happy. If you can get within a couple of tenths of Pierluigi, we'd be delighted."

We arrived at Kyalami an hour or so later, getting to the circuit rather early as I headed to the motorhome with Pierluigi to start suiting up. It was in those last few minutes before the practice session was to start that I felt a touch of nerves yet again, watching my teammate as he was busy joking around with his mechanics. I knew he had the same team of mechanics that he'd had for the past couple of years.

Putting on my balaclava and helmet, I walked around the car to shake the hand of each mechanic, and they had me smiling as they were confident in what I could do. Getting into the cockpit, I shuffled around until I felt comfortable, and a mechanic handed me the steering wheel to put that in place.

"Radio check. One, two, three. You hear me, Marco?"

Gabriele asked. He was my head mechanic and would be positioned on the pit wall during each practice and qualifying session and for the race.

"Copy, Gabriele. I hear you."

"

Good. Out lap to test everything and return to the pits."

"Copy that. Out lap, return to pits."

The Kyalami circuit is fast. Very fast. A very simple design, with only nine corners at most, a Formula One car can get around the track in a little under seventy seconds. Exiting the pits, the track heads downhill into the first corner, a right turn at Crowthorne. Then it's a blast through the right-hand sweeper at Barbeque Bend before a left turn named Jukskie Sweep. Brake slightly for the right turn at Sunset before the first proper braking of the lap, and left turn at Clubhouse. Turn six is left, turn seven is right, called the Esses, before a sharp right turn at Leeukop. Then it's up the hill towards the right-hand kink called 'The Kink' before it's blasting over the finish line and down the hill again.

The team asked me to do three installation laps to make sure everything was in working order before they changed the tyres and sent me out to set a lap-time and get some experience with the track. I'd never been to Kyalami before, and the first four races were all outside of Europe, meaning that I'd be on the back foot due to a lack of experience driving around them.

There is one practice session on Friday morning and one practice session on Saturday morning, each lasting ninety minutes, before a qualifying session on Friday and Saturday afternoon, lasting sixty minutes. At the end of ninety minutes on Friday, I'd put in close to thirty laps. I wasn't particularly quick, mired down in around twentieth place, about where the team expected.

Pierluigi and I sat down with the engineers after the practice session for a debrief, feeding back what we'd been feeling during the session. Pierluigi had done well, on the edges of the top ten. Given the elevation of the Kyalami circuit, there was no real surprise to see all the turbocharged cars at the top of the time sheets.

Also no surprise that both Renault's had blown up once and the Brabham-BMW was also notoriously unreliable at times. Ferrari had reverted from a turbo to a naturally aspirated V12, matching our Lamborghini, the Matra in the back of the Ligier and Weslake in the back of the Eagle.

Cars powered by the venerable Ford Cosworth V8 were allowed ground effects as the sports government body sought a balance of performance between the turbo cars and the non-turbo cars. Ground effects technology had improved, doing away with the old sliding skirts which proved rather dangerous when they failed. Ground effects now relied on venturi tunnels underneath the chassis that sucked the car to the track and didn't bring drivers to near exhaustion because of it.

After lunch, it was back into the garage for the start of the Friday qualifying session. Most of the practice session had been about finding a set-up good enough for qualifying and the race. Each qualifying session saw each driver given twelve laps to set a time. Most drivers would be following the same patter. An out-lap, a fast lap and an in-lap, four times each.

Once the green light was on at the end of the pitlane, the mechanics attached four sticky, soft qualifying tyres and sent me out onto the track. The out-lap was all about keeping tyre temperature, building brake temperature, and making sure everything else was working before I had the car flying out of Leeukop towards The Kink to start my first qualifying lap in Formula One.

It wasn't a perfect lap. I didn't miss any shifts. Didn't miss an apex. But I finished the lap knowing that I could have done better. Drivers are constantly striving for perfection. I was rarely completely happy with how things went, even when I was winning races in Formula Three or Formula Two. I always wanted more. Every driver wanted more.

Returning to the pits, my mechanics had me smiling when they gave me a thumbs up while wheeling me back into the garage.

"Marco, that was your fastest lap of the weekend so far. If we applied to qualifying for last year, you'd be eighteenth."

"So it was okay?"

"Very okay. Anything need changing?"

"Slight understeer through left turns. Nothing I couldn't handle. Worried about hitting rev-limiter if I were to get a good slipstream."

"Copy and understood. We'll send you out for another run in ten minutes. We had you following Pierluigi this morning in practice. We'll try and send you out so you can follow him again. Might give you a slight slipstream at the same time."

"Gabriele... The thing is fast... I mean the power from this engine... I know I've been testing, but I really thought the thin air would make it worse..."

"We've spoken to Lamborghini about a turbo. They have no interest, and given the unreliability, we'd prefer to stick with this. Kyalami and Hermanos Rodriguez will be difficult due to elevation. Once the turbos are up and running, we expect them to dominate."

My next three-lap run - out-lap, qualifying lap, in-lap - was spent following Pierluigi closely enough that I felt a slight slipstream effect down the main straight but was far enough back that I wasn't overly bothered through the corners. It ended up being only a tenth or so quicker than my first lap, but as the track rubbered in, the times would start to tumble.

Returning to the pits, I remained in my car as I watched the qualifying session continue while maintaining an eye on the times and my position. It was no surprise to see the likes of Jim Clark in the Lotus and Ayrton Senna in the McLaren already near the top of the sheets. Even though the Lotus was powered by the Ford Cosworth V8, Clark was just that good. The Renault's and Brabham's were also up the front thanks to their turbo engines.

By the end of the sixty-minute session, I'd used up all twelve laps like nearly every other driver and was provisionally twenty-first on the grid. There were two other rookies that I knew rather well on the grid. Jean Alesi was driving an Eagle-Weslake after spending a year driving in the World Sportscar Championship for Peugeot. And Andrea de Cesaris was driving for Arrows-Ford. Alesi was ahead of me by two places while de Cesaris was twenty-sixth and would be worried about not qualifying if he didn't improve his time on Saturday.

After the usual post-session debrief, I returned to the hotel with Mum. While I was driving us along, she smiled at me. "You were very good, Mark," she stated, "And I heard many positive comments from the team."

"Just as long as I don't bin it," I replied, "That's my only concern. Don't want a reputation as someone who crashes a lot. Then again, Enzo Ferrari always said that a driver who doesn't crash isn't trying hard enough. He'd rather have a fast driver who occasionally bins it rather than a slow driver who can't improve."

"Has Giancarlo mentioned hiring any sort of assistant for you?"

"No. Why?"

"Given how busy you're going to be, and the requirements regarding your fitness, training regime, diet and everything else, I was thinking that perhaps you should have someone help you with all that."

"I wouldn't even know where to begin. I know Pierluigi relies on his wife for a lot of things. You've seen her. She's a fitness fanatic herself."

"And she's beautiful. I'd expect nothing less from an Italian though."

"And I'm not going to ask you to do that, Mum. You've got your own career to think about."

"Would you like me to look into it though?"

"Sure. It would be nice to have someone other than yourself to help me with everything. At least there's a gym near to the apartment."

"One thing, Mark. I'll make sure that she's single so she can live with you." I gave Mum a look as she chuckled. "No, I'm not setting you up like that though maybe if she can also do massages, she can focus on massaging particular things..."

"You're incorrigible, Mum," I stated, taking her hand in mine, "Are you okay with how things are now?"

"Yes and no. I miss you being with me at the apartment. It's a little lonely. But now that part of our relationship is over, it's allowing me to spread my wings and perhaps focus on finding someone else."

"Any luck?"

"Quite a few middle-aged women who are keen to meet a woman like me. I wouldn't mind having a girlfriend in the end." She squeezed my hand. "Have you heard from Adriana lately?"

"We speak at least once a week. She told me that she'd come and visit me in Bologna once the circus is back in Europe. She was meaning to come and visit before I was testing but she's rather busy herself."

"Still single?"

"She is." I gave her a look. "She was my tutor, Mum. It'll be a little weird despite the fact my crush on her was probably obvious to everyone. I'm a little older and more realistic about things now."

"Would you say no?"

I snorted which made Mum laugh. "Of course not. But I also know she can't really handle what I do for a living. She admitted more than once that she loves the racing but couldn't handle the thought of being involved with someone who goes racing with the knowledge that they might be dead by the end of the weekend."

"Will she be attending the Italian Grand Prix later this year?"

"Giancarlo has already promised me that she can come into the paddock."

"Hmmm... I might give that weekend a miss then. Let you spend time with Adriana. And I'll get started on looking for someone to assist you when I'm back in London on Tuesday."

The Saturday morning practice session was about setting the car up for the race while making some minor changes for the later second qualifying session. Practice went well enough, just putting in the laps to gain more data and giving feedback to my race engineer and the mechanics to get a better race set-up.

The Saturday afternoon qualifying session would see times getting quicker and the top drivers laying down markers. I knew Pierluigi was hoping to crack the top ten if possible though the more realistic position would be around twelfth to fifteenth. My first two qualifying laps were quick enough, and were faster than the previous day, though due to the improvements of all the other drivers, my position didn't change.

With ten minutes to go, that's when the big names would head out for one last banzai lap in an effort to take pole position. Jim Clark in his Lotus. Ayrton Senna in his McLaren. Gilles Villeneuve in his Ferrari. Alain Prost and Rene Arnoux in their Renaults. Nelson Piquet in his Brabham. Even the likes of Jacques Laffite in his Ligier, and Nigel Mansell and Keke Rosberg in their Williams might trouble the front-runners.

Given the names and cars now roaring around the track, it felt like I had to spend more time glancing into my mirrors as I didn't want to get in the way. The track was wide enough to pass, but no one wanted to get in the way of Jim Clark on a qualifying lap.

When the chequered flag was flown, Clark was on pole yet again. Villeneuve was next to him on the grid, with the two Renaults behind them on the second row. As for Minardi, Pierluigi was fourteenth on the grid while I was down in twenty-first. What made me smile was the fact my race engineer and all my mechanics were pleased with my efforts. Even Giancarlo came on the radio at the conclusion of the session to congratulate me on qualifying for my first race.

"Big day tomorrow," Mum stated as we had dinner at the hotel that evening, "Nervous?"

"A little bit, I guess. But I've just got to remember that it's no difference to driving in Formula Three or Formula Two. It's just the cars are bigger and faster, all the drivers are bloody good, and the race is going to be shown live around the world."

Arriving at the track early the next morning, there was a half-hour 'warm up' rather early as it was the last chance for drivers to make adjustments to their set-up, otherwise it was just a good excuse to get behind the wheel and drive a few laps. It was also the worst time a driver could have an accident, as although there was a spare car, a driver wouldn't particularly want to use it as we'd spent all weekend setting up our race car.

The times were not particularly important, and once the warm-up session was finished, it was time to rest and relax before the start of the race. There were a couple of local series that provided some entertainment between the warm-up session and the race. I spent most of the time in the motorhome alone, hearing Pierluigi with his wife in the other small room. They were talking quietly and I did my best not to listen in to their conversation.

With half an hour to the start of the race, I got ready. Fireproof underwear. Fireproof racing suit. Fireproof boots that were also very grippy so my feet didn't slip off the pedals. Fireproof gloves that I'd put on once I was ready to leave the garage. Fireproof balaclava and my helmet. My race engineer was waiting for me outside, going over some last-minute details as we walked into the garage. The mechanics were busy putting the finishing touches to my car.

Hearing the engine fire up once I was settled in the cockpit, I lowered my visor and waited for one of the mechanics to give me the signal that it was safe to depart. Once he did, I put the car into first and accelerated out into the pitlane. It was an exploratory lap onto the grid, not needing to pass through the pitlane again for another reconnaissance lap.

The grid was busy. I didn't have to drive too far considering how far down the grid I was. It was interesting as I got out of the car and watched other cars drive by. Gorgeous women held up signs that stated the name of each driver and their number. Pierluigi was number twenty-three, and I was number twenty-four. Once the five-minute board was shown at the front of the grid, it was time to get into the car again. The mechanics all shook my hand before the countdown began. Two minutes to go and the remaining mechanics had to leave the grid.

Twenty-six Formula One cars accelerating away from the grid on the formation lap is one hell of a sound. As I followed the car in front, I weaved about to keep heat in the tyres, braking every so often to make sure they were nice and hot for the start. Pulling up into my grid spot, I waited for the red lights to come on. Engaging first gear, I let the revs build until the green light appeared.

Nearly every driver reacts at the same time. We're talking a matter of thousandths of a second. The noise was terrific even with ear buds to help diminish at least some of the noise considering the Lamborghini V12 that I was sitting inches away from made a tremendous sound. Heading down the hill towards the first corner, I jinked left and right, looking for a gap, braking as late as I dared, exiting the first turn in the belief that I may have passed at least a couple of cars.