(Translated by Most Accurate Translations Ltd. For inquiries, please contact Gerald Most, 518 Kuran Ave, Newport, Nystatiszna)
It is entirely possible by now that the most repeated sentence in the history of motorsports is, as of the fateful finale to the 2022 Series One World Championship, West Borean driver Kasran is’Vaara’s off-hand comment to the press at the post-race media pen of the Peragian Grand Prix. Is’Vaara had delivered a magnificent and well-deserving drive to claim his first ever victory in the pinnacle of motorsport, but some in his team were concerned that the last-lap overtake he made to achieve this would hamper his teammate’s shot at winning the Drivers’ Championship.
Take my word for it: by the time we get to Istariya [the final race of the season], nobody will be thinking about those seven points.
And then, as if the gods of motorsport had been watching, Matthieu Soyer went on to lose the championship by exactly seven points.
Novia’s team boss, Hector Adnet, was quick to show his anger and to express his opinion, to which he is allegedly legally entitled, that Soyer should have won the Championship, and that is’Vaara’s overtake was in some way unethical. And for sure, the team did tell Kasran to hold position at Peragen and simply let his teammate win. But when your employer tells you to saw your own leg off, the sensible thing to do is to not do that. Instead, the courageous Kasran would not let his boss boss him around, and simply took the win.
Many of Soyer’s fans, who are mostly Alkari, believe that if Kasran were instead replaced with a more obedient driver, Soyer would have become champion. It is a frankly worrying implication for the geopolitics of Urth if, as it appears here, the people of one of the primary nations of the UCA are indeed so limited in their memories that they can only remember one twentieth of a year.
After all, just three races earlier, Kasran was controversially told to give up the race win to Soyer, which he obligingly did. That’s seven points already that Kasran graciously donated to the Alkari cause - but that’s never enough for Novia.
When it came down to the final showdown at Istariya, Soyer demanded that Kasran “defend like a lion” - and he dutifuly did so, sabotaging his own race with a broken front wing just to hold up Marlan Kalming on his way to take the crown anyway. Many people were talking about is’Vaara’s racing, but nobody remembered that Haaland Rusnák was ripe for the (over)taking just a few seconds up the road - and hey, if you can move up from second place into first place, I hear they give you seven points for that!
And even in the penultimate race, who was it but Kasran who engaged his car’s anti-stall mechanism at the start, blocking the Bernitti-Domios from making the quick getaway that the bookmakers and oddstakers had predicted they’d win the race off the back of?
In fact, Novia should have called it quits for team orders after Puntalia, where the two Alkari drivers on the grid, Soyer and MetroCiv’s Alphonse Dubost, got their revenge for poor Kasran’s insubordination by crashing into him and forcing him into the pits for a front-wing change.
And if that weren’t enough, the very next race after that, Kasran crashed out of the lead of his home grand prix on the very last lap, promoting Soyer up into, once again, first place. This humble reporter can’t confirm anything, but one can’t help but be suspicious about such an incident at such a track at such an opportune time for the Alkari driver - especially given that, having built a thirty-second lead to his alleged teammate, Kasran would not have been physically able to let Soyer past to win without - you guessed it - crashing.
It’s no wonder then, that at the Asendavian Grand Prix, Matthieu Soyer not only didn’t even deign to show gratitude for his colleague’s contribution to the championship (which at that point he was even leading), he didn’t even deign to notice his colleague’s car, turning in and causing an infamous teammate collision. At least he earned himself a broken front wing in the process.
Yes, it’s all very clear that Kasran is’Vaara is the sole reason why Soyer was able to even dream of being a championship contender. Without his dutiful service, Novia would have been in the doldrums, scrapping for leftovers with the likes of Bernitti-Domio and Tamradh Monsal while Spiiker claims a new trophy cabinet’s worth of one-twos.
Kasran is’Vaara is an invaluable asset to Novia Racing, should he choose to remain with the team that mistreats him so, and which conclusively and emphatically does not deserve him, and that is something that Hector Adnet should understand. I, for one, certainly hope he will act accordingly.