Chapter 119: Race Weekend | Sunday | The Meeting
"Thank you for accepting the meeting despite the urgent changes to the time we requested. My name is William, and this is Dr. Helmut Marko," William said as Rümeysa shook hands with both him and Helmut Marko, who stood for the handshake.
"No problem. My name is Rümeysa, this is Fatih, and this is Burak, his coach. Nice to meet you all," Rümeysa responded with her own side’s introduction before both sides took a seat. Throughout this whole time, Helmut had focused on Fatih, with Fatih doing the same.
’So his fierceness is only situational,’ Fatih said to himself once Helmut moved his gaze to his mother.
He initially couldn’t believe who they were going to be meeting: the legendary recruiter who found two super drivers for the Red Bull team that went on to each win at least four world championships. Red Bull was a very different team compared to the rest of the grid. Unlike other top teams, they had a deliberate aggressiveness all over their DNA, making it a nightmare for a driver who can’t deliver a good performance. However, for a driver who is performing, the team becomes a paradise of sorts, as every important resource will now be going through that driver: the new upgrades, priority in strategy, and everything else important, to the point that the team even ordered the second driver to yield to the number one driver.
It was a team whose philosophy was to win the driver’s title, and the constructors’ would follow if the second car performed. They actually lived by it, as they sometimes acted in favor of a driver’s championship title despite it potentially harming the constructors’ opportunity.
As for their academy, it was famously known to be a high-pressure cooker situation where every driver undergoes constant performance evaluations. They had no hesitation in replacing a driver who was not meeting their standards within a certain time frame. But despite that being no secret at all, nearly all drivers, barring a few, wanted to be a part of the Red Bull driver academy, as they are very direct in their operation. So long as you continue performing well, they will aggressively support you fully, including a full or partial payment for your single-seater seat, placing you in a competitive team, covering travel and accommodations, coaching and training, testing and development, branding and media support, and more, with the only expectation from them being to deliver a performance worthy of the academy.
But despite many drivers wanting to and sometimes getting recruited into the academy, most of them can’t handle the relentless, result-driven pressure that will either forge a champion or break a career, as they always operate on a win-or-exit mentality. This resulted in them having the most aggressive recruitment strategy, matched only by their high driver turnover, making it clear to anyone that as fast as they can launch someone’s career, they can end it just as quickly if they don’t deliver as expected.
And if, amidst all this, you deliver, then they will aggressively promote you to the prized jewel: the Formula 1 seat. As they are the only ones with two F1 teams, giving them a total of four seats, and thanks to it, they became the academy with the most drivers who reached F1, and no one came even close to matching that level of promotion for their young talent.
So, for Fatih, who wanted to reach the pinnacle of motorsport as fast as possible, they were his best possible option. After all, he was immune to the possible pressure of being under constant evaluation; quite the opposite, this environment would actually be somewhere he felt completely at home.
After the short pleasantries, they immediately got to the main topic of the meeting.
"We asked for the meeting in order to form a relationship with your son under an evaluative atmosphere before we decide to fully recruit him as our academy driver, where we will aggressively promote him so long as he continues to deliver the expected performance of a driver in our academy," Helmut said. As someone who didn’t like beating around the bush or painting rosy images, he got to the main topic as fast and as directly as he could.
"How exactly would that work?" Rümeysa, deciding to reserve her feelings, asked, wanting to receive a more detailed explanation.
"What we are planning to do at the moment is not to immediately recruit him to our driver academy, as that would place too much pressure on him at his young age. However, we will sponsor him for a minimum of one year as per our agreement, and the sponsorship will continue so long as his performance keeps within our expectations, which is to be at the front in any competition he participates in. We will continue sponsoring him and later recruit him to the academy before he starts in single-seaters, where we will become more deeply involved."
Rümeysa, who had been nodding as she listened to Helmut’s explanation, took a moment before she asked, "Although it is worded as a sponsorship, what is the difference between it and him being fully recruited as a Red Bull academy driver, seeing as monetary support is going to be provided in both scenarios? If so, why not fully recruit him?"
"That is because the sponsorship period is no different than a probationary period, which we do with most of our drivers. It allows us to keep them racing even if they have a financial situation, giving us time to watch them for a longer time without the fear of someone else coming in and sweeping them away. This format also allows for an easier and cleaner breakoff if a driver doesn’t meet our expectations during this period, making it easier to cut ties than when he is our academy driver, since all we have to do is go until the end of the sponsorship contract and not renew it.
But I have to make this clear: this situation is not only beneficial to us but to the driver as well. Along with the sponsorship that will allow him to continue competing with the best equipment and everything else, we in return, will have the first refusal right. This means if, through the superior machinery, he continues performing well and another team approaches him for recruitment, we will have the opportunity to match their offer one-to-one or even give him a better one. If we agree to do that, he will remain with us."
"You are saying that it will be beneficial for him as it allows him to increase his value and negotiating power before actually joining the academy?"
"But that can only happen if he keeps delivering to your expectations, or else you will just give up your first refusal rights?"
"Yes, it is slightly more expensive, but it guarantees that at least all the drivers in the academy are good drivers. As we provide more support during their single-seater promotion, we will be able to further weed out the best among the best."
"That’s quite brutal."
"I know, but it has resulted in us creating quite a few talented drivers who went on to perform well in Formula 1 and even win the grand prize for drivers, the world championship."
"If we accept it, and I mean if you are not planning on keeping him as a sponsorship driver for years or delaying the first refusal counter-offer for a long period in order to keep him locked with you as he waits for your response?"
"No, that is not something you will have to worry about. We will only have a single year of sponsorship with your son, and by the end of it, we will have already made our decision on whether to recruit him to our team or not. If he continues showing a performance like he did today, then we are going to make that decision and fully recruit him even earlier. But I promise you that, and we can even have it in writing, that we will have a maximum of a week to either match or give up our first refusal right if an offer for him comes from another team."
"If he joins the academy, what is something that we can expect from it?" Burak was the one who asked this time, as Rümeysa looked to be in deep thought following Helmut’s response.
"So long as he continues performing within our expectations, we will always have him in the next category the moment he is ready, allowing him a swift promotion to his dream."
Helmut, amidst the silence following his response, turned to Fatih and asked, "What is your dream?"
"To become the greatest-of-all-time Formula 1 driver," Fatih answered seriously, knowing that trying to look humble in front of Helmut would not only be detrimental, it might even result in a bad image of him being created in Helmut’s mind. After all, he is someone who likes to speak what is on his mind, despite it placing him in the crossfire a few times.
"What is the minimum weight of a Formula 1 car?"
’Oh, the question has finally been asked,’ Fatih said in his mind, as it was the question he was expecting. It was not because he wanted to show his knowledge, but because he remembered watching a video of a former Red Bull academy driver recounting his meeting with Helmut Marko, who asked him the weight of an F1 car, which he could not answer. In response, Helmut said, ’Max would know,’ revealing just how high in regard he held Max and his dedication to his dream.
"The weight has been increased from 640 kg to 642," Fatih answered with a smile inside, as he kept imagining the weirdness of the situation where he, the owner of what was now the most popular and respected Formula 1 and motorsports-related website, was being asked about something so trivial.
"Why has it been increased by two kilograms?" Helmut asked a follow-up question.
"To accommodate the heavier Pirelli tires introduced this year," he answered with confidence.
In response, for the first time since Helmut sat down for the meeting, a smile appeared on his face, causing Fatih to jump for joy in his mind, as he had accomplished something very important: making a lasting impression.