Chapter 351: Toto
"We are already one step behind here," one of the Red Bull GMBH lawyers, Red Bull’s parent company, said as he looked at the details of the contract on the napkin.
Due to the Red Bull main company owning two teams, both Red Bull Racing and AlphaTauri, they structured their contracts so that the drivers were signed into the parent company and not a specific team. This gave Helmut the flexibility to move the drivers between different teams, even in the middle of a season, without any need for contractual negotiations, since the team was not the one signed into the contract in the first place.
"Other than those conditions, you have free breathing room, but keep in mind, we have to secure this driver no matter what. So, as long as their conditions are not too over the top, agree with them. And if some are too far, you can put them behind specific performance clauses and conditions," Helmut, who was finally meeting with the team that would be doing the negotiations with Fatih’s side, said, updating them on the situation so they would understand what stance they should have when they entered the room.
Usually, contracts like these take months to negotiate, but Helmut knew they wouldn’t have that much time because even after a single day since the TPC was finished, rumors of Fatih’s performance were already starting to spread. They needed to handle everything during the short exclusivity period that they had managed to secure.
"Understood, we will prepare accordingly," the lawyer said, not trying to argue that this contract might look unfair or anything of that sort. After all, his responsibility was to meet what his superiors wanted, not what he thought was best for the team.
Five hours later, the first of many negotiation rounds between the three lawyers from Fatih’s side and the three from Red Bull’s side began, with both sides trying to come out of it with as many concessions for their side as possible.
.......
"Is this true?" Toto Wolff asked as he looked at the information on the tablet in front of him.
"Yes, we have verified it without making contact at Silverstone," Gwen Lagrue, the head and driver-development mastermind of the Mercedes Junior Programme, answered.
February was one of the busiest periods for F1 teams as they were doing their final preparations for the upcoming season. So when they learned that Red Bull was planning to do a TPC during this period, one that both Horner and Helmut were in active attendance for over the entire three days of testing and not just for a few minutes or hours, and that it was for a driver they were actively trying to recruit, Mercedes did their best to get an eye on the events.
They had an inside man operating at Silverstone who managed to get them the timing data from the track’s timing loop and other sensors.
As a result, in front of Toto were the sector times and lap times of all the sessions Fatih had participated in over the three days of testing. The team then correlated this data with the weather conditions of each of the sessions before comparing it to the performance of the car in the 2018 season. It was very clear that although the engine was different, Fatih was very competitive and sometimes matched, if not beat, Verstappen’s and Ricciardo’s lap times on that track. Even more so was his consistency and pace in non-dry conditions.
"What do they think about this?" Toto asked, wanting to know what the people who had their eyes on this data thought.
"If this is not a disinformation attempt from Red Bull’s side, then we need to secure him, and it is worth the penalty fee we will pay to cancel his junior driver contract with them," Gwen said.
"Haven’t we already reached out? What is their response?"
"We did, and they were very receptive at the start, but went radio silent since they attended the TPC session, and that has continued until now."
"So, Red Bull is most likely actively negotiating a professional contract?" Toto thought, ’I thought we had the whole year to take our time bringing them to our side.’ It was something he had meticulously planned, from being one of those who actively lobbied against the FIA granting Fatih the exemption that would then put him out of F1 for one more year, increasing their desperation, only to appear as a savior when all was said and done. But now it looked like all of that was on the verge of being thrown out of the window.
"Yes, and we need to move fast if we want to secure him before they sign it."
"Offer them a guaranteed seat in Williams for the 2021 season and a guaranteed move to Mercedes in 2022 if he reaches some performance metrics we will agree upon. That should be enough to attract their attention towards us."
"Wouldn’t Red Bull be able to match us easily?" Gwen asked because, as the one responsible for the junior program, he knew how every philosophy of each junior program operated, and Red Bull wouldn’t even blink to match an offer like this.
"But we are a championship-winning team. Who wouldn’t want to race with us?"
"....." Gwen couldn’t say anything against that, as that was true, and they were a team that could go to any driver besides Max Verstappen and have them ready to join immediately.
Toto looked at the silent Gwen, who looked like he wanted to say something but was holding back, and added, "This is just to attract their attention and bring them to the negotiation table. We will make it more interesting when they are there. We can’t give them the most lucrative deal from the start, can we?"
"Ah, understood," Gwen said as if he had finally understood the intention. He said a few more things before leaving the office, leaving Toto alone.
"I lost the chance at Verstappen. I won’t make the same mistake with you," he said as he looked at the data in front of him with the look of someone who regretted losing something and was finally getting a chance at redemption. After all, he knew deep down that Lewis would most likely retire if he won his eighth title in 2021, and he needed a driver to take over in 2022. Fatih and George, who would replace Valtteri at the start of the new regulations in 2021, would serve as the perfect new lineup for the new regulations in a senior-and-junior dynamic.
Although COVID was now fully spreading, the world was still not taking it too seriously, and F1 was still on schedule to move to the new regulation cars in the 2021 season. As a result, all of the plans were still designed around those changes.
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