The surprises just kept coming, one after another.
Initially, Marchionne had only hoped Kai would cause a few ripples in their stagnant pond. But now, he wasn't sure how much of that original intention was even left.
He couldn't stop himself from turning to Todt, his voice thick with excitement. "Is it normal for someone to start setting competitive laps their first time in a simulator? Or am I just not professional enough to have seen something like this before?"
Todt didn't answer directly. A slight smile played on his lips as he tilted his head, his eyes never leaving Kai and the screen.
Last night, things had been unclear. The invitation had been a whim, an impulsive act of rebellion. The focus had never been on Kai himself, but on the Ferrari Driver Academy. Kai was just a one-off deal.
Simply put, he was a tool—a tool being paid eight thousand euros for a day's work.
But now, Todt was beginning to realize that his initial instinct might have been correct, that it might even shatter his own expectations. The unimportant Kai was, in fact, the true star of today's show.
"It's not normal," Todt finally said in a low voice.
The words had barely left his mouth before the corner of his lips curved upward, unable to contain his good mood. It wasn't just about discovering a hidden gem for the academy; it was the simple, pure, and intense joy of racing that he was feeling once again through Kai.
"But he knows what he's doing," Todt continued. "He's reading the track and the car in his own way. Or perhaps, he's just unleashing his imagination, playing freely. He's not just setting laps. He's simply… enjoying the speed."
Lap twenty-one.
Up to this point, everything had been smooth, fluid. Kai seemed to have found his rhythm.
And yet…
In the final, medium-speed chicane before the main straight, Kai adopted an incredibly risky line, running almost his entire front-right wheel over the kerb. The car visibly jumped.
A mistake? An impulsive move? Pushing too hard, too soon?
Typically, the entry speed for this corner in the F4 simulator was around 120 km/h. But Kai was already pushing past 140. At that speed, the slightest deviation could have a massive, butterfly-effect-like consequence.
It was a heart-stopping moment.
Even Monfardini felt a pang of regret, involuntarily making excuses for him in his mind. He's young, a bit of aggression is understandable. And he hasn't had enough time to learn the car's limits. A few flaws and mistakes are to be expected.
But to his utter shock, Kai used the slight moment of airtime, man and machine becoming one. With an effortless flick, he used the car's momentum to "throw" it into the corner at a perfect angle.
The nose tucked in! The rear end bit down hard!
The simulator platform shook violently!
The next second, the car shot out of the corner like an arrow released from a bow, achieving the fastest exit speed of the entire session!
The trigger was pulled, and the speed was unleashed.
160 km/h!
He sliced onto the straight, the speed still climbing, the F4 car's full potential unlocked. Faster and faster he went, until he became a red afterimage, dragging a long tail of light behind him. The roar of the engine ignited the air, and the entire world seemed to be engulfed in a crimson flame, a sight that made your blood boil.
At almost the exact same moment, the lap time on the main screen refreshed.
1:34.206!
The screen lit up with purple sectors. The fastest lap of the day.
In an instant, the air in the room froze. All sound vanished. Even breathing seemed to stop.
Monfardini's head snapped toward Leclerc. "F2?"
Leclerc shook his head. "F4."
Charles Leclerc was the most highly-regarded young driver in the Ferrari Driver Academy, a prodigy who was set to advance to F2 next year. Monfardini had assumed that Leclerc had been running in F2 mode on the simulator earlier, and that Kai's new record in F4 mode wasn't a true comparison.
But Leclerc's denial confirmed it.
It meant that in less than thirty minutes, a complete rookie, in his first-ever simulator session, had just beaten Leclerc's own warm-up time.
They exchanged a look. Both Monfardini and Leclerc knew exactly what that meant.
Marchionne's heart was pounding, his blood on fire. He dropped the arms he had crossed over his chest and took an involuntary step forward, his excitement palpable. He glanced at Todt.
Todt, by contrast, had become calm. He didn't respond to Marchionne. His eyes were fixed on Kai.
The session wasn't over. Did that mean… they could expect even more?
Todt was right.
This was now Kai's personal performance. Like a dolphin returned to the sea, he was freely showcasing his abilities, riding the waves and chasing the wind.
On his twenty-fifth lap, Kai broke the 1:34 barrier for the first time: 1:33.931.
Gasp!
Leclerc's gaze sharpened. An outsider might not understand the difference, but a professional driver knew. In F4, the margins were tiny. Improving a lap time by two-tenths of a second was an incredibly difficult feat.
The time Kai had just beaten was only Leclerc's warm-up lap, nothing serious. But he knew that to break into the 1:33s himself, he would have needed time to focus and get into the zone. It wasn't a simple task.
And Kai had just done it in four laps.
Even more unbelievably, he wasn't done yet.
Lap twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight…
He was not only fast, but consistent. The wild fluctuations and constant mistakes from his earlier laps were completely gone. His times were now holding steady around the 1:34 mark. There were still some variations, but considering this was his first time ever driving a Formula car, it was an absolutely jaw-dropping performance.
If you hadn't seen it with your own eyes, you would never believe that in just half an hour, you could witness a rookie transform into a seasoned driver.
It was a complete metamorphosis.
And then, the record was broken.
1:33.572!
The fastest lap ever set on this simulator. Not just for the day. The all-time best.
It was utterly unbelievable. In the span of just ten laps after setting the day's fastest time, Kai had continued to improve on his personal best, shaving off a total of… 0.634 seconds.
This was an F4 car! Even in a simulator, it was still just F4! To find that much time after already reaching the limit was a monumental leap.
This had to be it. The perfect lap.
Who could have possibly imagined that Kai would produce a perfect lap in less than an hour? What kind of talent was this?
The roar of the simulator's engine fell silent. The last red afterimage faded from the screen, as if it had never been there at all.
Yet, a profound silence hung in the air. No one spoke.
It wasn't that they didn't want to. It was that no one knew what to say. No one dared to break the stillness.
1:33.572.
In the world of Formula racing, they always say, "the stopwatch doesn't lie." The answer to everything, the truth, is hidden in that set of numbers. It reveals the quality of the car and the skill of the driver with brutal honesty.
And so it was now.
That number hung before them, a stone dropped into a deep pool. It didn't create a splash, but a series of profound, ever-widening ripples—a shockwave that was beyond words.
Only the true professionals in the room understood what that number meant, and what it meant for Kai to have achieved it in less than an hour.
And everyone present was a true professional.