Chapter 691: Mexico Grand Prix. 2
The middle of the race was where the glamour of the starting grid died and the raw endurance of a driver was truly tested. From Lap 10 to 17, an endearing chaos ensued between positions P6 to P9, where Victor found himself exhausting his rubber.
After multiple simulations prior to his race, Victor recognized this racing situation, and he was more than happy to settle into the rhythm to test himself. He wasn’t chasing moments anymore. He was managing them.
Every time he soared up toward the heavy braking zone of T6, his eyes were locked on the gearbox of Marko Ignatova, who was defending P6 as if his life depended on it. Behind Victor was Luis Dreyer, taking up his shadow in impatience, and Albert Derstappen, who’d just outsmarted long-time rival, Max Addams, hovered in the same train.
All these elite drivers knew who the outlier was amongst them.
Victor.
He was no longer a newcomer reacting to Formula 1’s malignity. He was now operating inside the system.
By these middle laps, the field had stretched just enough for patterns to form. Tires were past their initial phase, brake temperatures stabilized, and fuel loads were easing slightly. And unlike some drivers who’d lagged behind, Victor was keeping up, tracking his metrics while also maintaining competition amongst his seniors.
He would dive deep into the entry of a turn, forcing Marko to cover the inside, then use the superior acceleration of the Ferrari to try and get a run toward the stadium section of the circuit.
A smart move. However, the Autodromo Hermanos is as fickle as a broken compass. Just as Victor would gain ground, the slipstream from behind would bring Dreyer and Derstappen screaming into his mirrors. By Lap 13, the battle for the P6 to P9 spots was a rotating carousel. Victor would rise to the tail of the top five through the technical S-curves, only to fall back toward T9 as Derstappen used a clever deployment of ERS to pull alongside after Dreyer had long overpowered him.
The three-way battle was relentless. Other teams trusted their drivers because of their experiences in situations like this. However, Trampos Racing wasn’t too sure that Victor was an equal to the occasion.
Surrounding him were Grand Prix winners, F2 champions, and multiple-time podium finishers. By logic, it would be a miracle that he could hold his line against such a pedigree.
But the way Victor raced, it appeared the pedigree of the other drivers didn’t seem to weigh him down at all. Apparently, logic was just another obstacle he intended to overtake.
At one point, going through Lap 15, the three cars were practically inseparable, a blurring streak of blue, red, and green. Victor could feel the turbulence coming off Dreyer’s rear wing, causing his front tires to wash out slightly, yet he held his nerve. He was playing the long game, managing his tire temps while his rivals burned through theirs in a bid to pull away easily.
Through the transition toward Turn 6, Victor positioned slightly off-line, forcing Dreyer to defend air rather than asphalt. The moment Dreyer hesitated, Victor committed to the inside line, controlled, and completed the pass before Turn 7.
"WOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH!"
Back to P7.
But just as quickly.
P10.
It happened in a flash, faster than Victor could comprehend.
As he and his rivals hit the long straight of the 18th Lap, Victor’s chassis suffered slight yaw drag, his top-end speed compromised. Dreyer was the first to strike, his DRS flap snapping open like a hungry jaw, pulling alongside Victor with a massive speed delta. Victor tried to defend the inside, but the move had already been telegraphed.
Left in the dirty air that sent his front tires sliding, Victor watched the Spaniard squeeze past before the braking zone of T1.
That loss of momentum was a dinner bell for the others.
Sensing the weakness, Derstappen executed a perfect switchback through the opening complex, diving under Victor ruthlessly without waiting for him to recover. And the real sting came from Max Addams, who had been lurking behind as the fourth contender. Using a massive short of energy, he slingshot Victor around the outside of T3 while Victor was busy holding the inside, thinking it’d help.
Just like that, the hard-earned P7 evaporated. Victor watched the three rear wings pull away, the red lights blinking in his face as he plummeted down to P10 with a final overtake from Nyström. He was back at the edge of the points, his tires screaming and his rhythm shattered.
*********
Lap 20 had already turned the race sour for Victor.
The drop to P10 felt like a cold shock across his spine, but the real jolt came a second later when the car ahead of him came into view.
White and gold.
Alejandro Vasquez.
Victor blinked behind his visor, genuinely thrown for a moment. Vasquez was not supposed to be this high up in the order. His team had been struggling with cooling all weekend, and everyone on the pit wall had expected him to fade after the first stint. Instead, he was still there, holding P9 with a stubborn, disciplined line that said he had no intention of giving the place up.
Victor closed the gap through Sector 1, tires humming over the curbs as he deployed the ERS with precision. He studied Vasquez the way he studied every opponent—braking points, corner exits, the shape of his defense. The move was there, maybe not cleanly, but it was there. All Victor had to do was find the gap.
Then they reached the stadium section.
The atmosphere changed immediately.
"WOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH!"
The walls were tight, the angles unforgiving, the track echoing with every change of throttle.
"WOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH!"
Usually, the crowd at a place like this was just noise, a deep rolling roar that sat behind the action like a second engine. But this was different. As Victor drew alongside Vasquez and edged into attack mode, the sound transitioned into something ugly.
"BOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!"
Booing?
It hit the cockpit like a physical force, bouncing off the barriers and folding back into itself until it became almost unbearable. The JYX-81 trembled beneath Victor, but the real strain was in his head. The noise swallowed the radio, blurred the engine note, and made it impossible to trust anything except the vibration in the steering wheel and the instinct in his hands.
Every time he tried to poke his nose into the gap, the stadium answered with more hostility.
"BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Victor had raced in front of hostile crowds before. He had heard jeers in different languages, had felt pressure from fans who wanted him beaten for one reason or another. But this was something else. This was collective and intense, feeling like a wall he couldn’t challenge alone.
Inside T8, Alejandro’s defense was surprisingly adept. It was as if his performance was somehow boosted by the roar of the crowd, forcing Victor to lift just enough to avoid contact.
The move was gone.
For a brief second, Victor’s mind flashed back again in this race.
*******
Alejandro was the son of a Spanish father with old racing ties and old-world discipline, and a Mexican mother from Guadalajara who had brought warmth, fire, and stubborn pride into his life.
He had grown up between two worlds that did not always make room for easy belonging. One week he would be in the rigid, polished circles of Madrid. The next week, he would be in Mexico, learning what passion really meant from family, street noise, and the heat of summer tracks.
Victor had heard stories about him. Not all of them flattering.
In Spain, Alejandro was said to be too emotional, too exotic, too unpredictable. In Mexico, he was praised for his elegance, his precision, and the way he carried European discipline without losing his edge. He spoke like someone who had lived in both places and never entirely belonged to either.
And maybe that was exactly why the crowd had turned against Victor so completely.
To them, Alejandro was not just another driver. He was theirs.
Half Mexican. Half Spanish. A bridge between identities. A symbol that made sense to people on both sides of the Atlantic. In Mexico City, in the stadium section especially, that mattered.
**********
**Copy, Vic. Tires still optimal**
**Gap to Vasquez. 1 sec**
"Active!"
Victor went after the hero again on Lap 21.
This time he got a better exit onto the main straight, DRS open, the gap collapsing fast. He moved out of the slipstream and drew level, only for the crowd to explode once more.
"BOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
The booing came back with such force that it almost felt rhythmic, like the stadium itself was breathing disapproval at him.
’Boo all you want,’ Victor thought. ’You can’t stop me.’
He stopped listening to the crowd long ago and started reading the car they were protecting psychologically.
Still putting up a commendable performance, Vasquez defended late into Turn 1, clean and smart, forcing Victor to back out again. No lock-up. No panic. Just control. That was what made it irritating. Alejandro wasn’t blocking recklessly. He was managing the race with a calmness that made every failed attempt feel earned.
Victor’s jaw tightened under the helmet.
Lap 22 came and went with the same result. He followed Vasquez through the castle section again, the sound of the crowd surging and breaking around him like a tide. The boos were louder there than anywhere else on the circuit, amplified by the narrow walls and the shape of the stands. But Victor had stopped reacting to them.
He was using the barriers, apexes, reference marks, and braking zones, but for the first time, Victor could hardly crack the defense of a rival in a clearly slower car.
Only then did the flashback begin to unfold properly in his head...
Alejandro at ten years old, was standing at a dusty kart track in Valencia, too small for the kart and too serious for his age.
His father corrected his posture with blunt, precise words.
His mother reminds him not to injure himself.
Then older.
Teenage Alejandro in Mexico City, too aggressive for his own equipment, was still being told he was close but not quite enough. Always promising. Never complete.
Then Spain again.
European junior racing. Critics are calling him inconsistent. Talented, yes. Fast, yes. But emotional, unstable, too likely to overdrive the moment pressure rose.
And yet, the first real breakthrough did not come from winning some perfect, polished race.
A wet race in Barcelona, same track Ansel died in.
The asphalt was cold and the visibility was terrible that day. Half the grid was thrown away by panic and overconfidence given the circumstances of the race.
However, Alejandro stayed upright and calm.
The rest of the vision was blurry.
Victor snapped back to the present just as Vasquez defended once more through the stadium section, this time with even more composure than before.
"WOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH!"
The crowd rose with him, every whistle and boo feeding into the next.
Their loyalty was not subtle.
They were not hiding who they wanted to win.
But unfortunately, Victor understood it now.
