Without needing to brake, he had sliced off to the left – setting himself up for the bend.
Now!
Sabatino nudged her wheel the other way. At that speed, her car instantly dived out to that side – plunging into the clear air, to the right-hand side of the car in front. The clean air should have altered the car's balance and speed.
Sabatino was hugely relieved. Her Ptarmigan's carriage, attitude and speed hardly changed; its set-up was that good. Sabatino hammered the throttle, the revs skipping repeatedly as she hit the rev limiter. That was of no concern.
Sabatino was gaining on Baryshnikov.
Trigonometrically, even without braking, his change of direction – setting up for the corner – cost him a fractional amount of forward pace. That meant Sabatino was soon well up alongside. Baryshnikov's path, now though, was diverging from hers – glancing off to the left.
One hundred metres.
Now she had to turn in, to set up her own line into and through Turn Eleven – round the same sweeping left-hander, although her line was going to be well to the outside.
Dominic Quartano, the corporate owner of the Ptarmigan Formula One Team, was deeply troubled. Excusing himself from the king's presence, he moved inside from The Melita's quarterdeck to take the call from the paddock and watch any television coverage there might be on the large HD screen in the yacht's salon.
A replay – an aerial shot of the Grand Prix circuit – was being shown, taken from a helicopter flying directly overhead. It showed the two race leaders emerging through the exit of Turn Ten: Baryshnikov in the first turquoise Ptarmigan was a handful of lengths in front, with Sabatino in the second turquoise car in P2 – both of them accelerating away into the half-mile Hermitage Straight.
‘And here we see the replay again, Ben,’ said one of the TV commentators. ‘This time from above. Watch here – Sabatino is about to make her move.’
‘Indeed, Mike. The move starts some way back. There – you can see it begin. She deliberately moves into Baryshnikov's slipstream. Once she's got herself into it, Sabatino just sits there – right up behind him – getting a really good tow.’
‘Now we watch her – waiting to pounce.’
‘And that's exactly what she did – there – you can see her dive out – to the right – out of Baryshnikov's dirty air.’
‘It's a really bold stroke – going that way – out to the right, around the outside. But, at this point, it's a flawless move – as we can see, she loses none of the speed she’d been gaining from the tow.’
‘It is a bold move.’
‘And then we see she gets a boost to her chances – there – as Baryshnikov appears to slow slightly – as he starts turning in to the corner.’
‘And, of course, that gives Sabatino the invaluable chance to gain some ground.’
In an instant, the TV producer switched camera angles. Leaving the overhead view, he cut away to a shot at ground-level – to a camera position further on round the track. This perspective offered a view back towards Turn Eleven – as seen from the far side of the corner.
For a moment, the track was clear – the producer having switched a tad too early. The leaders hadn’t come into view yet.
The wait wasn’t long.
The turquoise nose cone of Baryshnikov's Ptarmigan soon appeared, from the very right of the picture. It turned head-on to face the camera, hugging the inside of the sweeping left-hand corner – running down the right-hand side of the screen.
Moments later the turquoise of the second Ptarmigan's front wing also came into view – as expected – emerging from behind the first, to its outside.
But that's when viewers were taken completely by surprise.
Everyone expected Sabatino to turn head-on to the camera, turning left – to give Baryshnikov chase down the short straight, heading for the foreground of the TV picture.
Except something happened.
The second turquoise shape became a blur as it shot directly from top right to top left – flashing completely across the width of the picture and straight out of the shot to the left.
It hadn’t turned at all.
Hadn’t slowed at all.
The sight was surreal.
Sabatino's Ptarmigan appeared to have gone straight on … in a dead straight line. Flat out. No attempt to turn … or slow down. At all.
Sabatino had been breathing deeply. Baryshnikov, over to her left, was already hugging the apex of the bend. She braced herself for the drop-off in grip as she was about to venture out onto the dirtier part of the circuit.
Sabatino waited to time her own turn in.
Now!
She turned the steering wheel.
Her brain didn’t compute.
It immediately felt odd.
There was suddenly huge resistance.
Mentally, she’d turned the wheel an eighth to the left, expecting an immediate response from the car – and to feel G-force to the right, as she was thrown to the outside of the corner.
But there was barely any change of direction.
