"Sometimes I wonder how humans even invented or discovered these things," Fatih said as he looked at the homework for his Transport Phenomena subject. He thanked God that he had updated his Sponge Brain to the Limit Break level, or else he would have been living in a nightmare trying to keep up with the pace the tutors were setting.

They had accelerated the lessons after seeing how fast he was learning, having gone through all the basic classes for the three fields within two months and passing them all with flying colors.

He was fully enjoying the perks, which were also a nightmare, of having private tutors. He was their only student, so there was no chance of him dozing off or zoning out because the tutors were focused only on him. The better the performance he showed, the more interested and dedicated the tutors became, wanting to see how far he could go with his level of intellect.

"But we have to do it one way or another," he said as he picked up his pen and started on the homework.

And like a hardworking complainer, he went through the homework with complete focus despite complaining about it beforehand. Once he was done, he moved to his maxed-out workstation and started his next assignment, which required him to design a part that would fail in a specific way before it was sent to be manufactured and tested in the real world to see if it would fail in the exact way it was designed to.

"Isn’t there a feature for transferring my work from the simulation to the real world?" he asked, wanting to see the Honda power unit and AlphaTauri’s design, along with the improvements he had made, on the computer.

"There is no such thing," Apollo said as he materialized. He tapped the desktop screen for Fatih to resume his homework before adding, "You just need to be good enough for it not to be a problem," teasing Fatih about the workload he had to go through.

Since the conversation with his mother about whether university or private teachers would be best, he had been studying diligently with the tutors. The workload got heavier after his graduation, as he was now officially out of school and had all the time in the world, at least on weekdays. He had to go to Milton Keynes for simulator work to provide data for the 2021 AlphaTauri car on weekends.

Unfortunately, since the car was yet to be fully assembled, he couldn’t register it in the simulation system yet. The simulator data was giving very optimistic results, though he was mostly looking forward to the pre-season testing.

That would be the first time the actual car rolled onto the track, and only then would they know if their design matched the performance expected from the simulation or if there were some correlation problems.

Everyone on the team expected some to happen, as they had designed the car entirely in the 60% wind tunnel, so they were all mentally preparing themselves to deal with it as fast as possible.

Thanks to the second round of sponsorship money expected to be paid around that time, improvements would not be delayed and could be delivered as soon as they were ready. He hoped the development path he had forced AlphaTauri on through his sponsorship would deliver an actual improvement, or else he would not have a chance to earn their money’s worth.

Last season’s performance wasn’t enough to warrant the amount of money provided, but they were not worried since that money wasn’t spent on the 2020 car. He needed the 2021 car to deliver a good enough performance to repay the sponsorship through exposure.

....

"Okay, let’s have a thirty-minute break," the engineers told Yuki Tsunoda, who was in the simulator. The machine was paused as he needed a break after having been in the car for more than two hours straight.

"Okay," Yuki said before getting out of the simulator, requiring a towel to dry the sweat he had accumulated despite the air conditioning in the room.

Although rookies were expected to work hard in the simulator in preparation for their debut, he was feeling even more pressure. He knew his season was only guaranteed up to the fourth round of the grand prix, and it was the same for Pierre Gasly.

When both of them were signed as drivers for the 2021 season, Red Bull made sure to include a performance clause stating that by the end of the fourth round, one of them would be demoted from a full-time driver to a reserve driver, as Fatih was to replace the underperforming one.

Red Bull, with their usual ruthless and direct way of taking action, didn’t sugarcoat anything. They had made it clear from the get-go that they were only signing Yuki and Gasly because Fatih couldn’t race from the start of the season, so he was being prioritized more than anyone. Besides normal racing, they now had to make sure to beat their teammate points-wise by the end of the fourth round to avoid being replaced. Despite knowing this, the two of them willingly signed the contract because the other option was having no drive at all.

And now, both of them were doing their best to be as ready as possible for when the 2021 race season started on March 27. But for now, he needed to keep preparing as much as possible.

As he took a seat and drank the water he was handed, his mind kept going back to his 2019 F3 year, where he had the chance to go head-to-head with other Red Bull academy drivers: Liam Lawson, Jüri Vips, and Fatih Yıldırım, the one who was set to replace either him or Gasly in the fifth round.

Knowing they were all going to be compared, he had made sure to bring everything he could to stand out among his academy mates, but they all ended up being outperformed by Fatih. He could understand why Red Bull was so keen on securing Fatih that they didn’t even send him to F2.

But no driver would be understanding when their own seat was on the table, so now Yuki needed to do everything he could to retain his, and that meant anything. He knew Gasly was feeling the same, albeit even worse, since he, as an experienced driver who had even driven for the main Red Bull team, was also possibly on the hook.

Worse still, the three of them were expected to work together before the season even started, beginning with the unveiling of the car in Salzburg, Austria. They would be recording the unveiling of their 2021 car together, and he couldn’t help but dread the day as it came closer.