The next stop on the global circuit loomed: São Paulo, Brazil. Home to the legendary Autódromo José Carlos Pace, better known to fans and drivers alike as Interlagos. Tucked between two reservoirs, its dramatic elevation changes, wide sweeping turns, and roaring grandstands made it not just a track, but a theater.
Friday – Arrival
The team from Vaayu Motors touched down at Guarulhos airport early Friday morning. Sukhman and Harinder exited the airport lobby into a sea of noise — samba drums, cheering fans, waving flags. Brazil was alive.
"Now this is what I call welcome energy," Harinder laughed, pulling his sunglasses on.
Sukhman grinned but said little. He was still riding high off his fourth-place finish at Zandvoort but knew momentum was a fickle beast. Brazil could make or break it.
> "We're just a few points away from the top four now," he reminded himself quietly, boarding the shuttle. "We keep this up, they'll have no choice but to take notice."
Behind the Scenes – The Eyes of Phase Three
Far away in a private office tower in Dubai, a sleek control room buzzed to life. Encrypted servers lit up with fresh data as telemetry packets from each team began uploading through shadow networks.
A man in a grey suit, known only to the operatives as Director Voss, reviewed a large wall screen.
> "Initiate passive interference protocol," he said.
"Target?"
"We've collected enough on Charlotte and Jia. For now, observe… but Sukhman — he's become far more interesting, plus he can become a problem for our investors if he continues to rise in leaderboard. Let's test how pressure reshapes him."
Phase Three — Integration — wasn't just about the machines. It was about the people, the minds, and the fractures.
---
Free Practice 1 & 2 – Testing the Hill
The Interlagos paddock buzzed with tension. The crowd energy from the stands spilled over into the pit lanes. Everyone knew this track could make legends — or shatter hopes.
Vaayu engineers had brought a fresh configuration package, optimized for the long straights and mid-speed chicanes. The car's balance looked promising, but there was still something off.
"I'm feeling some torque lag on exit. Something's not syncing with the new differential setup," Sukhman radioed during FP2.
Back in the garage, Siddharth leaned over the console, whispering, "I swear we triple-checked the new sensors."
Unknown to them, Charlotte Reid was also running with a modified gearbox module — an untested one, quietly approved through backdoor channels from a third-party supplier. Her team, drawn by lucrative R&D partnerships, had little idea what kind of code rode inside those circuits.
---
The Media Storm
Back at the hotel, Raghav watched a local motorsport broadcast. Maya and Rina sat beside him, still unsure how to feel about Sukhman's ascent. He'd performed well — but the Indian motorsport federation hadn't seen a rise in sponsors or offers.
> "He's doing everything right," Rina said. "But why the system isn't responding?"
Raghav rubbed his temples.
> "It's not just about performance. It's perception. And whoever is pulling strings behind the scenes… they're shifting the storylines."
On social media, racing hashtags trended wildly:
"#GravesVsHoltz"
"#MontoyaMadness"
"#TanUnderPressure"
"#RaviRedemption?"
"#PodiumForSukh?"
Sukhman's name, however, started appearing more frequently. Clips of his smooth corner entries and bold wheel-to-wheel moments from Zandvoort were gaining traction.
But under some posts, cryptic bot-like comments kept repeating:
> "The phase shifts soon."
"Control is earned, not given."
"They watch the knight from the East."
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Qualifying Build-Up
Saturday morning began hot and humid. The Interlagos sun bore down like a challenge.
"Let's just keep the car clean and push when it counts," Sukhman told the team.
Siddharth grinned. "You're becoming a strategist now."
> Meanwhile, Jia Tan sat alone on a curb beside her trailer, eyes closed, breathing slow. The telemetry inconsistencies from last race still haunted her.
"Something's wrong," she whispered. "And for some reason I am getting the vibe that we are being watched."
Her engineer approached, hesitant. "The car's ready. But... we noticed another power fluctuation. We'll keep an eye."
Far away, a new line of code injected itself into a diagnostics line.
---
End of Chapter Teaser
As the sun dipped low over São Paulo, and engines began growling through early laps of Qualifying, somewhere in the paddock — a shadow moved.
> A man in a tan delivery vest opened a control box behind the SBA Motors pit wall, plugging in a strange-looking USB stick. It blinked once. Then, silence.
The hunt for podiums continued.
But the war behind the curtains?
That is just beginning.