"He ran the optimal tyre window for twenty-eight laps. No one could get close in the final stint."
"Yeah... But, he didn't have me behind him in Bahrain."
The radio went quiet for a while.
Then Anya, brief and clear: "Don't underestimate any of them."
"I'm not," Leo said. "I know exactly what each of them can do."
Leo came through Turn 11.
The fronts hit 87 degrees. The rears followed to 85.
The tyre window was open.
He looked at the main straight stretching out ahead as the formation lap came to its end. The grandstands on both sides full. The finish line approach with the grid positions marked on the track surface — painted numbers on the asphalt, each one sitting in its box, waiting.
His box was at the back of the reversed group.
P10.
He saw the number from two hundred metres out and drove toward it at walking pace. Around him, the other cars were pulling into their positions in sequence. The grid was forming. The formation lap was ending.
