Crash, p.1
CRASH, page 1
Praise for Crash
‘Reading this book will cause you sleeplessness, irregular heartbeat and spikes in your blood pressure. I read it just before and during the journey to Russia for the recent Grand Prix, and while I was out there, but the plot resonated so much that even on the nights I told myself I really had to sleep, I could never get more than four hours because I literally didn’t want to put it down’
David Tremayne, GrandPrix+
‘A great read!’
Joe Saward, F1 journalist and F1 Business Commentator
‘Like the sport it describes, Crash is fast-paced and thrilling, deftly capturing how sport can be manipulated by politics. Whether you’re a fan of F1 or not, you’ll keep reading’
Jonathan Legard, F1 TV and BBC Sports Commentator
‘What a fantastic book! I started reading it on the train and it was literally unputdownable. The fact that someone like me – who hates all cars, but particularly fast ones – can get so quickly hooked says a lot about Toby's skill as an author. He is a consummate professional who knows how to make a reader turn the pages – and he has made me aware of and respectful of the human drama in F1 … The tension leading up to the crash is superbly managed – a master class in leaving the reader breathless’
Edward Wilson, Author of A Very British Ending
‘Crash blends Jason Bourne, Formula 1 and Law & Order in one high-octane fast-paced drama’
Jake Sanson, Downforce Radio
Praise for Driven
‘A great read … a great plot … I couldn’t put it down’
Murray Walker
‘Driven – it howls along like Lewis Hamilton round the streets of Monaco!’
Boris Johnson
‘A fast-paced read for any speed demon’
David Williams, London Evening Standard
‘Author Toby Vintcent takes inspiration from F1's on-track action and off-track paddock politics in weaving together a page-turning conspiracy thriller. His attention to detail captures the spirit of current F1’
F1 Racing Magazine
‘It's a page turner, for sure, and I thoroughly enjoyed it as I read it in two days when I should have been working on stuff prior to the Austrian Grand Prix. That says it all’
David Tremayne, GrandPrix+
‘I read many books about motorsport, and so know that enjoyable fiction in Formula 1 is rare. Driven is a superb thriller which I thoroughly enjoyed from the first to the final lap – a pageturning story with a cast of engaging characters in a highly authentic and believable depiction of F1. This is a brand-new way for us all to enjoy motorsport from Toby Vintcent’
Chris Aylett, CEO, Motorsport Industry Association
‘A thrilling read that captures the essence of the Formula 1 battle both on and off track’
Patrick Allen, MD, Silverstone
CRASH
About the Author
Toby Vintcent served as an officer in the British Army with the 16th/5th The Queen's Royal Lancers during the Cold War as part of NATO's Rapid Deployment Force. He then had a successful career at Merrill Lynch, and has been Director of International Affairs at the British Equestrian Federation. Toby Vintcent's lifelong passion for Formula One resulted in his first book, Driven (2014). He lives in Oxfordshire, the heart of F1 country, with his wife and son.
Arcadia Books Ltd
139 Highlever Road
London W10 6PH
www.arcadiabooks.co.uk
@arcadiabooks
First published in the United Kingdom by Arcadia Books 2016
Copyright © Toby Vintcent 2016
Toby Vintcent asserted his moral right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publishers.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and incidents portrayed and the names used herein are fictitious and any similarity to the names, characters, or history of any persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and unintentional. Even when recognisable names appear, their actions are fictitious. This book is unofficial and is not associated in any way with the Formula One group of companies. F1, FORMULA ONE, FORMULA 1, FIA FORMULA ONE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP, GRAND PRIX and related marks are trademarks of Formula One Licensing B.V.
This ebook edition published in 2016
ISBN 9781910050941
Arcadia Books Ltd
139 Highlever Road
London W10 6PH
www.arcadiabooks.co.uk
First published in the United Kingdom by Arcadia Books 2016
Copyright © Toby Vintcent, 2016
Toby Vintcent has asserted his moral right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publishers. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This Ebook edition published in 2016
ISBN 978-1-910050-94-1
Typeset in Garamond by MacGuru Ltd.
For Anne-Marie and Sammy.
Dedicated to my parents.
About the Formula
The Formula referred to in this story is a fictional composite. While it includes authentic elements used by the FIA over the last few years, no similarity with any given year's Formula should be looked for or expected.
ONE
They were screaming along the Île Notre-Dame, bathed in unbroken Montreal sun as they ran down the Casino Straight beside the Saint Lawrence River. Both Formula One cars hit 210 miles an hour, the gap no bigger or smaller than it had been for the last five laps. Just feet apart. Remy Sabatino, tucked right up behind the race leader, was getting ready…
The challenger was watching Yegor Baryshnikov like a hawk – already thinking ahead to Turns Thirteen and Fourteen, looming in 700 metres.
Sabatino's heart and breathing rates were up. There was a tactical balance to be struck, here: declare too soon and Baryshnikov would be forewarned and able to take defensive action. Leave it too late and he might not react at all, as he might not have to.
Now!
Sabatino dived out from behind Baryshnikov – to the left, clearly stating an intention down that-hand side. Almost as a flinch Baryshnikov reacted, darting that way himself – to head Sabatino of – to block the challenge.
The moment the race leader reacted to the move, Sabatino lifted off – for a fraction of a second. Even with the foot off the power for a moment, the front end of the Ptarmigan dipped slightly, the drag fractionally gaining the upper hand. At exactly the same time Sabatino swung the steering wheel across to the right, the car's front wing sweeping rapidly from left to right behind the car in front, almost brushing its rear tyres. Immediately it was clear, Sabatino floored the throttle once again – aiming to dive the car down the other side of the race leader.
Seven hundred and fifty horsepower exploded out through the gearbox and rear tyres into the surface of the track.
The Ptarmigan's chance now lay in lunging down the right-hand side of Baryshnikov's car.
Three hundred metres to run.
Sabatino willed the car to give its all.
Baryshnikov was only allowed a single defensive move against an overtaking manoeuvre. By launching that feint to the left, Sabatino had forced him to make his one and only permitted retaliation. On their current line, Sabatino should now have the space to be unchallenged into this corner.
Two hundred metres.
Sabatino was drawing level.
Who would earn the right to the line?
Who would brake first?
Sabatino's nerve, line and speed would have to be held right into the corner.
The other car twitched; a tell that Baryshnikov wanted to start turning in, to start setting up for the chicane – except he absolutely did not want to brake sooner than Sabatino … as that could only concede the position.
There was a momentous jolt – the cars banged together.
Through peripheral vision – to the left – Sabatino suddenly caught sight of rapid movement. Baryshnikov was wrestling with his steering wheel – he seemed to be wrestling aggressively with his car. Was he veering away? Clear air opened up between him and Sabatino – which was all the challenger needed.
Now!
Sabatino stood on the brakes. Carrying too much speed through here could be disastrous, inviting an unforgiving rendezvous with the legendary – infamous – Wall of Champions on the far side. Even the greats – from Hill, through Schumacher to Vettel – had succumbed to that Wall.
Sabatino turned in, to the right, fighting to hold the line.
The Ptarmigan was carrying too much pace.
Shaving the corner, Sabatino bounced in hard over the kerbstones of the first apex. But before the car could be straightened up for the second, there was a huge distraction: a flash of movement entered the extreme left of Sabatino's vision.
In an instant, Baryshnikov was shooting into view – hurtling across from left to right.
After their contact, he had diverged and overshot the right-hand entry to the chicane. Turning in too late, Baryshnikov had overrun that corner, his left wheels soon out on the reinforced grass, which offered far less grip and a greatly diminished chance to slow down. Baryshnikov, cavorti ng over that run-off, was now cutting straight across behind the apex of Turn Thirteen – still at considerable speed. He was heading back towards the track proper, but on the far side of the chicane. Could he brake, turn and stabilize the car in time?
Sabatino watched the other car cut straight across in front.
Baryshnikov was jabbing repeatedly at the brakes.
Sabatino, desperate not to be rammed by Baryshnikov, also jammed on the brakes, then swerved to the left – hoping to pass behind him, to the rear of the traversing car.
A collision was unavoidable.
Baryshnikov slammed into the Wall. An explosion of turquoise ricocheted off the Wall of Champions immediately below the sign ready to mock its would-be victims. Bienvenue au Québec.
Sabatino felt the Ptarmigan fishtail violently as every effort was made to heave the car away from the scattering wreckage: one shard of the razor-like fragments of carbon fibre was all it would take for a puncture. Sabatino couldn’t manage it – couldn’t avoid running over some of the debris – and did so with both right-hand wheels.
Accelerating away, Sabatino prayed all would stay well for this last lap – to take the chequered flag and so take the win.
Click.
The footage was stopped right there.
The frame was frozen.
Another click.
The picture was being reversed. Someone was rewinding, scrolling backwards through the DVD. It was re-stopped a few seconds later and allowed to run on again before another frame was refrozen.
‘Right there, Mr Vice President,’ declared Chico Amaretti, a middle-aged Italian with slicked-back hair in a sharp suit with thin lapels and no vents, ‘right there, is the moment of impact between the two cars.’
Pointing at the screen, Amaretti added: ‘My client states that Ms Sabatino's failure to yield the line was a deliberate attempt to destabilize his run into this corner – and thereby gain unfair advantage in the race.’
Amaretti, Yegor Baryshnikov's business manager, affected a wounded expression. ‘By committing this reckless act, not only did Ms Sabatino cost Mr Baryshnikov his stability, she also cost him the win. And, by forcing him off the track – so that he would crash into the wall – she seriously put his safety at risk … even his life in danger.’
Remy Sabatino sat at the long table in the stark Council Chamber of Formula One's governing body, already fuming. Representing herself at the hearing, she was sitting directly opposite the seven Council members who were conducting this inquiry. She was barely able to suppress her reaction. Her dark eyes flashed. Her Mediterranean skin was flushed, rendering its olive colouring all the more striking. She breathed in, catching a waft of Amaretti's cologne.
‘Baryshnikov rammed me,’ she declared to the hearing. ‘It's obvious. Right there – on the tape. I had the line. I did not change direction – how could I be the one causing the impact?’
Amaretti gave the impression of a man who ought to be applauded for keeping his patience. ‘This council will be well aware that this move of Ms Sabatino's was ill-judged, as well as late – on a corner considered by those who know not to be an overtaking opportunity.’
Amaretti sighed, as if to say: ‘I’m sorry you don’t have the wit to see this, my dear.’
He added: ‘In any case, Mr Vice President, Ms Sabatino had not done enough – had not established enough of a claim to the racing line into that corner. My client and I therefore demand Ms Sabatino be reprimanded and fined; that she forfeit the Championship points awarded to her – unjustly – in Montreal. My client is not vindictive,’ said Amaretti, sanctimoniously, ‘he just wants to see that justice is done.’
Remy Sabatino was seething. Their lack of imagination was staggering. None of the blazers on that World Motor Sport Council had the vision – or magnanimity – to see the boldness of her move, or even acknowledge the other guy's incompetence. They were calling her sharp and reckless. What the hell? Sabatino had caught the race leader with his trousers down, got past him, and taken the win. How was it her fault if Baryshnikov had been taken by surprise, couldn’t handle a bit of rough and tumble into a corner and couldn’t control his car? Formula One was meant to be the pinnacle, wasn’t it? What was the point of motor racing if you weren’t supposed to race?
After twenty minutes of circuitous argument, Remy Sabatino was charging down through the FIA headquarters. At the bottom of the stairs she pulled on her Ray-Ban shades and strode out through the main entrance into the overcast day. Press and media were ten deep behind crowd-control barriers all around Number 8 Place de la Concorde. Sabatino's mood wasn’t helped by the journalists’ attitude and questions.
‘What's Baryshnikov's reaction to your unsporting drive in Canada?’
‘Are you going to apologize to him?’
‘Will you risk the same unsportsman-like drive in Moscow – against Baryshnikov – at his home Grand Prix?’
‘How will Russian fans receive you after what you did to their favourite son?’
‘Are you – as a woman – really cut out for Formula One?’
Steeling herself, Sabatino bit her lip and simply faced forwards, heading down the narrow alley of barriers between the press and the fans to a car waiting for her at the kerbside.
Within the hour she was at Paris Charles de Gaulle, striding just as angrily across the concrete apron towards the waiting Quartech Falcon. She had since changed, now dressed in a black cashmere turtle-neck pullover, slim-fitting black jeans and a pair of black Nike trainers.
White lights flashed at the end of each wing of the Falcon. Red beacons strobed above and underneath the aircraft. She walked up the steps and into the executive jet.
Sabatino appeared inside the cabin; a concerned-looking Bernie Callom rose to his feet. With so much bad blood shed during the hearing, his PR antennae were already on high alert. Seeing her, now, they twitched all the more. Every signal he read was ominous: an inconspicuous wardrobe, the spark in her eyes, the glow of her complexion, the barely brushed appearance of her short dark hair, while her normally expressive lips and mouth just looked tight and pained. Callom attempted to engage her as they took their seats and prepared for take-off. Every effort he made was met with little more than a sullen grunt.
Just after twelve o’clock that afternoon the private jet commissioned to get Remy Sabatino to Moscow in time for the Russian Grand Prix sped down the runway and lifted off into the eastern sky.
The ruling came through, two hours later.
They were overflying Poland, just north of Warsaw at the time. Hearing an alert, the Formula One driver looked down at her phone. Bernie Callom, sitting opposite her, noticed an immediate change in her mood. Before a word was said, he could tell it was bad.
‘Remy?’
Sabatino's large pitch-black eyes were still for a moment; then she thrust her phone at him across the low table. The PR man took the device. The email was already open on the screen.
Before Callom registered its content he clocked the sender, “FIA – OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT”. Sabatino declared forcefully: ‘I’ve been stripped of my win in Montreal. They’ve sided with Baryshnikov.’
Callom couldn’t help his innate PR skills kicking in, even subconsciously. Softening his voice to be barely audible above the gentle whoosh in the cabin, he asked: ‘Can you not see this as just one of those things, Rems?’ tentatively, bracing himself.
Sabatino was almost shaking. ‘Damn it, no! This was a racing incident, Bernie – nothing more. Stuff like that does happen all the time, and is not worthy of punishment. That's not the point, though, is it?’
She paused.
Sabatino looked him directly in the face. ‘Baryshnikov's my teammate, for Christ's sake. That bastard ratted me out.’
Callom sighed. There it was; the root of the problem. ‘The teammate,’ he breathed. ‘You’re embroiled in the oldest cliché in Formula One. The teammate – every driver's toughest opponent. Both in the same machine, creating the rawest comparison of ability. All the tougher when you’re both in the fastest car. Ptarmigan are a shoo-in for both Championships: you and Baryshnikov are the only contenders for the title … there are bound to be tensions.’
Sabatino wasn’t going to be placated by any truisms, however well intentioned. ‘Ptarmigan won’t capitalize on any of this, Bernie, if one of its drivers is so clearly out to shaft the other, not least as Baryshnikov has a serious issue with me. He can’t handle it – can’t stand being beaten by a woman.’
