Sunlight, bright and clean, always honest, always charging forward
Whenever you looked at Kai Zhizhou, you could feel a quiet, stubborn strength. Nothing flashy. Nothing loud. But somehow, your eyes were always drawn back to him.
Leclerc couldn't stop himself from glancing over again.
After the British Grand Prix and with the summer break approaching, his own future was finally coming into focus.
He was already in F2, miles ahead in the championship. All the conditions were in place. Nicolas Todt was moving with practiced ease now just follow the road they'd carefully laid out. Negotiations with multiple teams were nearing the finish line. Barring surprises, the summer break would be when ink finally hit paper.
For the first time, F1 wasn't a dream. It was a shape in the fog, slowly becoming clear.
Excitement. Anticipation. Happiness. Under all of that, though, Leclerc couldn't stop worrying about Kai.
To say the noise in the paddock these last weeks hadn't affected him at all would've been a blatant lie.
He couldn't help imagining it: Kai getting fast-tracked into F1. Next year, the two of them both rookies, both fresh meat facing each other properly on a Formula 1 grid.
Head-to-head.
Winner-take-all.
The thought alone made his blood run hot. He could hardly wait for the day they finally went wheel-to-wheel in an official race.
But imagination was still just imagination. There's a reason fairy tales usually stay trapped in Hollywood.
There were too many obstacles in Kai's way between GP3 and F1. Politics, prejudice, money, timing the whole board was stacked against him, problems that couldn't be smashed to pieces with a few clever lines or a couple of good weekends. The tug-of-war between interest and bias would take resources Leclerc could barely imagine. Not even Nicolas Todt could just snap his fingers and rewrite the rules.
So… what kind of state was Kai in?
Frustrated? Restless? Depressed? Something else entirely?
Leclerc worried. He tried to string words together, but realized comforting people was not his talent. Sentences looped in his head, none of them making it past his lips.
Then he saw the brightness in Kai's eyes.
That light was still there. Steady. Clear.
Leclerc's own fighting spirit flared up. Forget comfort he just wanted to face Kai properly, fair and square.
They'd never actually fought each other in a race.
Not once.
Unfortunately, his hot blood got rudely cut off by the buzzing phone strapped to Kai's arm. Leclerc watched as Kai's smile turned… strange. He mouthed a question.
"What is it?"
Kai tilted his head, then answered out loud. "He says he's Cyril Abiteboul."
Leclerc froze. He almost choked on his own breath. "The Renault team principal?"
Renault?
The Renault that built its own engines and supplied half the grid?
Kai scratched his head and decided to be blunt. "Uh… just to confirm, are you the Renault team principal?"
On the other end of the line, there was a cough someone else nearly choking. Clearly, he hadn't expected Kai to be quite that literal. Then a quick burst of laughter came through.
"I thought my French accent gave me away already."
Kai shrugged. "I'm trying to practice my 'French-accented English' these days. This is a great chance. We can do a speaking exercise."
"Haha, you're an interesting guy." No extra words were needed; Kai could hear the good mood in Cyril Abiteboul's voice.
Then the mood shifted. Cyril went straight to the point.
"So, how about it? Would you be interested in becoming a Renault driver?"
Kai: …
It was so direct so sudden that it barely felt real. He blinked. "Budapest? But I don't have a super licence."
That caught Abiteboul entirely off-guard. Silence, then a burst of laughter, full belly this time.
"I know you don't have a super licence."
"As much as I'd love to see you in our car next week in Budapest, we both know there's work to do first, oui?"
F1 wasn't like any other category. It sat at the peak of the racing pyramid. Not just anyone could climb into an F1 cockpit.
Just like real life has different licences for compact cars, trucks, buses, and so on, F1 had its own special licence
The Super Licence.
You didn't just apply and get one. You needed to tick off a list of requirements, collect enough points, pass the FIA's review, and only then would they hand it over. It wasn't permanent, either. A Super Licence could expire, be cancelled, lose points, earn bans… just like a road licence.
Right now, there were only fifty-eight drivers in the entire world with a valid Super Licence who could step onto an F1 grid at any moment.
Kai was not one of them.
Of course Cyril knew that.
This call wasn't really an offer it was an olive branch.
Renault had a problem.
In the paddock, teams could be roughly divided into three groups. The membership changed season by season, but for now:
First group: fighting for podiums and titles.
Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull.
Second group: fighting for points, occasionally sniffing the podium.
Force India, Williams, Renault.
Third group: trying to score at all, ideally as high as possible.
Toro Rosso, Haas, McLaren, Sauber.
In the midfield slugfest, Renault had fallen behind not because the car was too slow, but because one driver was dragging them down.
This year, they'd paired British driver Jolyon Palmer with German driver Nico Hülkenberg. And Palmer's season had been a full-blown horror show.
Up to the British Grand Prix: ten races, three DNFs, and in the other seven… nothing. Not a single point. At Silverstone, he hadn't even started the race mechanical failure on the formation lap, out before the lights.
Renault were stretching every last point out of Hülkenberg's shoulders alone, and somehow still clinging to sixth in the constructors' standings.
Now imagine swapping Palmer for someone who could actually score. Would Renault still look this messy? Would Force India and Williams still have such an easy time keeping them behind?
Renault's patience with Palmer was gone. They didn't even want to wait for the end of the season. They were openly looking at replacing their second driver right after the summer break.
The problem: mid-season changes are messy.
You can pay a penalty and poach from another team's active drivers.
Or you can gamble on a reserve or a driver from outside the paddock… and risk that they're rusty and slow to adapt. On top of that, rumors that Alonso might leave McLaren and return to Renault just wouldn't die.
Cyril had been weighing, calculating, scheming.
And then
Kai appeared.
Of course, he wasn't perfect either. No Super Licence, limited single-seater experience. Two giant red flags.
So this "invitation" to join Renault wasn't a contract; it was more like a beautifully printed IOU. A heavy-sounding promise, meant to show sincerity and hook Kai's attention.
Cyril painted a grand, sweeping blueprint a path to bring Renault back to glory, together.
He talked non-stop for half an hour. Testing plans. Super Licence strategy. How they'd develop a car to suit Kai's style. How they'd build a team around him. How he was a key puzzle piece in Renault's return to the top.
Only then did he reluctantly hang up, after leaving one last line:
"Budapest."
"I'm looking forward to a brilliant race from you in Budapest. After that, you, me, and Nicolas can sit down together and talk properly."
"I'm ready. I really believe blue is your color. I can already see you in a Renault race suit. I can't wait."
And that wasn't even the whole conversation.
When Kai brought up sponsorship and Renault's future direction, Cyril lit up. "I was waiting for you to ask that. We want drivers with ambition and a champion's heart."
Renault, he explained, weren't like the small or customer teams. They weren't short on money. The factory was ready to invest even more into the 2018 car. They didn't need pay drivers they needed drivers who could cash out the car's potential on track.
The goal wasn't to stay in the second group. The goal was the championship.
In Cyril's mouth, Kai wasn't just being offered a race seat. He was being invited to join a long-term project. To build a future together.
You had to admit, Abiteboul was very convincing.
The future he spun was spectacular, almost impossible not to be moved by.
And yet, for that very reason, Kai didn't quite feel it.
The chaos of the past couple of days in the paddock had forced him to think. To stay wary. To find his footing again amid all the flashing lights and cheers. To see his situation clearly instead of dancing to everyone else's rhythm.
The more the noise surged, the more he needed to stay calm.
Cyril's future sounded incredible but think about it calmly, and you could paste that speech onto practically any talented young driver in the paddock. Drop Leclerc's name into the script and it would still fit.
In other words, Renault might genuinely be considering Kai…
but he wasn't the only option.
It was like a master fisherman of a playboy copy-pasting the same vows and sweet nothings to every date in his contacts list.
Negotiations and dating really were the same. While they're chasing you, they'll promise you the moon. Sunny, dopamine-addled declarations of forever… but how much of that can you actually take at face value?
That was the real question. A big, fat question mark.
For a moment, his mind was a whirlpool thoughts bubbling over, refusing to settle.
He exhaled slowly and lifted his head.
Leclerc was still there beside him, watching quietly, worried but patient. Seeing that, all the noise in Kai's chest finally settled. He smiled.
"Cyril just drew me a giant pie. A pizza big enough to break a Guinness World Record."
Leclerc could hear the joke behind the words. He laughed under his breath and shrugged. "These team bosses are all negotiation experts. To get what they want, they'd happily argue the sun orbits the Earth."
Kai arched a brow. "So Cyril called you too, huh?"
Leclerc looked away and rubbed his neck, suddenly self-conscious.
Kai couldn't hold it in. He burst out laughing. "If he knew you were standing right next to me, he really should've adjusted the script. Maybe he's not as smart as he thinks he is."
The teasing tone made Leclerc smile despite himself. "At least it proves something. You're on the radar now. F1 team principals are actually paying attention to you."
Kai nodded. "Budapest. Cyril said he wants to see what I do there. Looks like I've got a little extra motivation."
Not just for points. Not just for prize money.
But for a future that was starting to take shape.
Leclerc tilted his head, then started jogging again. The wind carried his mock-solemn complaint back toward Kai.
"This is bad. GP3's about to get a buffed version of Kai Zhizhou. Baby Driver has evolved into Child Driver. What are George and Anthoine supposed to do now?"
It was rare to hear Leclerc joke like that. Kai laughed, throwing his hands out in mock helplessness.
"What can we do? No pain, no gain. We're all one big happy family, right? For their growth, I guess I'll just have to sacrifice myself."
"Wow. I didn't know you were like this. Be honest you're enjoying this way too much, aren't you?"
"Wait. That tone are you complaining I didn't give you special treatment? Don't worry, your turn's coming. I'll be right there to polish our little Ferrari prince."
"Tch. You and what army?"
Their laughter rolled and scattered under the sun, bright and careless.
In the world of elite sport, he couldn't control his rivals.
He couldn't control the engineers or the managers.
He certainly couldn't control the bosses sitting in offices far above the paddock.
The only thing he could control was himself.
He could speak with his lap times. Fight with his racecraft. Carve his own path through a world that only cared about interests and results.
Give everything. Leave no regrets.
Whatever the future held, he wouldn't look back and wonder "what if".
The call hadn't shaken him. If anything, the chaos in his head had settled. After that brief wobble, he'd found his balance again, poured his focus back into the track, and pushed everything else aside to enjoy the race.
At the Hungarian round, Kai took pole.
It was the perfect way to open the final weekend before the summer break.
ART were flying. Their dominance this season was on another level. Four of the top five spots in qualifying belonged to them Kai, Jack Aitken, and George Russell locked out the top three, with Anthoine Hubert in P5. The only non-ART name breaking up the wall of red and black?
A familiar face.
Dorian Boccolacci in the Trident.
This year, Giuliano Alesi's attempts to "prove himself" were still going nowhere. Aitken, on the other hand, looked like he'd finally found his confidence again.
At Budapest, his qualifying lap was superb. He missed pole by just 0.107 seconds a razor-thin margin.
You didn't need much imagination to see where this was going. In the race, Aitken would be coming for Kai with everything he had.
And he did.
Lights out. Chaos.
Turn 1 turned into a war zone.
With the summer break looming, the window to show your worth was shrinking. If you wanted a seat, you had to make noise now.
So Turn 1 became a blender.
Russell out.
Nobody saw that coming. Russell, together with three other cars, was gone in the opening mêlée. His race was over before the first lap was even done.
In a season this brutal, with knives out everywhere, Russell had finally, uncharacteristically, lost his cool. He'd swapped places with Aitken in more ways than one, surrendering the initiative right before the break.
The paddock gasped. Toto Wolff, watching closely, could only shake his head.
Up front, though, the battle was even hotter.
While the chaos boiled behind them, Kai and Aitken had launched perfectly, their ART cars rocketing away from the mess. Two streaks of color at the front, cutting through the air.
The fight between them was no less vicious than the carnage behind. Every eye was glued to the lead.
"Beautiful!"
"Kai Zhizhou shuts the door on Aitken again! Another impeccable defensive line unbelievable reaction time!"
"For the longest time, Aitken's been known for fast starts and weak finishes. First half of the race, he's a beast. Second half, he loses patience and collapses. Part of it is tyre management; part is mental."
"But today, he's calm. Patient. No reckless lunges."
"He knows what Kai can do. In terms of rhythm control over the opening laps, Kai is miles ahead of everyone else in GP3 this year. Trying to flip the script in three laps on sheer 'momentum' alone? Impossible. So Aitken's come in with a proper plan."
"First three laps: no rush, just shadow Kai's rhythm. And you can see Aitken's talent here he's not one bit weaker. The gap stays pinned at around one second. No more, no less."
"Middle phase: steady, relentless pressure. Force Kai into a mistake. Wait for the crack to open, then strike."
"But "
"Kai isn't biting. Once again, he's showing a composure way beyond his age. His defence has been flawless. He's still holding the lead."
The air was electric.
No one had expected the best fight of the Hungarian weekend to come from P1 and P2. The leaders were the show, locked in a duel where neither would concede a millimeter.
Somewhere in Italy, Sergio Marchionne had cleared his schedule.
He was actually watching GP3 live.
These days, he wasn't even guaranteed time to watch the main F1 race, let alone a junior formula. But today, the sun had clearly risen in the west Marchionne was sitting in front of a TV, absolutely absorbed.
He'd always loved racing himself. On holiday, he used to sneak onto circuits and push cars to their limit. Work, age, and health had slowly shoved that hobby aside, and it had been far too long since he'd felt an engine's roar from the cockpit.
Now he sat there, eyes fixed on the screen, the thunder of engines pouring into his veins. Adrenaline spiked. Old memories woke up in every cell. His fingertips trembled as he stared, almost hungry, at that streak of red and black.
Then something happened.
"Kai! He's braked just a fraction late into the hairpin bit of understeer there!"
"Opportunity!"
"Aitken! Aitken is going for the overtake!"
Marchionne's heart stopped. It lodged in his throat. Every muscle in his body went tight.
"Oh my God! Aitken overcooks it! The steering's gone he's locked up! Aitken runs off the track!"
"Kai! Unbelievable! Somehow he's caught the car he's made it through the corner!"
"Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant crisis management! Kai is back on line and gone. The gap's out to two seconds!"
"Two seconds!"
"Terrifying moment wow, that was close!"
"But Kai's performance is still breathtaking…"
Goosebumps shot from his feet all the way to his scalp. His whole body trembled, half from fear, half from thrill.
In racing, no one is perfect. No one goes an entire career mistake-free. There are a thousand ways to get it wrong in a thousandth of a second.
The mistake isn't what matters. What matters is how you fix it.
That is what separates the truly great.
Just now, under relentless pressure from Aitken, Kai did make a mistake. The door opened.
But in that razor-thin instant, he dragged the car back from the brink.
And Aitken the one who'd been waiting, lap after lap, for that very opening watched his own chance slip out of his hands.
Marchionne knew, right then, that the last bit of suspense was gone.
Not only had the gap to Kai opened up, but Hubert was now rocketing up behind Aitken, eyes locked on his rear wing. Aitken couldn't keep hunting Kai; he had to defend.
As for Boccolacci, who'd started P4?
The poor guy had once again been sucked into Turn 1 chaos. He survived, but lost positions to Hubert. The car felt off downforce missing, not enough grip to get into a real rhythm.
So once again, the podium became an ART civil war, carrying on from Austria and Silverstone with only a small rotation of names.
Forty minutes flew by in what felt like seconds. No one had noticed time moving at all.
"Race over!"
"Winner: Kai Zhizhou."
"Five straight Feature Race wins this season! And he's been on the podium in every Feature and Sprint race!"
"Unstoppable! His momentum is terrifying! Talent, execution, racecraft everything is maxed out!"
"ART lock out the podium again! This time it's Kai, Aitken, and Hubert taking the top three. With Russell's early retirement, ART's young drivers still stepped up and defended the team's honor, utterly dominating the GP3 field!"
"It feels like the 2017 GP3 drivers' and teams' titles are already decided!"
Awe. Shock.
Even though they'd seen this ending four times now Kai on the top step of the podium it still never felt normal.
Every time he stood up there, the disbelief only grew.
If you needed perspective, you didn't even have to look at GP3. Just look at F2.
After three consecutive Feature Race wins, Leclerc was still miles ahead in F2, still grabbing another pole. No one doubted he'd win again on Sunday; everyone assumed the Sprint Race would be the real test.
Then the car broke.
His race plan was ruined. He limped home in P4, off the podium.
The three-race feature win streak was over.
It was unlucky. Mechanical failure pure bad luck. But it also proved something: how fragile victory really was. How many factors, outside the driver's control, could wreck a weekend.
In that context, Kai's performance looked even more absurd.
Especially coming straight off the heartbreak of the Silverstone Sprint. No time to reset. Straight into Budapest.
And he still found that level.
No wobble. No collapse. Just a brutally fast reset, a complete mental reset, and a dominating response in Hungary.
One more emphatic statement to smother all the noise in the paddock.
He was still here.
You had to respect it. 2017's GP3 season was turning into a one-man show.
Compared to Leclerc the already-famous Ferrari academy crown prince Kai seemed to have stepped out of solid rock. An unknown, with even more violent impact.
With just one driver, he'd strangled the suspense out of GP3. He was even stealing the spotlight from F2. All the paddock's F1 attention was being dragged in his direction.
It was almost a miracle.
Anyone, even thinking with their toes, could tell: a storm was brewing.
If you wanted to come out on top in a world of ambushes and knives in the dark, this was the moment for the big players to lay down their pieces and start the mental war.
Marchionne exhaled, long and steady. The adrenaline faded; his head cleared. He picked up his phone and dialed.
He didn't have to wait long before the line connected.
A small smile tugged at his lips, casual and confident. A man at ease, who knew exactly what he was doing.
"Hey, Jean, old friend. Got a minute?"
"Hehe, I think we need to talk about Kai Zhizhou."
…
Knock.
Knock knock knock.
The sound on the door was loud enough to pass for a drum solo.
Most of the "offices" in the paddock were just temporary structures slapped together on the fly. The so-called "walls" were thin panels with about as much soundproofing as a paper cup. They blocked sight, not noise. You could hear everything on the other side.
Even so, Maurizio Arrivabene paused, straightened his posture, and only then raised his voice.
"Come in."
The door swung open. The face on the other side was exactly who he expected.
A waterfall of red hair, wavy and lazily loose. Red lipstick, red nails, red Ferrari team shirt. She was the very picture of Italian fire glamorous, bold, that bright, unshakeable smile able to defuse any tension in the room.
This was Ferrari's head of media and communications, the woman in charge of F1 marketing and brand image.
Silvia Hough-Frankipane.
You did not underestimate this woman. In a workplace dominated by men, Silvia was a force inside Ferrari's garage. Even Arrivabene wasn't eager to pick a fight with her. If he ever got fired, she probably wouldn't.
"Silvia." Arrivabene gave her a small nod.
She smiled. "The team's almost done prepping on their side. They're waiting for you to finalize strategy for tomorrow. I'll keep this short."
No small talk. No fluff. Straight to business.
"Toto Wolff. Zak Brown. Cyril Abiteboul. All three sent congratulations, in various forms. Outside of that, nothing."
After the Hungarian GP3 Feature Race, Kai was still standing under the spotlight. Everywhere you looked, the storm seemed to circle back to him.
Arrivabene had asked Silvia to keep an ear out. She hadn't questioned the reason just gone and done it.
In her mind, with the summer break coming, the paddock was about to be blown apart by silly season. No team was exempt.
The core wasn't "about Kai" or "about Leclerc," not really. The core was seats.
Who had them. Who wanted them. Who was about to lose them.
If Mercedes dropped Bottas, who took that seat? Where would Bottas go?
If Red Bull's talks with Verstappen collapsed, where would Max land? Would Ferrari join the race? Would someone be mad enough to poach Vettel?
And so on.
Pull one thread, and the whole web shifted.
Her job was to watch all of it. Driver moves were just the most visible line in a much bigger picture.
So Silvia didn't hesitate.
Arrivabene was surprised. "Cyril?"
Silvia nodded. "Text. No face-to-face. Nothing in front of cameras. But my source at Renault says he's been watching the races closely."
Compared to Mercedes, McLaren and Renault felt much closer to Kai's orbit.
"And Horner?" Arrivabene asked.
"Very quiet," Silvia replied.
Which was suspicious in itself.
For a man who usually loved stirring things up in front of microphones, Horner going silent was… unusual.
Planning something?
Arrivabene frowned, lost in thought. Then asked casually, "Nothing from Sergio?"
Silvia blinked. It surprised her a little to hear Marchionne's name, but she didn't overthink it. She assumed Arrivabene was trying to guess how the boss felt about all this.
"No. Still in Rome. No plans to come to Maranello."
Arrivabene nodded. "Got it."
He stood, ready to head for the meeting room and talk race strategy. "Thank you, Silvia. Keep an eye on things the next few weeks. We can't let ourselves get blindsided over the break. And keep tabs on Sergio, too."
"No problem." She nodded.
This year, Ferrari had finally lit the fire again fighting for both the drivers' and constructors' titles. The entire team was pulling in the same direction.
Silvia was no exception. She wanted to see Ferrari back on top just as badly, and she was more than willing to play her part.
She didn't serve Arrivabene. She served the seat of Ferrari team principal and beyond that, she served Ferrari itself.
If Arrivabene ever went against Ferrari's best interests, she'd turn on him without hesitation.
Arrivabene hugged her briefly and left the office, thoughts churning.
Marchionne had gone quiet. So what was he planning?
Had he really given up on Kai? Or was he lining up a knockout blow over the summer?
Either way, Arrivabene couldn't drop his guard.
…
Paris. Blazing sunshine. The air was lazy and slow. With half the city gone to the seaside, the streets in the residential districts had emptied out.
Tourists clogged the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe.
Everywhere else, life ambled along in the shade of plane trees, slow and unbothered.
The FIA headquarters sat right here, in Paris.
Jean Todt waddled across the lobby, beer belly leading the way, an easy smile on his face. He raised his voice a touch higher than necessary.
"To see Mr. Marchionne here in person now that is a rare sight."
Normally, F1 matters were handled by the people under him. The group CEO didn't show up in person unless something serious was going on.
So yes, seeing Marchionne at FIA HQ was unusual.
But
Wait. Wasn't Marchionne supposed to be in Rome?
How was he suddenly in Paris, while both Silvia and Arrivabene thought he was still at home?
Clearly, once he stepped outside Maranello's orbit, his movements were a lot harder to track.
Marchionne took in the lobby with a polite glance and a faint smile. "Only my second time here. Everything still feels unfamiliar."
Todt put on his best host voice. "As the landlord, I should give you a tour."
Marchionne waved it away immediately. "Better not."
"I prefer to keep my distance from the FIA. If I have to come here in person, it means something big is wrong."
"I'd rather never get familiar with this place at all. That way, every visit stays a rare occasion."
Todt chuckled. "In that case, today is a big day indeed. A very important one. You came all this way yourself how many 'verys' should I add? Three enough?"
A hint of amusement flashed in Marchionne's eyes. "However many you like. It doesn't change the facts."
Then his tone shifted, the joke dropping away.
"This concerns the future of the team and the group. It's worth the trip."
"And for this one… Jean, I need a little help."
He'd already given Todt a heads-up before flying out. Todt wasn't walking in blind. But this was the first time they were sitting face-to-face about it.
Todt immediately raised his hands. "Sergio, I'm just an employee too, you know. I don't handle Super Licence matters at all."
"And I can't interfere, even if I wanted to."
"The Super Licence has its own independent commission. It's their job."
~~----------------------
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