Sunlight bathed the Circuit de Monaco, yet the rainwater left behind refused to dry. Puddles lingered across the surface, the slick asphalt like a mirror hiding lethal traps. From the very beginning, this sprint race was tied to a single, life-or-death racing line.
Alex Sun drew a deep breath and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, there was nothing left in his gaze but absolute focus on the track. More importantly, how he performed in this race would directly decide whether he could grasp the olive branch Ferrari had extended.
He sat firmly in the cockpit of his Prema car, starting from sixth on the grid, his fingertips unusually steady.
He had originally been set to start seventh. But ART driver Marcus Armstrong suffered a mechanical issue before the formation lap, missed it entirely, and was forced to start from the pit lane. With the reverse-grid pole position left vacant, the top ten shuffled forward, allowing Alex Sun to move up one place.
As a rookie driving on a wet track for the first time, he held the steering wheel lightly, clearly sensing the subtle vibrations transmitted through it. The tight pull of the seatbelt was a constant reminder: no mistakes.
The roar of the formation lap faded away. Cheers from the stands mixed with the sound of engines being brought up to temperature, instantly pushing the tension of the sprint race to its peak.
In his mind, data from practice on intermediate tyres, the optimal line through Turn 1, and the overtaking plans from the strategy briefing flashed by in rapid succession.
"Overtaking in Monaco is like climbing a mountain," he warned himself again and again. "No rash moves."
Ferrari's interest echoed in his ears like a silent drumbeat, constantly reminding him that the core of this race was stability. Only by holding a steady rhythm could he turn his track position into real results, repay that trust, and aim for the podium.
The moment the red lights went out, the entire field launched forward like arrows released from a bow.
Alex Sun fed in the throttle with calm precision, cutting cleanly onto the ideal line into Turn 1. Entry, apex, exit—every movement flowed together seamlessly, and he was soon charging up the short uphill straight beyond the corner.
His start was flawless. The slippery surface had no visible effect on him at all, and he comfortably held onto sixth place.
As he accelerated steadily uphill, Mark's urgent but controlled voice came through the TR.
"Petecof's lost control and hit the wall! Incident at Turn 1. Speed limit through the first sector only—normal pace after that. Not related to you. Hold your line!"
Alex Sun stayed locked onto the road ahead and replied with a low, calm "Copy." He made no unnecessary movements, obeyed the sector speed limit precisely, and the moment he cleared it, went straight back to normal acceleration.
Once out of the first sector, the track returned fully to green-flag conditions. Alex Sun became even more composed, carefully balancing throttle and line to complete the rest of the opening lap without issue.
The first-lap accident heightened the sense of danger around the circuit, but Alex Sun was never affected. Every line he took was precise to the millimeter, perfectly matched to the grip available on the wet surface.
After the opening lap, he remained solidly in sixth. The cars behind simply couldn't close in. Monaco's narrow layout combined with a slippery track already left almost no room to pass, and Alex Sun's defensive driving was close to flawless.
He could clearly feel how the grip from the intermediate tyres evolved with each lap. With minute throttle adjustments, he kept the car glued to the optimal racing line, giving those behind him no chance to even think about a move.
At Monaco, overtaking success rates were already below twenty percent, and in the wet, the tight corners became a defender's paradise.
Alex Sun didn't just defend the line—he suffocated every possible overtaking rhythm. His braking points, apexes, and exits were nearly perfect, leaving no obvious weakness. The defensive techniques he had honed in the simulator were being executed to their absolute limit.
That level of maturity, far beyond most of the field, carried him smoothly into the next phase of the race.
By Lap 3, the wet conditions had begun to stretch the field slightly, but Alex Sun's attention was locked firmly on the car ahead.
He kept a perfectly judged gap to the fifth-place Nissany—not so close that dirty air would compromise his grip, yet not so far that he'd miss any fluctuation in the other driver's rhythm.
Like a hunter lying in wait, his eyes sharp and focused, he tracked every minor deviation in Nissany's line and every subtle change in throttle application. In his mind, he quietly reconstructed Nissany's braking points and corner-exit trajectories, patiently waiting for the moment a mistake appeared.
The cars behind were already far enough back to pose no threat at all.
Just as he was fully absorbed in reading Nissany's rhythm, Mark's voice suddenly burst through the TR again.
"Attention! Armstrong's had an incident! Brake failure while overtaking from the pit lane—he's gone off at Turn 1! Car's badly damaged and out. Race control has deployed the Virtual Safety Car. Lift immediately, reduce speed, hold low pace, no overtaking!"
Alex Sun reacted at once, smoothly backing off and bringing the car down to the required speed. His eyes stayed fixed on the track ahead as he felt for grip feedback from the intermediate tyres at low speed.
The Virtual Safety Car stayed out for roughly a lap. Marshals quickly inspected the accident site, and Armstrong was confirmed out of the race.
At the start of Lap 4, the Virtual Safety Car was withdrawn. Green flags waved, and the drivers accelerated back to racing speed.
The instant it ended, Alex Sun pressed the throttle almost in perfect sync, without the slightest hesitation, immediately closing the gap into what he considered the "pressure zone."
From this distance, he could read every detail of the car ahead while applying heavy psychological pressure. His eyes never left Nissany, giving him no chance to relax.
Alex Sun knew that at Monaco, forcing an overtake was rarely effective. Applying pressure to the mind was far more powerful.
With precise control of his pace, he shortened the gap by fractions each lap. The engine note behind Nissany never faded, hanging over him like an invisible blade.
Under this relentless pressure, cracks began to appear. Nissany's lines grew less stable, and small hesitations crept into his corner entries. He was clearly being rattled, and that growing anxiety was starting to affect his judgment. Alex Sun could feel his chances improving.
Despite being a rookie on a wet track for the first time, Alex Sun showed no impatience at all. Instead, he controlled the rhythm of pressure with remarkable restraint.
After Armstrong's crash, tyre debris near Turn 1 made the circuit even more treacherous. Water had been churned into chaotic patches, and only the racing line showed faint signs of drying. Forcing a move off-line here would have been suicidal.
While continuing to fine-tune his following distance, Alex Sun sharpened his observations. Under sustained pressure, Nissany's braking point at Turn 3 began drifting—about two-tenths of a second later than before.
On corner exits, his throttle application grew cautious, and Alex Sun even caught brief moments of rear-end instability.
The constant pressure had clearly breached Nissany's mental defenses. His mind was consumed by a single thought—don't get overtaken—leaving him unable to focus on the optimal line. Alex Sun quietly logged every one of these small mistakes.
He stayed patient, shadowing him closely, fingertips resting lightly on the wheel as he compared their respective levels of tyre grip. In his head, he continued calculating the ideal moment to strike.
He never forgot that on a wet Monaco track, overtaking success hovered below twenty percent. Only a clear error, or a rare opening from the track itself, would justify a decisive move.
Mark's voice came in right on cue.
"Keep the rhythm. Look for your chance mid-race. Priority is tyre protection."
On Lap 10, just after exiting Turn 1, Mark's call came again.
"Marino Sato's gone off! Yellow flag. Virtual Safety Car deployed. Low speed—clears at the end of the lap!"
This was the second major interruption since the opening-lap incident. Alex Sun immediately lifted, stabilizing the car and strictly adhering to the Virtual Safety Car speed limit. Ahead, he saw a marshal waving yellow flags. He maintained the low pace, fully focused on his line, his emotions completely steady.
By now, the race was approaching its middle phase. Standing water had mostly cleared from the racing line, forming a narrow "safe corridor," while both sides remained slick and muddy. Stray even slightly off-line and a spin was almost guaranteed. Mark reminded him again, "Conditions are improving, but don't rush it. Any overtake has to stay on the racing line."
Alex Sun followed the instruction calmly, holding a safe gap while continuing to apply pressure.
He knew that in dry conditions, his overall pace and racecraft would have been enough to pass. But this was the wet, and Monaco punished mistakes mercilessly. One error meant retirement.
During the Virtual Safety Car, Guanyu Zhou's team made a bold call, gambling on the window to pit and switch to supersoft slicks.
By Lap 15, the race was fully into its middle phase. The racing line was now completely dry and clearly defined, but water and tyre debris still littered both sides, creating a deadly "dry on-line, slippery off-line" scenario. Overtaking was still brutally difficult.
Then, on the exit of Turn 8, the fifth-place Nissany finally cracked.
The prolonged mental strain left him over-tense. On corner exit, he applied the throttle too abruptly, panic creeping in. The car twitched, sliding slightly wide by half a car's width—just enough to open a narrow gap along the dry racing line.
It was a fleeting, perfect window.
Alex Sun's eyes sharpened instantly. Without hesitation, he committed to the inside. He controlled the throttle with absolute precision, clinging to the dry line and keeping his tyres away from the wet patches on either side, all while tracking Nissany's movements to deny any chance of a counter.
The two cars blasted through the tunnel almost side by side. Water sprayed up violently, mist blurring his vision. Alex Sun's nerves were stretched tight, every input measured and exact.
Approaching Turn 10, he locked down the inside line. Braking as late as physically possible at the 100-meter board, he pinned the car close to the left-side barrier and threaded it through the Turn 10–11 complex. On corner exit, his superior traction carried him clear.
The move was done. Alex Sun was up to fifth.
Mark's voice exploded over the TR.
"Beautiful, Alex Sun! Absolutely perfect! Not a single deviation from the racing line. That pass was nearly impossible—one mistake and both cars would've been out!"
The Sky Sports commentator's voice rose in disbelief.
"My goodness! What kind of overtake was that? Alex Sun was ice-cold! He seized the only overtaking window on the entire circuit!
On a mid-race Monaco track like this, even half a wheel in the wet is fatal—the risk of a double retirement was right there!
But he ran zero deviation the whole way. That didn't look like a rookie on his first wet run at all—it looked like a seasoned hunter."
After completing the pass, Alex Sun immediately settled back into rhythm and began to pull away. He knew all too well that on a slippery track, defending a position was even harder than taking one.
...
(20 Chapters Ahead)
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