Chapter 365: Chapter 365: Happy New Year
It took the family office two entire weeks to go through Fatih’s sponsorship request for AlphaTauri before finally reaching out to them as representatives for Helios. The team was more than happy to accept it, since no cash would come from their own funds, but rather from the billion-dollar cash infusion Helios had received a few weeks ago to accelerate its development.
Their attempt was met with enthusiasm, as it was like water in a desert. Many other major sponsors who were regulars in F1 were currently pulling back their funding to reduce expenses, and midfield teams like AlphaTauri were the most affected. They were welcomed very warmly by Red Bull GmbH, the parent company that controlled the commercial rights and sponsorships for both teams.
Christian Horner, as the CEO of Red Bull Technologies, and Helmut, as the representative of Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz, started the negotiation process.
Thanks to the freezing of the F1 season, along with the development freeze order from the FIA, teams weren’t allowed to do any development on the car until further orders were given. Negotiations that would have taken months were completed in a matter of weeks since the two leading the negotiations were not traveling and dealing with matters related to an active racing season, so things moved very rapidly.
During the initial phase of negotiations, AlphaTauri and its team principals were kept out of the room and were only brought in when the amount was finalized and the main conditions were put in place. They tried to push back on some conditions for development freedom, but were immediately overridden by Red Bull under the argument that the thirty million dollars that would be infused would save them from financial troubles this season. After about a week of additional fine-tuning, the contract was signed at the end of April before the announcement finally went out.
[SCUDERIA ALPHATAURI ANNOUNCES GROUNDBREAKING TWO-YEAR TITLE PARTNERSHIP WITH TECH DISRUPTOR HELIOS]
FAENZA, Italy. April 24, 2020
Scuderia AlphaTauri has today announced a major multi-year title partnership with Helios, the high-performance computing infrastructure and software acceleration platform. Effective immediately, the team will compete under the official name Helios AlphaTauri for the upcoming 2020 and 2021 Formula One World Championships.
The landmark agreement provides an immediate injection of capital and technical infrastructure during a period of unprecedented global economic uncertainty. While the current 2020 F1 season remains on hold due to global factory shutdowns, the alliance secures the long-term financial and competitive future of the Faenza-based squad.
Beyond branding, the partnership centers on a deep technical integration. Helios, a prominent developer of advanced software compilation architectures designed to rival legacy systems like NVIDIA’s CUDA, will deploy its compute ecosyste...
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Fatih had his hands in the air, celebrating the deal going through. His biggest worry was the vote needed for a mid-season team name change, and they were even ready to remove the 2020 name change if it had failed. Thankfully, both the FIA and the ten teams knew that teams were in a monetary bind, so it was unanimously approved. The fifty-million-dollar, two-season title sponsorship went through.
With the conditions agreed upon in the contract, Fatih couldn’t help but feel excited and look forward to the upcoming season. He knew he now had more reason to perform well since his mother had sunk fifty million dollars into this over a two-year period, with thirty million already paid the moment the contract was signed.
She had managed to get even more than he had initially suggested. His mother used the same amount of money to expand the deal, so instead of remaining just a title partner, they were now also a technical partner. Helios AlphaTauri would be moving to Helios’s software on their GPUs, replacing CUDA. They would run CFD and other simulations with the Helios program as the base software.
Seraphina, who had just read the article, rushed from upstairs, jumping down the stairs as fast as possible before leaping onto Fatih. He managed to hold her as if she weighed nothing, his eyes shining as he had made another step toward achieving his dream, along with the greed of winning that came with it.
"You can win next year," Seraphina said, having been briefed on the situation when she overheard them talking about it.
She was among the very few people who knew just how much F1 meant to him, and she was as happy as if she were the one who had received the good news.
Now that the contract is signed and the first round of payments delivered, AlphaTauri will be hiring new aerodynamic engineers and CFD specialists. They would start the move to the 60% wind tunnel in Bedford the moment the work freeze order was lifted and begin working on the 2021 car under the specific conditions that were now notarized in the partnership contract.
On his side, all he needed to do was visit Milton Keynes for simulator sessions to help develop the 2021 car for AlphaTauri, where their shared, multi-million-dollar simulator existed.
Fatih had done everything in his power to ensure the foundation was as robust as possible. Now, all that was left was for AlphaTauri’s engineers to give their all in developing the best 2021 car possible based on their resources.
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10... 9.... 8.... 7..... 6..... 5... 4... 3..... 2..... 1... HAPPY NEW YEAR!
The year 2021 had finally arrived, and Fatih celebrated its arrival with his family.
His grandmother hugged him as she said, "Happy New Year," before he said the same back.
He then moved to Burak, his stepfather, hugging him, and they wished each other a good new year. Finally, he moved to his mother, hugging her carefully as she was four months along in her pregnancy, making sure to leave her room to breathe as he didn’t want to harm his unborn siblings.
She was expecting twins, a boy and a girl, and Fatih was looking forward to their arrival as much as he was looking forward to his F1 debut. As fate would have it, they were expected to arrive within the same month, if everything went according to plan.