Leo moved his eyes up the top half of the board.

His own name sat in P2 just below Rossi. The purple notation beside his sector times. He had made the cleanest Sector 2 of the session by a margin that had made the broadcast team stop mid-sentence.

P2.

In a car that had spent two seasons in the bottom five of the constructors’ standings.

The dark amusement arrived. Cold and settled in his head. He let it exist without moving his face.

---

Rossi’s time came through.

It arrived on the timing board the way fast times always did — quietly, without ceremony, the numbers simply replacing the previous ones as if the previous ones had never been important.

[1. A. Rossi (Prema) — 1:27.5]

Two-tenths faster than Leo. Purple across all three sectors. The Italian had delivered the lap that a three-time series frontrunner delivers when someone puts a number on the board that makes them feel the edge of their territory.

The grandstands registered it. The broadcast team registered it.

Leo registered it and moved on.

’1:27.5. Rossi found two-tenths on a full-attack second run with clean air and fresh soft compound. His ceiling is between 1:27.3 and 1:27.5 based on the temperature window tonight.’

He thought about his own lap. The three backmarkers in Sector 2. The tightened line through Turn 10. The front-left spike at 94.3 degrees that had forced the load redistribution in the final sector.

’My lap was not clean. My lap had three overtakes and an overheating front tyre and still produced a 1:27.8.’

He let the number sit in his mind for a moment.

A clean lap with fresh rubber and no traffic. Optimal tyre window.

He already knew what that lap looked like. He had felt the shape of it during the flying lap — the moments where the framework had given him more than the lap had been able to use.

The Turn 3 exit where he had been a fraction conservative because of Moreau in his peripheral vision. The chicane where the front-left warning had delayed his throttle application by a fraction.

He didn’t show his full pace because he had not needed to.

He was P2 in Q1.

---

"That’s the flag," Elias said.

The chequered board appeared at the marshal’s post above the pit lane exit. The session clock hit zero and froze. Around the circuit, engines began backing off. The specific, hard-edged sound of cars at qualifying pace softened into the quieter note of cool-down running.

Q1 was over.

The timing board updated one final time. The provisional classification locked in place.

Fifteen names above the cut line.

Seven below it.

Leo was in the garage by the time the board fully updated. The mechanics were already on the car — checking temperatures, logging tyre data, pulling the aero sensors.

Pete crouched beside the front-left and ran two fingers along the tyre surface, checking the wear pattern from the second run. His face was neutral. His hands moved with the focused calm of a man who knew what he was looking for and was finding it.

"Wear is even," Pete said, standing. "Front-left ran hot in the final sector but the compound held. No grain. These can go again if we need them."

Anya appeared at Leo’s shoulder. She had the tablet in her hand and her expression was the one she wore when the data was telling her something that her professional instincts hadn’t fully expected — not surprise. More like recalibration.

"P2," she said.

"Behind Rossi," Leo replied.

"Yes. Behind Rossi." She pulled up the board on the tablet. "Everyone else is at least half a second back. Moreau at three-tenths. Dubois at one-one. The rest of the field is over a second from Rossi." She turned the tablet toward him. "But not you."

He looked at the screen.

Two-tenths. The gap between his name and Rossi’s. The gap between a disguised lap with three overtakes and an overheating tyre — and the current championship favourite running his best lap of the weekend with clean air and a full preparation.

He handed the tablet back without speaking.

"Q2 starts in eight minutes," Anya said. "Elias wants to discuss the tyre allocation. We have two sets of fresh compound left. The question is whether we use both in Q2 or hold one back for Q3."

"Q3," Leo said flatly.

Anya paused. "You’re confident we’re making Q3."

It wasn’t a question but it had the shape of one.

"Yes," he said.

She looked at him for a moment. Behind her, on the monitor above the engineering station, the broadcast feed was running. The Sky Sports ticker scrolled across the bottom of the screen.

[KAITO P2 IN Q1 — ARCADIA ROOKIE STUNS PADDOCK WITH 1:27.8.]

[ROSSI HITS BACK WITH 1:27.5 TO LEAD Q1. TWO-TENTHS BETWEEN TITLE FAVOURITE AND ROOKIE.]

[WHO IS LEO KAITO? ARCADIA’S MYSTERY DRIVER FORCES F2 TO TAKE NOTICE.]

Leo looked at the ticker for three seconds.

’Who is Leo Kaito.’

He turned away.

---

Across the garage, Marcus Berg stood beside his car. His helmet was under his arm. His face was the face of a man who had just looked at a timing board and understood exactly where he stood — not in the session, not in the session results, but in the wider story of what the next twenty minutes of his career were going to mean.

P15. He had made Q2 by nine-hundredths of a second.

His engineer, Hartmut, was talking beside him. The words were coming fast. Adjustment. Tyre window. Brake balance. Sector 2 analysis. The language of fixing a problem.

Berg was listening to what his engineer was saying, but his eyes couldn’t help but move once across the garage to where Leo was standing near the rear of the car with his arms crossed and his expression flat.

The look lasted two full seconds before Berg looked back at Hartmut.

Leo noticed but he’d already looked away before the look reached him.