The pre-grid area buzzed with activity. Thirty-two karts, thirty-two drivers, and what felt like three hundred people trying to offer last-minute advice. Marco sat alone in his kart, hands resting on the steering wheel, eyes closed.
He could hear everything. The nervous energy of the Battaglia twins arguing over tire pressures. The confident laughter from Alessandro Bruni's camp—Alessandro, whose track record Marco had just broken, who didn't know it yet. The wheeze of an air compressor. The crack of someone's knuckles. His own heartbeat, steady despite everything.
"Two minutes," an official called out.
Marco opened his eyes. From here, he could see the starting grid painted on the track, could see the first corner—a tight right-hander that always created chaos. Qualifying would be twelve minutes, one session, best lap counts. Top ten advanced to the final. Everyone else went home.
He'd been in the top ten exactly once before, scraped into tenth place by two-hundredths of a second. Today he needed better. Today someone was watching.
The karts rolled out onto the grid. Marco's starting position was twenty-third, based on championship points he didn't have. The factory karts were at the front, naturally. The rental fleet was at the back, also naturally.
Luca appeared beside the kart, crouching down. "Listen. The kart's going to feel different with more weight—you ate breakfast, right?"
Marco shook his head.
"Of course you didn't. Okay, so it'll feel the same. The brakes are going to fade after about eight laps, so get your fast lap in early. And watch Bruni in turn four—he'll defend the inside even when he doesn't have it."
"Luca."
"Yeah?"
"I know how to race."
His friend grinned. "Yeah. I guess you do."
The official waved them onto the track for the warm-up lap. Marco fired the engine, the familiar scream cutting through the morning air. His entire world narrowed to the kart, the track, the task.
The warm-up lap felt good. The kart was handling better now, warmed up, or maybe Marco was just reading it better. He tested the brakes—soft but functional. Tested the grip levels—better than expected with the warmer asphalt.
They formed up on the grid. Marco was sandwiched between two other rental karts, both driven by teenagers with rich dads and minimal talent. In front of him, the factory machines sat like thoroughbreds among mules.
Green flag.
The field lunged forward in a cacophony of screaming engines. Marco was already moving before his brain registered the flag, pure instinct firing. The kart in front of him bogged down slightly—too much throttle too fast—and Marco dove inside before the driver even knew he was there.
Twenty-second to twenty-first in fifty meters.
The first corner was the usual disaster. Someone locked up, someone else ran wide avoiding them, and suddenly there were gaps where there shouldn't be gaps. Marco slipped through like water through cracks, his kart barely wider than the spaces he squeezed into.
By the time they exited turn two, he was seventeenth.
The opening lap was chaos, everyone fighting for position, nobody willing to wait. Marco stayed patient. He'd learned patience fixing cars—sometimes you had to let the bolt loosen itself, stop forcing it, wait for the right moment.
The right moment came in turn seven when two drivers tangled ahead of him. Marco was already on the brakes, already positioning for the inside line they'd left open, already accelerating out while they sorted themselves out.
Fifteenth place. Then fourteenth. Then thirteenth.
His engineer brain was cataloging everything. The kart's rear end was starting to slide more—the tires warming up past their optimal range. The engine was strong on the straights but dying in the mid-range. The brakes would last maybe six more laps before they were cooked.
He had to make this lap count.
Coming onto the back straight, Marco was tucked behind Roberto Santini, a factory driver with championship points and a kart that cost more than Marco's father's car. Santini was defending, moving left to cover the inside.
Marco went right.
It was the wrong line, everybody knew it. The right side of the track was dusty, off-line where grip went to die. But Marco had noticed something during practice—there was a seam in the asphalt where two sections met, and if you hit it just right, with just the right entry speed, it actually provided more grip than the racing line because the rubber hadn't marbled up there.
He hit it perfectly.
The kart hooked up like it had found religion. Marco pulled alongside Santini, then ahead, then he was braking for the corner from the dirty side of the track and somehow, impossibly, making it work.
Twelfth place.
From somewhere in the paddock, he heard noise. Cheering or jeering, he couldn't tell which.
The next lap was faster. He'd found the rhythm now, found the spaces in the pattern where time could be saved. A late apex in turn three. A slightly earlier brake point in turn eight that actually carried more speed through. A willingness to let the kart rotate in turn ten that felt like losing control but was actually finding it.
Eleventh, then tenth, then ninth.
He could see Alessandro Bruni now, three karts ahead, his purple factory machine perfect in every corner. The track record holder. The one everyone expected to dominate.
Marco's lap timer beeped. Personal best—46.4 seconds. Three-tenths faster than his practice best. Four-tenths faster than the old track record.
The kart was dying now. He could feel it in the way the engine hesitated at high RPM, in the way the brakes required more and more pressure. Two more laps, maybe three, before something gave up completely.
Eighth place. Seventh place.
Alessandro Bruni was directly ahead now. Marco could see the moment Bruni noticed him in the mirrors—the slight straightening of his line, the defensive positioning. Bruni was fast, technically perfect, every input measured and precise.
But Marco was desperate, and desperate was it own kind of fast.
Turn three. Bruni took the optimal line. Marco took a tighter line that scrubbed more speed but allowed earlier acceleration. They were side by side through turn four. Bruni moved to defend turn five, but Marco had already committed to the outside—another terrible line that somehow worked because he'd memorized where every bump and patch of grip lived.
Sixth place.
The lap timer beeped again. 46.2 seconds.
Someone behind him crashed—Marco saw it in his peripheral vision, two karts tangling and spinning into the barriers. The yellow flag came out, forcing everyone to slow.
No. Not now.
But the officials were already on the track, waving flags, and the drivers were lifting and Marco's perfect lap was over because you couldn't pass under yellow flags, couldn't even improve your time.
The session ended two minutes later. Marco brought the kart into the pits, his hands cramping from gripping the wheel, his neck sore from the Gs, his mind still processing what had just happened.
Luca was there immediately, laptop in hand, face unreadable.
"Well?" Marco pulled off his helmet.
"Sixth place," Luca said quietly. "You qualified sixth."
"I know. I was counting—"
"No, you don't understand." Luca turned the laptop around. The timing screen showed the full results. "You weren't just sixth in the session. You're sixth overall. For the championship final. You beat Alessandro Bruni. You beat everyone except the five factory drivers, and you were only two-tenths off pole position."
Marco stared at the screen. His name—VENTURI, M.—sitting there in sixth place, nestled between drivers who had sponsors and coaches and equipment budgets that probably exceeded his father's annual income.
"Also," Luca added, "you set the fastest lap. 46.2 seconds. New track record. Again."
The paddock had gone quiet. Or maybe it was just Marco's hearing, his brain unable to process the noise. People were looking at him. Not glancing—looking. Drivers, mechanics, parents, officials. The attention felt physical, like weight.
Elena Marchesi was there suddenly, camera raised. "Marco Venturi, can I get a quote? How does it feel to—"
"Excuse me." Giancarlo Tedesco's voice cut through. He wasn't loud, but something in his tone made people step back. "Ms. Marchesi, you'll have time for interviews later. Marco, walk with me."
It wasn't really a request. Marco glanced at Luca, who made a shooing motion, then followed Tedesco away from the crowds, toward the far end of the paddock where a black Mercedes was parked.
"You drive like someone who thinks he has nothing to lose," Tedesco said without preamble.
"I don't have anything to lose."
"Exactly. It's in your lines—aggressive but not reckless. You take risks that shouldn't work, and yet they do." Tedesco stopped walking, turned to face him. "Do you know why?"
Marco shook his head.
"Because you understand the machinery better than most drivers ever will. You feel what the kart wants to do before it does it. That's not something that can be taught." Tedesco pulled out a business card. "The final is this afternoon. Win it, and I'll make a phone call. There's a driver development program, experimental, designed to find raw talent in unusual places. They're always looking for someone who can prove themselves when it matters."
Marco took the card. It was heavy stock, embossed lettering. The kind of card that came from a world he'd only ever seen from a distance.
"What if I don't win?"
Tedesco smiled thinly. "Then you go back to your father's garage, and this was a nice story you can tell your children someday. But I don't think that's going to happen. You're not the type to settle for nice stories."
He walked back toward the Mercedes, then paused. "One more thing. That journalist, Elena Marchesi? She's good at her job. She sees things others miss. Be careful what you say to her. Stories have a way of taking on lives of their own."
Then he was gone, the Mercedes pulling away, leaving Marco standing alone with a business card and a future that had seemed impossible an hour ago.
The final was in four hours. Four hours to eat something, to breathe, to somehow prepare for the most important race of his life.
Marco looked at his phone. Three missed calls from his father. A text: Where are you?
He typed back: Montebello. I qualified for the final. I'm sorry.
The response came immediately: Come home now.
Marco stared at the message. He thought about his father, waiting at the garage, probably with work piled up, probably angry, definitely disappointed.
Then he thought about the kart, about the perfect lap, about the feeling of finding speed in places no one else had looked.
He typed: I can't. Not yet.
And he turned his phone off.
When Marco walked back to the pit area, Luca was waiting with a sandwich and an energy drink.
"You look like you've seen a ghost," Luca said.
"Maybe I have," Marco replied. He took the sandwich but couldn't taste it. His mind was already on the final, on the start, on every corner and every opportunity and every possible mistake.
Four hours until his life changed, one way or another.
Four hours until he learned if he was really as fast as everyone suddenly thought he was, or if this morning had been a beautiful, cruel accident.