He selected Time Trial. Ferrari F1-75. Soft tyres. Perfect track grip. The engine note—a synthesized howl through his headphones—swallowed the room.
He flowed through Turns Two and Three, that sweeping right-left that always felt like a held breath. The force feedback told him the rear was hunting, nervous. He caught it with a whisper of opposite lock. Still green. +0.115.
“Alright, old man,” he muttered to the screen. “One more shot.”
He’d set the qualifying time three months ago, on a night when everything clicked. A 1:28.347. His personal best around the virtual Bahrain International Circuit. Since then, he’d been chasing it, losing a tenth here, two there. The fire had dimmed. He selected Time Trial
Leo let go of the wheel. His hands were trembling. His t-shirt was damp. The room was silent except for the idle burble of the virtual Ferrari.
Turn One was a leap of faith. He braked at the 100-meter board, downshifting from eighth to second in a blur of carbon fingers. The car bit into the asphalt. Green sector. He was up by 0.082.
A new personal best. By 0.046 seconds. The ghost of his old lap dissolved, replaced by a new one—a slightly faster shade of red. Perfect track grip
He saved the replay, leaned back, and smiled. Tomorrow, he would chase this ghost. And he hoped, with everything he had, that he would lose.
His heart was a piston now, firing hard.
The back straight. DRS open. The virtual world blurred. 210 kph. 280. 320. He out-braked himself into Turn Fourteen, the heavy stop before the final chicane. The ABS chattered. He felt the shudder in his coccyx. The force feedback told him the rear was hunting, nervous
He hadn't beaten a game. He hadn't beaten an algorithm. He had beaten the ghost of the driver he used to be. And in doing so, for one perfect, screaming lap, he had become him again.
The ghost was alongside.
Then came the complex. Turns Five, Six, Seven. A snake of direction changes. The ghost of his old lap, a translucent red car, was glued to his gearbox. He could see its rear wing wiggling, mocking him. He was the ghost now.
He caught the slide with a violent, instinctive flick of the wrists. The car straightened. The line flashed past.