‘Remy?’
Sabatino's large pitch-black eyes were still for a moment; then she thrust her phone at him across the low table. The PR man took the device. The email was already open on the screen.
Before Callom registered its content he clocked the sender, “FIA – OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT”. Sabatino declared forcefully: ‘I’ve been stripped of my win in Montreal. They’ve sided with Baryshnikov.’
Callom couldn’t help his innate PR skills kicking in, even subconsciously. Softening his voice to be barely audible above the gentle whoosh in the cabin, he asked: ‘Can you not see this as just one of those things, Rems?’ tentatively, bracing himself.
Sabatino was almost shaking. ‘Damn it, no! This was a racing incident, Bernie – nothing more. Stuff like that does happen all the time, and is not worthy of punishment. That's not the point, though, is it?’
She paused.
Sabatino looked him directly in the face. ‘Baryshnikov's my teammate, for Christ's sake. That bastard ratted me out.’
Callom sighed. There it was; the root of the problem. ‘The teammate,’ he breathed. ‘You’re embroiled in the oldest cliché in Formula One. The teammate – every driver's toughest opponent. Both in the same machine, creating the rawest comparison of ability. All the tougher when you’re both in the fastest car. Ptarmigan are a shoo-in for both Championships: you and Baryshnikov are the only contenders for the title … there are bound to be tensions.’
Sabatino wasn’t going to be placated by any truisms, however well intentioned. ‘Ptarmigan won’t capitalize on any of this, Bernie, if one of its drivers is so clearly out to shaft the other, not least as Baryshnikov has a serious issue with me. He can’t handle it – can’t stand being beaten by a woman.’
Before Callom could respond, Sabatino's phone rang. Seeing the Caller ID, he quickly passed it back. ‘It's Tahm,’ he announced.
Swiping the screen to answer it, Sabatino took the call from her team boss. Callom could only hear Sabatino's end of the conversation.
Sabatino listened for a few seconds and then said: ‘Did you know he was going to do this, Tahm?’
There was a pause.
‘You’re telling me you didn’t know he was going to the FIA?’
Silence.
‘Are you happy he did it? … Are you?’
Another pause.
‘What? … You’re not serious.’
Sabatino's face turned the darkest yet. ‘That's really clear, Tahm,’ she said with a hint of exasperation in her voice. ‘That's perfectly clear – you’re so clearly rewarding Baryshnikov's treachery…’
Sabatino's face flushed. ‘I’m still second in the Championship, for God's sake. If it hadn’t been for Baryshnikov's bullshit in Montreal, I would be leading the rankings right now. The Russian Grand Prix is crucial to me too…’
Callom saw Sabatino's expression set harder. She challenged: ‘Tahm, Tahm … do you think I sound happy?’ before she rang off.
She stood up. Glaring down at Callom she said: ‘Tahm's taking Backhouse away from me. Baryshnikov's race engineer has had to go home, for some reason – not now going to be in Moscow. Nazar's giving him Andy – to make sure “the championship-leading Russian driver has every support in the Russian Grand Prix”.’
Callom's eyes conveyed sympathy as well as mild incredulity.
‘Baryshnikov attacks me in public. He lodges an objection with the governing body. He testifies against me at an FIA hearing – and then he's rewarded with my race engineer. What kind of fucking team is this? You think these are just “tensions”, Bernie?’
Callom was about to speak when Sabatino launched off again: ‘If Baryshnikov thinks he can beat me – throw me off – with this sort of bullshit interference, he had better be ready.’
Turning away from Callom, she stormed off through the aircraft to the for’ard cabin, yanked open the rosewood door and slammed it behind her.
TWO
An hour on and the Quartech Falcon was entering Russian airspace, crossing the border from Belarus. Callom chose that moment to knock and ask for a word with Sabatino. She would still only communicate with him through the closed door.
‘I need you to be ready when we land, Rems,’ he said. ‘There's quite a reception for you at the terminal.’
They felt the aircraft begin its descent and approach into Vnukovo International Airport, to the south-west of Moscow.
At ground level, a fine haze hung over the airfield, diffusing the light of the afternoon sun; everything was tinted with a soft orange hue. With the humidity around Vnukovo, vapour trails soon appeared from the wing tips of the sleek, brilliant-white Quartech Falcon as Sabatino's plane made its final approach to land. With effortless grace – and seemingly executed as a single manoeuvre – the plane descended, performed a balletic round-out, and lowered itself down onto the runway with the smoothness of a sigh. Once slowed to taxiing speed, the corporate jet made its way to the VIP terminal.
The Quartech Falcon rolled towards the facility that had recently been extended for the president of Russia. Coming to a halt, Sabatino's plane pulled up alongside several other corporate jets already parked there; among them were those of Arno Ravilious, the chief executive of Motor Racing Promotions Limited – the commercial rights holder and therefore the financial powerhouse of Formula One; Ba-Ba Bengeo, the car-mad US rap star who had scheduled a major tour of Russia to coincide with the Russian Grand Prix; and an Ilyushin Il-96-PU, the president of Russia's personal plane – liveried simply with a white, blue and red swoosh of the Russian flag down the side of the fuselage and the single word “POCCИЯ” – so understated and yet, at the same time, so grandiose.
At Callom's insistence, Sabatino had changed her clothes. She was now wearing a brilliant-turquoise Ptarmigan jacket with a Nehru collar, white chinos and knee-high boots. Sabatino had stuck with her dark glasses, implying a clear lack of interest in engaging with the world. The moment she appeared at the cabin door, though, everything changed.
There was an immediate crescendo of shrieks and screams.
She couldn’t help but look up.
She was overwhelmed.
Above her were huge crowds. Along the front of the nearby passenger terminal, people were two … three … four deep in places. They were stretched out along the roof, along the lengths of several balconies, and pressed up against every inch of the plate-glass windows. Sabatino struggled to take it in. She was confused. Turquoise flags were everywhere – the distinctive colour of her team. Baryshnikov had left Paris earlier and was already in Moscow, she knew that. Flags of this colour, therefore, had to be for her. She couldn’t help but feel this override her mood. She found herself unable to resist a wave up to the crowds.
Their response was deafening.
Sabatino couldn’t understand it. This sort of reception never happened in motor racing, with the rare exception perhaps of Ayrton Senna in Brazil at the height of his popularity. Being the first woman Formula One driver in twenty-odd years, and unarguably the most competitive the sport had ever seen, might be having an effect. A key credential was surely lending some weight: Sabatino had got tantalizingly close to taking the Championship the season before, even in her rookie year. In an edge-of-the-seat showdown in Brazil, she’d missed the title by a solitary point – the equivalent of being 10th rather than 9th in one race across a season of twenty Grands Prix. Despite demonstrating such credibility, though, Remy Sabatino had no presumption of being an accepted part of the F1 landscape; she still felt her presence on the Formula One grid to be very much a novelty.
Except here today – in Moscow – it was the reception that was the novelty. She couldn’t believe it: this was more like the Beatles arriving at JFK in 1964.
