ALICE Ch 336

Bright lights shine on the simple chair.

Will Buxton is placid. “I don’t know that I would describe things in Monza as tense. The stakes are high for everyone, of course. With things as narrow as they are, every team has a chance to advance. That means everyone is under immense pressure, more so than usual. Things are never relaxed in Formula One, you understand. But it used to be the expectation that Lewis and Bottas would be P1 and P2, and then two more teams would jockey for the podium and the big money. Then it became Max instead of Lewis, but the overall situation has changed little. This year is different. It’s one thing to be racing Formula One with no real expectation of advancement, but everyone has a shot. That’s almost worse than being simply crushed under the wheels of Mercedes and Red Bull, week after week.”

“For better or worse, it feels like the storylines this year are focused on FUTA Racing and Alice Wilde and Freedom with Valeria Flores. Two new teams, two debut drivers making waves. What do you see for them?”

“I’d tell you if I knew. Wilde and Flores are breakout talents, but they’re at the mercy of circumstance. Things tend to be more volatile with new teams. Higher highs, lower lows. This sport is unique, and it takes time to settle into a rhythm as we see the more established teams like Mercedes and Red Bull having done. Freedom and FUTA are still sorting things out, wrapping their heads around all this. And even the big teams have to work on their cars as they go along, while FUTA and Freedom are doing it with unproven engineers. Last week’s result was disappointing for both teams, and that was not the fault of the drivers. One thing that has my particular interest is Patty Dunham. Her performance has been unremarkable until just recently, and if we learn that this is attributable to the car—if we learn that she is a driver of the same caliber as Alice Wilde and Valeria Flores, then things become truly interesting. Faye Darcy is mechanically proficient, but she isn’t hungry. Even if she hadn’t said as much in interviews, we could almost deduce it from her races. Mio Mido is hungry, but she lacks Faye’s ability. Whoever the second driver is, FUTA Racing is the Alice Wilde show. But nobody—except perhaps Max Verstappen—can carry a team to true dominance alone. The sublime teamwork of Bottas during the Hamilton era is criminally underreported. Those championships belong to Bottas every bit as much as they belong to Lewis. And if this isn’t a fluke, if Patty Dunham is showing us something real on a team backed by American money, then this sport could be in for its first major shakeup in some time. Because Valeria Flores has world champion written all over her—if, and only if—her team can come through. We all want to see how Flores and Wilde do, but my attention is on Dunham. She may well be the one to swing it.”

“What if Patty Dunham aspires to more than being the next Bottas?”

Buxton laughs. “Then Matt Berry has his work cut out for him, and we’ll be in for one hell of a show.”