"I’m Eve, your assigned press officer and guide for the day to get you the hang of everything, and this is Gerald, our security," Eve said the moment Fatih boarded the tender from the Monte Carlo Hotel to take them to the docked Red Bull Energy Station, as no one could get to the track by car due to the closures.
"Fatih Yıldırım; my father, Burak; my manager, Elena; and Alex, my on-track manager who deals with everything," Fatih said, introducing his group one by one as they exchanged handshakes.
His performance engineer was provided by the team, so he had traveled back to Monaco along with his race engineer and chief mechanic on Sunday evening, the moment the session was over, to join the rest of the team. They were not among his entourage.
"As you requested, we will start with a track walk a few minutes after we arrive. Other drivers did it yesterday, but the track will still be clear and locked for us to do it. After that, we will return for refreshments and rest for half an hour before we start the team briefings.
Then we’ll head for broadcast production at the FIA TV compound to do a recording to be used for TV graphics and animations. Then, another half an hour for a photo session to be used for graphics, the timing screen, and other in-app uses.
We will then move to team content, then merchandise signing, before heading to the FIA Media Pen at 3:30 PM, where we will spend about forty-five minutes, followed by a 15-minute break before we take a written press roundtable for half an hour.
Then we’ll head for the official FIA press conference, where you will share the stage with Max Verstappen and Pierre Gasly for a half-hour press conference. After that, there will be a final evening debrief, and our day will be over," Eve said, finally taking a deep breath after rattling all of those off one after another from memory.
"That is everything. Do you have any questions?" she asked, as Fatih just kept nodding and not saying anything else, as if he thought she was not done.
"Can we move the signing and team content to after the track walk? That way, we can use that period to rest and recollect ourselves," Fatih asked once he was done taking a mental note of the entire schedule for his day.
"I will talk with the relevant individuals to see if it is possible and get back to you on that," Eve said.
"Thank you in advance," Fatih said before he turned to look at the sea.
While Fatih was enjoying the view, Alex immediately struck up a conversation with Eve, trying to learn as many things as possible so he could do his job, which Eve was currently doing temporarily.
A few minutes later, the tender arrived at the Red Bull Energy Station. As Fatih and his group boarded, the photographers who had been camping out early to get a picture of him as an official F1 driver started taking an avalanche of photos. Fatih waved at them with a smile on his face before entering the Energy Station.
After greeting those who were present at that time, he was finally handed a team shirt to change into. Yesterday, their arrival time was too late for the team to hand it to him, and Fatih finally donned the yellow AlphaTauri team shirt, the one his mother was currently sponsoring.
Following that, he and his group had a light breakfast before Fatih left with Alex, Eve, James, Lisa, Gerald, and a few mechanics from the Energy Station as they headed to start their walk around the track for Fatih to familiarize himself with it.
Having already driven the track in the simulation more than ten thousand laps, he could say he knew the track like the back of his hand, but he still wanted to have the feel of it in the real world, putting his INVICTUS at Limit Break to work during the walk, feeling the track under him.
He looked for all the bumps and their size, recording all of them in his mind, which was important since F1 cars ride only a few millimeters off the ground; even a single bump in a braking zone can bottom out the car and cause many problems.
He measured the kerbs to see if they were at the same height as the ones in the simulation, and without surprise, they were.
One by one, he went through the checks of the track as they went around, visualizing where he was going to drive, where he was going to brake, and what his racing line was going to be. He mentally ported all the driving he had done on this track in the simulation to the point where he could even see the car in ghost mode following those lines.
Since he was just doing final correlation checks, it only took them forty-five minutes, what usually took other drivers more than an hour when walking was taken into consideration, before they finally returned to the Energy Station.
Eve, having already asked the in-house media team for their availability and received a positive response that they could do the shooting early, resulted in Fatih only resting for ten minutes before spending half an hour shooting different content for different social media accounts of the team. After that, he finally moved to the signing of the team’s merchandise, which, thanks to having already practiced his signature and excellent dexterity, he managed to sign very fast while keeping his signature consistent and beautiful. Finally, he had an hour of rest.
For Fatih, time felt like it was both moving too slowly and very fast, or so he would have said, as the hour of break passed in nearly a blink of an eye. He finally started heading to the FIA TV compound to start his video recordings for what would be used in the session intro video. As he walked, he kept thinking of what pose to make, since it was going to remain the same one all the way to the end of the season unless he changed teams and had to reshoot everything.
He planned to give everything his all since all of these things were evidence of him having finally made it to the pinnacle of motorsport: F1.
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