Provisional Contract
He came into the garage still holding the pit-lane speed limit.
The car had barely stopped before the mechanics were on it, and a moment later the power unit died. The exhaust note that had been hammering his ears dropped away, and inside the helmet there was nothing left but the sound of his breathing.
…Not bad.
Kim Yihyun pulled the steering wheel free, handed it to a mechanic, and hauled himself up out of the cockpit. The lateral load had been heavier than anything in Formula 2, but his body was fine. In truth, the run had been very short.
If this much was enough to shake me, I couldn't even get a two-hour race started.
He had built his neck and his core all winter for a day exactly like this. He pulled the helmet off and peeled the balaclava back, and sweat-soaked hair clung to his forehead.
That was when it happened.
"Yihyun!"
Louise came out of nowhere and threw her arms around him.
"……?"
Her arms locked tight over the firesuit. Her shoulders were trembling, just barely.
…What?
"Noona?"
"……."
"What's wrong? Did something happen?"
"…No. Just let me stay like this for a second."
He had no idea why she was suddenly like this, but he put his arms around her anyway and patted her back.
"Good work."
A heavy hand came down on his shoulder from behind. It was Oscar. As always, his face gave almost nothing away—but the voice was unmistakably hotter than usual. No. Look closer, and the corner of his mouth seemed to be twitching.
"Oscar, did something happen? Why is Noona suddenly like this?"
"…It's nothing."
"Then what is that nothing?"
"Just that you did very well."
For a man calling it nothing, there was a fair amount of strength in that hand. And Noona still hadn't let go. His puzzlement lasted only a moment. Two people were walking out from the back of the garage—Toto Wolff and Bono.
"Kim."
Bono held up a tablet.
"Do you have a minute? Let's talk about that lap."
The talk ran longer than he had expected. They started with the lap time.
Low one-oh-threes…
Set beside the 2021 times at the Red Bull Ring, it was a staggering pace. A little more speed through Sector 3 and the lap would still have been unofficial—but he would have beaten Max, who had held the best time back then.
Close.
The reason he hadn't taken it was battery deployment, nothing else. He had spent too much of it on the straight after Turn 3, and come up short through Sector 3. Bono owned the mistake in his own call first, then moved on.
Next was the setup. When that came up, Kim Yihyun spoke first.
"Grip was a little short overall. I assume you'd trimmed it for a speed setup."
"Shall we add downforce?"
"No. It's fine."
Kim Yihyun shook his head.
"If anything, I think we can push it further toward speed from here. I still have margin."
Bono's eyes left the tablet. Beside him, Toto—arms folded, listening—let one eyebrow shift. The kerbs at Turns 5, 6, 7, and 8 came up as well.
"I think I can ride the kerb a little harder there."
"Understood."
For about thirty minutes, while the car was made ready again, Yihyun, Bono, and Toto stayed with the lap time and the feedback.
After that, the test went on as planned. The rest of the morning was systems checks and short runs, over and over. They nudged the setup a little at a time and watched how Yihyun answered it, and each time he came back to the pits they talked it through the same way.
The afternoon had a long run on the sheet, the kind that stood in for a real race. Before any of that proper running, they practiced pit stops first. On paper a pit stop was nothing: stop the car exactly on the marks and change the tires.
It looks like nothing. It's quietly hard.
Stop too early and you miss the pit crew, and the time is gone. Stop too late and the crew are only human—they flinch at the thought of the car hitting them, and that flinch becomes lost time as well. But this was Kim Yihyun. He had already lived through Formula 1 once, and he had done pit stops until he was sick of them. It wasn't a problem.
And then—
Out-lap complete. Race simulation from here.
"Copy."
With the tank full, he settled into a two-hour run.
Kim, how's the car?
"Grip's about the same as earlier. I've still got room to push."
Don't force it.
"Yes. I'll hold this pace."
After that, aside from the short calls between Yihyun and the pit wall, hardly anyone spoke. Over two hours, the lap time barely moved. Someone on the pit wall let out a short whistle.
The simulation ended around sunset. And—
He hadn't rewritten the outright record, but he had managed to get within striking distance of Verstappen. When Kim Yihyun climbed out of the car and pulled off his helmet, Toto stepped forward as if he had been waiting.
"Kim."
"Yes."
"Today, we confirmed your talent."
Toto's voice was level.
"And that talent is the real thing. Not chance, and not luck. The data we collected over the course of today says so."
Kim Yihyun didn't answer. He only waited for what came next.
"Hah—!"
"!"
Oscar and Louise, listening beside him, sucked in a sharp breath.
……
He had heard words like that in his first life, too. Only then it had been after summer was gone, after he had run FP1 at Monza. Now it was April, straight off the first test.
…That came faster.
The timing had clearly moved up. For a moment he let himself be satisfied with the thought that he must have shown them something good enough to force it.
"So I would like to make you an offer."
Toto went on.
"If it were up to me, Kim, I would contract you this instant. I can't put a formal contract in front of you yet. There are procedures inside the team, and confirming your talent doesn't mean every test is finished."
"……."
"So for now, I would like a provisional contract."
"A provisional contract?"
"Yes. The plan is to run a few more tests like today, and after that to put you into FP1 at an actual Grand Prix."
Toto opened his fingers one at a time.
"Tests. FP1. Then a formal contract. How does that sound?"
Kim Yihyun steadied his breath. He was choosing what to say. In that pause Oscar, standing beside him, took one step forward.
"May I confirm a few things?"
"Of course."
"During the provisional period, what happens if Yihyun is in contact with other teams?"
"We have no intention of blocking it."
Not the answer anyone had expected.
"It doesn't please us, of course. I'll be honest."
Toto shrugged.
"Meeting several teams matters a great deal to a driver, personally."
"……."
"In return, let me say just one thing."
He looked straight at Kim Yihyun.
Confidence lay thick on the words—thick enough that, heard a certain way, they could have sounded arrogant. But—
…It's just a plain fact.
What Toto had said wasn't arrogance. It wasn't anything but the truth.
"The better your results in F2, the more teams will come calling, saying they'd like a word. A car that can fight for a championship. Real experience raising a rookie properly. And the certainty that they will put you in a seat and get you into Formula 1 right now. How many teams do you think can give you all of that?"
Oscar let out a short breath. It was painfully true.
"…Then if a contract does come later, what would the terms be?"
"Signing bonus or salary, we'll write you a deal no one would mistake for a rookie's."
Toto added it evenly.
"I have no intention of lowballing you because you're new. The talent I saw in Kim today is worth that much."
Oscar looked back at Kim Yihyun. He didn't say it. The meaning was clear enough. The decision was his.
…If nothing goes wrong.
This was, in practice, a contract for a 2025 seat. Don't cause trouble in the tests, and don't have a serious incident in FP1. Do that, and the seat for the 2025 season was settled, and he would be walking back into that moment of glory. In his first life he had strung mistake after mistake together once his official debut came, and he had fallen. This second time had to be different. So—
"I'll do it."
The answer was short. Toto, wearing a small smile, held out his hand.
"I'm looking forward to it, Kim."
"So am I."
The handshake had barely ended when Louise caught him from behind.
"Yihyun!"
He had already lost count of the hugs today.
"Congratulations! Really—really, congratulations!"
"…Noona, hang on. I can't breathe."
"Just a little. Just a little longer."
In the end he laughed. Still holding him, Louise mumbled it into his chest.
"Your mother and father are going to be so happy. Seoa, too."
Faces passed through his head. His mother crying on the other end of a phone. His father emptying a glass without a word. His little sister pushing her head into the corner of the screen.
"Ah—and it's fine to tell your family that you signed the provisional contract today."
"…Yes?"
"But only that far."
Toto was smiling, clearly, and his eyes were not.
"If this goes any further outside, it becomes a problem. You know the state of the driver market. The moment word gets out about who we're looking at, the press will move."
"……."
"And that isn't good for you either, Kim."
Toto looked at him.
"Now is the time to focus quietly on the tests and hone your talent. It is not the time to be torn apart by the media and dragged through gossip."
He was right. In his first life, Kim Yihyun had learned the weight of a camera—the press that had mocked him and condemned him without mercy.
I'm not living through that again.
"Understood."
Toto nodded, satisfied.
"Then we'll see you at the next test."