F1: The Making of a Racing God

Chapter 32 Limits of Equations
"Alright, stop gloating! See these names on the list? Less than a quarter of them are still in our youth training system!"

Perhaps feeling that his previous actions would damage his image as someone who had absolute authority in Shu Long's eyes, Marco's current tactic can be considered a warning to others.

"The second-place Albon used to beat Max when he was a Red Bull academy student, but he was kicked out by me a couple of years ago because he was too bad at Formula 1."

At the time, Albon was also in his first year of promotion from karting to junior formula racing, and the team's overall poor performance was one of the reasons for Albon's struggles. Even so, Marko was unwilling to give him a second year.

Unlike Albon, Verstappen, who had previously lost to Albon, was signed by Dr. Marko against all odds because of his dominant performance in F3, and was given a Toro Rosso driver's seat without even having raced in F2.

Shu Long was somewhat speechless.

Before coming, he even climbed a ladder to check the reputation of Red Bull's youth training on foreign websites. Besides the widely acknowledged abundance of opportunities, the most prominent labels of Red Bull's youth training in the eyes of outsiders are cruelty and unreasonableness.

It now seems that the rumors were not entirely unfounded; rather, the lack of detailed information about these rumors has diluted much of the harsh reality within the Red Bull system.

This thing is designed to cast a wide net and then selectively catch fish.

They are indeed more willing to invest than other teams, but after signing a large number of youth training drivers, they kick them out as soon as their growth rate does not meet the standard, so they don't actually incur much additional cost.

Besides being dismissed, many young drivers also left because they couldn't stand Marko's manipulative tactics and, as they got older, they saw no hope of promotion. They often couldn't persevere to the end and chose to leave on their own.

That's why I said earlier that Shulong was under a tight timeframe for karting events.

As drivers get older and their bodies develop, older drivers have virtually no advantage over younger drivers except for experience. The paddock won't care if you're dozens of pounds heavier; they'll only see that someone has been racing for years and is getting worse every year.

This is how potential is overdrawn, and countless people are unknowingly sentenced to death in their racing careers.

One thing that Shu Long didn't notice was that this kind of treatment—having a race track booked out for just one go-kart test—is extremely rare, even in Red Bull's expensive youth training program.

From the moment Shu Long arrived, Marco, a prominent figure, was present almost the entire time to follow up on Shu Long's progress, which shows how much importance the other party attached to it.

Marco's plan for Shulong next year is single-seat Formula One.

Even in terms of karting racing experience, Shu Long's experience was quite weak compared to other drivers of the same generation. However, in Dr. Marko's view, a genius like Shu Long had no need to waste his time in karting racing.

Shu Long himself wholeheartedly agrees with this, saying that his developmental period came at just the right time. If he starts formulating next year, the disadvantages brought about by the weight gain will not be so obvious.

The first day was just a symbolic test of the go-karts to make sure that Shu Long's performance hadn't declined due to the accident a few months ago. In the afternoon, Shu Long was handed over to the F4 training department by Marco, with the task of memorizing all the key points of F4 car driving by tomorrow.

This includes the functions of each button on the steering wheel, the effects of adjusting the settings, and so on.

The amount of content was large, but it was just a piece of cake for Shu Long, whose photographic memory was fully activated. All he had to do was sit in the cockpit and get used to the muscle memory of adjusting the steering wheel, so that he wouldn't be flustered and make mistakes while driving tomorrow.

The second day, at the same location, the setup was completely different from yesterday, when there were only two go-kart engineers on standby. Today, a team of twelve technicians was ready in the pit area.

There was also a Formula One race car with a carbon fiber base, but the Red Bull logo was symbolically painted on the surface of the car.

"See that delivery truck over there? Your performance today will determine how many surprises you'll find inside."

Marco was accompanied by two middle-aged strangers, a man and a woman, who, as if harboring some kind of perverse amusement, immediately asked Shu Long upon seeing him:
"First question, what are their names?"

"I don't know, and I don't think Max will know this time either."

Shu Long swore with his ever-vigilant ability to remember everything he saw that he had neither seen these two people in the past two days, nor had he found any information on them that could suggest their identities.

They look somewhat alike, but I don't know if they are siblings or just a married couple.

However, this time Shu Long guessed wrong. Max really did know these two people, but Marco didn't seem to have any intention of introducing them. He just told Shu Long to obediently sit in the cockpit and complete today's project.

This is a basic prototype F4 car, a veteran used specifically to train young Red Bull drivers. Its overall condition is worse than that of the current F4 race cars.

Moreover, the cockpit isn't exactly very comfortable.

The seats here are probably one size fits all, and Shu Long is already considered one of the tallest race car drivers. Fortunately, Albon, a former Red Bull youth academy player, was also a very tall man, so Shu Long isn't so short that he can't even stretch his legs out when he sits in them.

Racing suits are far more complex than go-kart gear. The Red Bull racing suit that Shu Long is wearing is a size provided by the youth training base. Each item is barely usable, but something just doesn't feel right.

Yesterday, Marco casually mentioned that the racing suit that Shulong's data collected during the physical tests was custom-made hasn't even started production yet. It seemed like if Shulong's performance in the next few days didn't satisfy Marco, they could save money on the suit in the end.
Start the race, then head to the track.

Shu Long wasn't in a hurry to push forward. Not only were the tires still cold in the freezing weather, but this was also his first time driving a proper Formula One race car. Right now, apart from his curiosity about this new thing, he knew absolutely nothing about the car.

As a high-horsepower rear-wheel-drive car, although it is only the most basic model in Formula One, in terms of overall vehicle dynamics and power response, the large collection that Shu Xiong particularly cherishes can be said to be utterly useless.

Moreover, in addition to the normal tire grip feedback, as Shulong slowly explored the vehicle's load-bearing limits, he seemed to be able to vaguely feel another force that greatly affected the driving characteristics from the race car under his rear.

Shu Long is no longer the illiterate boy he was in elementary school. Having done his homework beforehand, he knows that this thing is the effect of aerodynamics on the car body, which is also the biggest difference between Formula cars and go-karts.

If there's one thing that's most noticeable to Shulong right now, it's that the threshold for steering slip angle has decreased when the race car is cornering and under pressure to its limits.

"How do you feel now?"

Marco, standing in the P room, snatched the call from the engineer, but after a long wait, he heard Shu Long's slightly excited voice coming through the headset.

"It feels great, like a larger go-kart. It's not as free as a go-kart, but it can push her to her limit more steadily." This argument sounded familiar; Marco had heard similar comments when he went to scout Verstappen. However, Marco's face, now as dark as a gloomy cloud, didn't show much joy.

"I don't care how you feel now, I just want to know if you couldn't find the TR button just now!"

Shu Long shrank back somewhat awkwardly. He had been so engrossed in driving that he had been talking to the air for a while before remembering what he was supposed to be doing.

It's not that I forgot where the button is; it's just that I've only recently switched from go-karting and don't yet have the muscle habit of needing to press a button to speak.

"I'll leave that aside for now, but let me make this clear: if you make me lose face and all my efforts are wasted today, you'll only be able to buy your Red Bull jerseys from the souvenir shop from now on!"

As expected, the familiar pressure monster Marco is back online.

"You just said you could push a race car to its limits? Now let me see your limits!"

The area opposite TR fell silent, exuding a solemn and menacing aura.

But Marko seemed to think that wasn't enough. This was a driver who could win the final race despite having a broken arm and the pressure of being at the back of the pack. He added fuel to the fire with one last question: "Where is your answer?"

"Doctor, if I really get fired, could you help me come up with a less embarrassing reason? Like, retirement due to injury or something?"

So that's what kept you silent!

"No need for examples. If you can't achieve the results I want to see, injury is probably the easiest excuse for us to fabricate!"

With a "thud," Marko slammed his headphones onto the table. It was the first time he had ever felt such a sense of powerlessness, beyond disappointment, in a young driver.

Where did that warrior who fought his way out of a bloodbath three months ago go?
In this atmosphere, instead of showing your determination, you first make excuses for yourself. Is that the right thing to do?
If it were anyone else, Marco would have kicked them out on some random excuse long ago, but Shulong just showed an incredibly tempting speed potential yesterday. Until he disappoints Marco again, the old man's tolerance for Shulong is practically limitless.

Shu Long on the track was unaware of what was happening in the pit lane. Just before his headset hit the table, he presciently turned off TR.

He reacts quickly, but often his mouth is faster than his reflexes, and he only realizes his mistake the instant he says it.

Even though he knew Marco had a bad temper and knew what answer the old man wanted to hear, sometimes people just can't help but be a little mischievous.

With all external distractions eliminated, Shulong's senses seemed to slowly extend from the steering wheel in his hands and the seat beneath his back to the entire race car.

Just like the difference between drifting and grip driving, Formula One cars have a higher upper limit for grip, but the range within which they can reach that upper limit is extremely narrow. This range is usually referred to as neutral steering.

One thing that is common to most types of racing cars is that if you want to corner fast, you must master the degree of neutral steering of the car.

Unless a race car's four wheels can run independently without being constrained by the car body, as long as a race car still uses one pair of tires as steering guide wheels for the other pair, there will always be an angle between the direction of the wheels in a corner and the actual direction of the car body.

It might be easier to understand if we compare it to the way you hold chopsticks.

Just like the difference between touching a point on a wall with your hand and pointing at a point on the wall with a chopstick, it is this structure, where one set of tires guides the direction of another set of tires, that causes a delayed difference in the impact of the front and rear wheels on the dynamics of the race car.

When the slip angle of the front wheel is greater than that of the rear wheel, the race car is in a state of understeer. It's like holding chopsticks in your hand or holding a sword and trying to chop down. Your hand has reached the point, but the tip of the chopsticks hasn't hit the target yet.

When the slip angle of the rear wheels is greater than that of the front wheels, the race car is in an oversteer state. It's like trying to stab a dagger with chopsticks; your hand has barely reached the dagger before it's already slashed across the ground.

As for the neutral shift, it means replacing "greater than" in the previous two statements with "approximately equal to". In this case, chopsticks become a magic wand – they can hit whatever you point at them.

However, the car body that connects the four tires can be roughly regarded as a rigid body. If we compare it to a magic wand, it is probably like the Bellatrix's magic wand with a bend. The purpose of neutral steering is to straighten this magic wand by forcing all four wheels to be in a state of slight lateral slip.

The worse the grip and downforce of a race car, the more this magic wand bends; at the same time, it is extremely resilient, and you can use all your strength to bend it.

The better a race car's grip and downforce performance, the straighter this wand will be, and the more brittle it will be; it will break if you apply too much force.

Formula racing cars, compared to go-karts, are like a straight and sturdy magic wand, meaning that even a novice can use it to point accurately compared to other crooked sticks.

But if you want to pinpoint that exact point, the size of a pinhole, a wand that was originally as thick as a finger could instantly become as thin as a noodle. And you also have to make sure that with a "snap," you point precisely without breaking the noodle in one go.

Judging from the lap times displayed on the center console, what Shu Long is holding doesn't seem to be a noodle, but a golden cudgel that has been shrunk, smashing Red Bull's past youth training pride to shreds with a single blow.

"What do you think of him?"

Marco glanced at the middle-aged couple beside him, his face beaming with a smug, defying any resemblance to the furious man he had been just minutes before.

These two individuals are Trevor Carin and Stephanie Carin, who are also the founders of the Carin team, which is currently active in lower-level formula racing. They serve as team principals in the F2 and F3 classes respectively and are teams with deep collaborations with Red Bull Junior Racing.

Marco's purpose in calling them here today is self-evident.

“He’s great. We’ve been following his performance in karting over the past two years. Although he doesn’t have a lot of racing experience, he has a very high ceiling and consistency in every race.”

Even if he hadn't been signed into Red Bull's youth academy, we had originally planned to invite him to join our team.

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(End of this chapter)