F.E.I.S.A.R. Team Profile
Team Principal:
Nicolo Testa (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._Italy.svg.png)
Slogan:
“Race for E-Unity”
Backstory:
Never quite the unique presence that AG-Systems always was, nor the overachievers its’ progeny Auricom and Qirex were, FEISAR has always been out of the limelight, a shame for a team that has participated in every single season of AntiGravity Racing since its’ inception and taken home four world titles in the constructor’s championship and five pilots’ championships. FEISAR has been described as both one of the great pillars that holds up AntiGravity racing and one of the relics of a bygone age, a failure amongst the teams with almost one of the worst race-to-wins ratios on the grid. But as much as some may mock FEISAR’s sometimes troubled results and inconsistent ship development, every year they turn out a solid ship that has rarely fallen too far back in the pack to become unrecognisable.
FEISAR began life as FEAR – the Foundation for European Anti-gravity Research, the famous institution that Pierre Belmondo worked at, and created his first working prototypes of his AG craft before the first ever official unveiling of one of their machines. And when he had finally seen off the last of his detractors and was being hailed as a new liberator of man, freeing them from gravity by such brutal means as propellers and jet engines, he returned to work there at its’ commercial business arm with an intent on keeping his beloved technology out of the hands of the money-driven and the greedy. (Perhaps ironically, considering the name.)
When Japanese investors offered to buy out the commercial arm of FEAR and move it to Japan, perhaps it told something about how Pierre Belmondo considered the Europeans he worked with when he agreed and shipped his entire operation to Tokyo to become AG-Systems. Japan, after all, had been one of only three countries to refuse the higher tax on petrol that had almost resulted in the end of all Belmondo’s work. Without their best and brightest, FEAR began to suffer.
Without the driving force of Belmondo, there was no direction to the team and it began to fracture and shatter. In the end, what had begun as a single scientific entity was taken over by the European Federation, the organisation that had evolved from the European Union many years before. With the announcement of the F3600 racing league, they decided that FEAR would be better suited for building racing craft as a single European squad to take the fight to AG-Systems, and later Qirex and Auricom.
The only problem was that none of the Federation could quite agree on how to go about setting up the development plants and factory locations. The central base and research facility had been near Grenoble in France, but there were a myriad of other locations that were setting up around Europe. In the end, the infamous plans of setting up various locations and revolving the squad about them was set up to the anger of most actual scientists who didn’t agree with the pandering to European Unity idea. France was still the centre of technology and theoretical physics, but the ion drives were built in Sant’Agata, Italy. The Aerodynamics plant was in Vantaa, Finland, pilot training centres were located in Stuttgart, Germany and the airbrake plant was in Dover, United Kingdom.
This led to slow development, and often arguments in team between scientists, engineers and Eurocrats alike. The only rocks in the organisation were the pilots. While the other teams sought hard and experienced pilots for their craft, FEISAR took a less serious approach to their picking of pilots and dozens of hopefuls got to practice and try out the European ships behind Sofia De La Rente and Paul Jackson. It was mostly because of this that the other three teams had such a wealth of talent to pick from after they became disenchanted with FEISAR. All the F5000 champions for each class were initially linked with FEISAR at some point – Stefan Geist of Qirex, who went on to win the Phantom series was an actual FEISAR pilot for the Vector and Venom series before he was promoted to a full race seat at the Russian squad.
FEISAR gained ground throughout these races though, and slowly the European squad eased themselves up the ranking thanks to their excellent handling capabilities. They took their first championship in the first Venom league of the F7200 with Rocco Tiepolo and there was widespread rejoicing in the many factories. That is, save for the Dover factory which had been taken over by Icaras. They won again in the second Rapier league with a name who would become more to some people – Wolfgang Van-Uber.
Wolfgang left FEISAR soon after the end of F7200 and took the Stuttgart factory for himself. With the loss of the aerodynamics plant in Vantaa to Xios, FEISAR knew they were losing ground and not even the reclamation of the Dover plant was enough to keep the team’s spirit up at first.
What none of them had reckoned on though was that the F9000 was a big shake-up. A very big shake-up. The twisting tracks and brand new methods of racing meant that the brighter young pilots adapted faster and FEISAR finished runner up to Piranha in the first (Chronos) league. They took the Tethys league with Daniel Johnson, breaking Piranhs’s 3-championship streak, but after that they seemed to fade away. After the Crius league, the first AntiGravity races without an Auricom on the starting grid, FEISAR dropped out and began to focus on commercial transport in the same way Auricom was doing. Though not as reliable as their American counterparts, FEISAR found good work in making private grav-cabs and even now from Lisbon to Vilnus you can flag down blue and yellow taxis. When the time came to start the new project for FX150 however, the normally company-driven focus of FEISAR was smashed aside by a new man.
Nicolo Testa had been a FEISAR fan for all his life, but had only come to work for the company in the middle of its’ hiatus from racing, working on the taxi business. He had been noted many times for his impatience, his temper and his desire to go beyond the boundaries. His designs were radical and imaginative, and when explaining his theories to his superiors he would speak at length, drawing great diagrams and explaining in depth. He was the perfect man to be the Team Principal of the resurrected FEISAR and as soon as his bosses gave him a modicum of autonomy, he was working like a man possessed.
FEISAR began to centre around the Bologna-based engine facility, eschewing some of the other locations that had been taken by other teams, though they continued working at Dover until it was taken once more by Icaras. Testa is known as a fierce and impassioned leader, but his success is clear for all to see – A victory for Thanos Ikrausus, Ezio Di’Rosso and Latoya Ruchiov to take the FX350 trophy certainly leaves a good impression. He is determined to see the next ships do even better than the narrow victory they won over Icaras that season…
Allies: Triakis, Harimau
Rivals: Icaras, (Goteki 45?)
Arch Rivals: EG-X
Searching AntiGravity Racing Archives for subject ‘EG-X stolen FEISAR designs’
Error – records have been expunged. Alpha-level security in place. Data locking requested by Nat-*static*-o, approved by AntiGravity Race Commissioner Tarvus Orcorus
Ship Details:
Like AG-Systems, FEISAR’s ‘Fury’ ship suffers from an alarming lack of development time as the European squad desperately played catch-up in the latter part of the FX400 season to keep pace with Harimau and AG-Systems, and ward off the unwelcome attention of Icaras nipping at their heels. As the FX500 specifications state the enlarged dimensions of the ships necessary, it looks like FEISAR mostly just enlarged their blueprints. Why change a winning formula after all?
FEISAR-X5-Alpha, codenamed the ‘Octavian’ in keeping with Nicolo Testa’s habit of naming FX FEISARs after Roman generals and emperors, has a more sophisticated airbrake system than its’ predecessors X3.5 and 4 to keep with an enlarged engine capacity and some minor tweaks to the shielding capabilities. A new wind tunnel in Italy has helped immensely with the shape and the new FEISAR is much more dangerous aerodynamically. One weak point is targeting systems – FEISAR pilots have said they have difficulty with locking onto allied ships and their attempts at laying mines in strategic positions tend to end up messy.
Lead Pilot – Ezio Di’Rosso (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._Italy.svg.png)
Often, a pilot will begin their career with FEISAR only to move on when they have learnt the skills to be a pilot the hard way – the European team is famous for their poor management skills, but twice, a pilot will emerge that is determined to take FEISAR to the top and refuses potentially better offers with the loyalty to their starting squad. Daniel Johnson was one such man during the days of the F9000 and despite his retirement from racing now, he has many positive things to say about his spiritual successor, a man with similar goals for FEISAR.
Ezio was one of the first men to apply for the position of a race pilot with the announcement of the FX150 racing league, and his application seemed to stand out despite one or two references to car and ship stealing in his native San’Atagia. The Italian did not have far to move to FEISAR’s Italian stronghold where the engines were made in a factory that in times past had made the petrol engines for a long-forgotten prestige ground car company in Bologna. After proving himself to the thruster department in several simulators and a run in the FS-9K-VII ship left over from the F9000 league, the Roman officials in the mess that is FEISAR’s head office pushed and lobbied until Ezio was the second pilot for the initial series, the old hand Thanos Ikrausus of Greece having been on the cards for several months now. With an experienced older pilot who had flown in the final days of the F9000 and a young hotshot, FEISAR took to the new league and Ezio showed off just why he deserved the place.
A smooth and skilled pilot, Ezio’s hawk-eyes were able to pick up danger ahead by miles and though his craft couldn’t catch the powerful Auricom ship or the nimble Assegai in the first league, it outperformed the much more technologically advanced AG-Systems, and did so again when the weapons were turned on and celebrated a second place in the championship. It took longer for his team to rise up to the challenge in the FX350 and take victory over Icaras, a fight that he said added about five years to his life. He attributed his victory to his mentor Ikrausus, who in turn declared Ezio to be a perfect launching point for FEISAR’s future while he had an easy retirement after the FX400.
Ezio’s determination to match his team principal’s is legendary and there is little the Milanese pilot can’t put his mind to and make the craft do. His looks have also helped when publicity shots or advertising campaigns are needed, though to the despair of a lot of fans around the globe, Ezio has appeared recently with an engagement ring on his finger. He stays coy about who he is betrothed to though, and not even Float Nation’s best spies have found out.
Second Pilot – Latoya Ruchiov (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ungary.svg.png)
Last year’s third pilot, Latoya moves up with the advent of the FX500 season into a place of a great deal more responsibility with the departure of Thanos Ikrausus, the Greek expert who had been no more than a trainee pilot at the time of FEISAR pulling out of the F9000.
Latoya was one of the many dozens of young hot-shots who signed up to the FEISAR Study programme when the FX150 was re-announced, though while she did well to get through some of the initial tests she was found wanting in some of the later challenges. She ended up on an immensely extensive list of trainee pilots for the reserve FEISAR seat. Many of these pilots ended up leaving FEISAR for other squads to act as development pilots, one of which was none other than Thierry Caluroso, now twice world champion for AG-Systems.
When the FX350 finally allowed a third pilot, Latoya was one of very few pilots still loyal to the squad that had taken her in despite rumours of an offer from Qirex. The Euro squad eventually went for the Scottish pilot Heather McKellen, leaving the Hungarian as a second reserve pilot. It meant that she was given a ringside seat into the workings of how FEISAR treated its’ pilots – by her own admission somewhat poorly. McKellen famously had been shaken many times by the rudeness and brusqueness of the team and especially with Testa’s do-or-die approach to racing she didn’t seem to take well to the hyper-professional new FEISAR.
The dismissive nature of FEISAR’s pilot correspondents caused Latoya’s fellow reserve pilot to leave, giving her a sudden burst in responsibility. It seemed that while she appeared professional before the team, an interview with Heather McKellen stated that she wouldn’t have been able to finish the FX350 without the support Latoya gave her when she needed it. When the treatment continued into FX400, McKellen left the team and Ruchiov was forced into her place in short notice. Despite the kindness she’d shown to her fellow female pilot, she had lost none of the drive that FEISAR wanted and began slamming home a series of mid-field results with an eventual win at Orcus White for the first time. It was enough to keep her on for FX500, though in his retirement Thanos said that he didn’t envy Latoya’s new position. It was make-or-break with her and FEISAR after all.
Third Pilot – Park So-Gun (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._Korea.svg.png)
A last-minute defector from Goteki 45, So-Gun stunned quite a few people when he was presented along with the team’s new craft wearing the blue and yellow, most of all the members of his old team, who nearly exploded at the sight. Rumours had abounded that the Korean was considering leaving Goteki 45 last year, but nobody had predicted that he’d move to a team for beginners once more.
As the first ever champion of the JX200 league for Van-Uber, he was given a seat for the FX350 league with the Makana-based squad, and impressed many with his skills, showing that he could hold his own and occasionally he even surpassed his team mates in terms of time trials and speed laps. His race technique was sometimes criticised and he flew into rages easily when the race didn’t go his way – which it often didn’t at the Chenghou Project.
The reason for his leaving Goteki is said to have been a fall out with his fellow team-members rather than with the actual administration of Goteki 45. Even so, people are asking why if he’s looking for a more personable team he goes to FEISAR as opposed to somewhere like Icaras or even Mirage. The question of whether he will settle into the team and the ship is no issue – he is more than capable of flying, that much is unquestionable. What is an issue is his team choice and it’s believed unlikely that he will see the season through to the end in the FEISAR.
