Leaving the sterile patina of the integration vault felt like stepping out of a cold room and into a desert.
As the group took an outside escalator to the second wing of the storage housing, the appearance shifted from laboratory white to the familiar, oily grit of a racing garage.
Luca saw so irony in this.
There was an imbalance in the utility speed of the racing world. While millions of euros fuelled projects, both successful and failed ones, the actual salvation was usually found in a room that slled of industrial degreaser and stale espresso.
It was funny realizing that the global pride of the Ferrari naplate could, in its rawest form, be reduced to a few crates of specialized carbon and the calloused hands of three n in grease-stained jumpsuits.
Inside the secondary wing, the space was more functional than the last. The three crew mbers were currently occupied in the corner doing bystander work as Mr. Roland and his escorts entered.
"Ahh. Great thing we ca right on ti or we could have missed it," Roland announced once he saw them. Waving a hand, he signalled that they wouldn’t stay longer than necessary.
anwhile, Luca followed Roland’s footsteps, expecting to be led into an inner chamber, but Roland stopped and gestured at sothing Luca didn’t even see at entry.
There, in the center of the room, stripped of its mystery and bathed in the austere glow of overhead work lights, sat the new chassis.
"I expect a formal public announcent from your PR departnt by Friday," Roland said with bright blue eyes. "The world needs to know the Ferrari JYX-69 has arrived. This is the third of its making, the direct descendant of the ’elastic aero’ philosophy pioneered by Costa, Villeneuve, and Aris. They didn’t just build a fra; they built a machine that has lungs."
Moritz and the engineers beside him broke into a spontaneous round of applause.
There was always sothing infectious about the arrival of new steel. Moritz and the other engineers had already seen the model every day before today, yet they were still fascinated.
But none more than Luca.
"Wow," he managed to say as he drifted closer, drawn by the sll of the carbon, until the edge of the front wing tapped against his shin.
Despite being livery-less and cold, the design was striking. His eyes narrowed as he traced the intake shapes that appeared disturbingly familiar.
The aerodynamic profile had a haunting semblance to the JRX models used by Jackson Racing!
’JYX... JRX. Oh, what the heck?’ Luca thought, his mind racing.
In a sport where secrets are the most valuable currency, seeing two rival teams mirror each other is like seeing a ghost in the mirror—even if the teams are practically siblings!
Luca opened his mouth to ask just how much "inspiration" had been shared between the camps, but he didn’t get to finish the thought.
"And," Roland interrupted as he gestured across the space to another machine shrouded in dimr lighting, "the JYX-81."
The air in the room seed to vanish.
’Two?’
The realization hit Luca like a sudden drop in cabin pressure. He stood frozen as the board’s words from earlier that morning echoed back with clarity.
>"We have two...."
>" Two models...."
>"Two new additions...."
>"We’re happy to announce two new..."
At the ti, Luca had assud they were talking about two specins—two identical copies of the sa car, one for him and one for Victor. He didn’t know they ant two entirely distinct engineering paths, a continuation of their current team strategy.
Luca chuckled as he moved toward the second car. He stood over it, noting that at a glance, it looked nearly identical to the 69. He figured that once the livery was applied, so subtle stripe, color shift, or most importantly, race number, would tell them apart.
Leaning in, Luca decided to use his system to generate their specifications and performance trics to deduce their capabilities. But as he focused, he felt nothing.
He soon realized he had been wasting his ti.
Lifting his head, he smiled wryly as he turned to face Roland and Moritz.
"These are mock-ups?"
Mock-ups are practically accurate replicas used for launches, presentations, sponsor events, and filming. No engine, no drivetrain, and often no real internals.
While the others chuckled at the driver’s sudden realization, Roland simply wore a patient, "what did you expect?" smile.
He then turned to a nearby cabinet and retrieved two thick, bound fine-prints. Handing them to Luca, he must’ve guessed Luca wanted to know more about the cars.
"It’s a gradual process, Luca," Roland said. "The mock-ups are for the early eyes. You can get the real units assembled with all tests run soon enough. If you want the truth, the specifications are right there."
When Moritz saw Luca take the prints, he knitted his brows as he sat on a bench.
"Oi! I thought I sent those to your tablet the other day!"
Luca scratched his head sheepishly.
It was universal for a driver to ignore his inbox.
But at least now, this was better; as the saying goes, a pilot still finds more honesty in the grain of a physical blueprint than a digital PDF.
Luca unfurled the prints, and the dense data followed suit.
The pages showed full angular physical descriptions of both models—the JYX-69 and the JYX-81—with every aerodynamic enhancent and structural detail mapped out.
He noted the engine assignnts; both were still A-level Ferrari power units, but the performance trics were what held his gaze.
Seeing the numbers in black and white made the deception of the mock-ups vanish; here, in the math, was the speed Trampos Racing had been promised!
Using Chassis Comparison If Luca’s system had analysed:
[Selected Modes:
—Ferrari (JYX-69)
=Engine: Turbo-Hybrid F10
—Ferrari (JYX-81)
=Engine: FHJ-Hybrid ]
[POWER & PERFORMANCE:
—Ferrari (JYX-69): 88%
—Ferrari (JYX-81): 91%
[AERODYNAMICS & CHASSIS:
—Ferrari (JYX-69): 91%
—Ferrari (JYX-81): 93%
[HANDLING & DYNAMICS:
—Ferrari (JYX-69): 91%
—Ferrari (JYX-81): 92%
[ENDURANCE & RELIABILITY:
—Ferrari (JYX-69): 88%
—Ferrari (JYX-81): 90%
[TECHNOLOGICAL INTEGRATION:
—Ferrari (JYX-69): 93%
—Ferrari (JYX-81): 93%]
Luca couldn’t believe it.
This was aweso—too aweso for the current standing of Trampos Racing.
As his eyes scanned the performance trics, the reality of the leap beca clear: the JYX-81 was essentially on the sa level as the JRX-92B, which was, in turn, way better than a regular Scuderia Z24 and light-years beyond Victor’s current machine!
But Luca had so concerns.
A developnt this potent was dangerously close to Jackson Racing’s baseline. He wondered if this might implicate Ferrari legally or strain their peace with the Silver Stallions.
Looking up, he saw Roland standing, arms smugly folded. The man looked like he was clearly relishing his role as the Ferrari representative for Trampos, the one who had finally ard his camp to rival his fellow representatives in Jackson Racing.
"So, what do you think?" Roland asked, the room waiting for Luca to speak.
But Luca was entirely at a loss for words. He was excited about what was coming, and he didn’t know how to put it into sentences.
And no, he wasn’t excited about himself and how he’d utilize these for better racing. Luca had already leveled up the Z24 past this echelon.
He didn’t need a new chassis.
Victor did.
In Formula 1 racing, a teammate is your first rival, but a struggling teammate is a weight on the garage’s morale.
With a machine like the 81, Victor wouldn’t just be making up the numbers... he would beco a fiercer, more legitimate predator on the grid.
Reviews
All reviews (0)