F1: The Making of a Racing God

Chapter 43 Obsessed with costumed characters? I'm a social butterfly!
Horner simply left, leaving behind a $900,000 reward to reassure people, along with other promised conditions.

It wasn't a private bribe; it was paid through official channels, which is a legitimate representation of Red Bull's stance.

Well, it's just a little less than the official driver's salary in Shulong this year.

His base salary as a driver this year is only $1.5 million, which is entirely borne by Red Bull. The condition for the loan is that Haas provides a bonus of $25,000 per point.

Based on Shulong's results this year, Haas will need to spend at least over one million US dollars in bonuses. What's even more interesting is that this money will ultimately be paid by Ma Zeping's father, as if to buy out the seat and eliminate any remaining hope, and even give him a 20% raise.
"Why not take advantage of it?" After careful consideration, Shu Long accepted the offer.

While signing a contract with other teams guarantees a driver's seat for at least a year, Red Bull's position is essentially a four-wheeled vehicle for most drivers.

If the higher-ups are not satisfied, they could kick you and your chair off the table at any time during the season.

So the bonuses are probably just incidental; the main thing is the terms of the contract behind the bonuses.

According to what Horner said, even if Shu Long is temporarily unable to get a seat at the beginning of next year due to his current injury, as long as the person in the position has a problem, Shu Long, who is one of their own, will still be the first choice.

As long as he can prove that he has recovered without any problems and maintains sufficient competitiveness as leverage, any subsequent contract renewal will be for at least two years, and there will be almost no need to consider sponsorship conditions.

Of course, it would be even better if we could have that.

Even if Red Bull can't free up a spot for the time being, there's still a guaranteed spot on Toro Rosso. As long as you don't mind the inferior car, you can take over anytime. After all, nobody knows what kind of prize the new guy, Kakuta, will bring.

Honda's sponsorship has to be considered, but Shu Long's efficiency in scoring points by driving a shabby car this year is also obvious to everyone.

By coming here, Horner essentially secured employment for Shulong, preventing him from facing unemployment upon graduation like many of his peers. He also managed to bring home several million RMB.

There were some other commercial compensations, but these had little to do with him. Like his father, Shu Long never liked to deal with such brain-intensive things; his mother would take care of them.

Even after the Sakir Grand Prix began, Shu Long not only failed to receive any response from Marco, but the old man also deliberately avoided him when he went to the Red Bull pits to look for him.

Marco didn't get to see him, but Verstappen saw him several times.

The man who introduced him to the Reka Technology Club back then now only gives Shu Long a forced smile. He only manages to smirk slightly when he greets Shu Long and pats him on the shoulder with a condescending and scrutinizing expression. As soon as he removes his hand, his face immediately turns stern.

Marco wasn't just avoiding Shu Long; he was also avoiding Jos Verstappen.

Red Bull had only just begun to express interest in signing Shu Long when this old guy started hanging around the team's pit garage every day, telling everyone he met, "Max is so great, no one can compare to him."

After meeting Marko, Verstappen started saying things like, "Ferrari seems to prefer Max to Sainz," or "This team offered him a pretty good deal," blatantly using Max's future as a threat.

Verstappen was smart; he didn't mention Mercedes because he knew it was impossible.

This year, Hamilton is almost certain to equal Schumacher's record of seven championships. Judging from the current momentum of Mercedes' cars, next year the team will definitely put all its efforts into securing Hamilton's eighth championship.

Apart from Bottas, an honest guy who's been completely outmaneuvered, no driver with championship ambitions would want to make a fool of themselves at this point.

Red Bull's new race car is already in its early stages, and according to reliable internal information, Red Bull has a great chance of winning the championship next year. Verstappen does not want any unstable factors to appear that might spoil Max's good things.

He was genuinely a little scared. As a teammate of Schumacher, the seven-time world champion, he knew all too well what kind of ability someone had to make such a bad car look amazing.

Alonso once said that he could win the championship even if he was 0.5 seconds slower. In Verstappen's mind, this young man who had left a very deep impression on him in his youth undoubtedly had such ability, because it was the first time that Verstappen felt a lack of confidence in Max.

Before Friday's practice session, Shu Long, a Haas official driver, spent the morning having tea at Red Bull's driver's house. A photographer "accidentally" took a picture that gave the outside world a lot of room for speculation.

This was Zhang Xin's idea for her son. While Verstappen was putting pressure on his team, he was using external public opinion to exert pressure on his side.

However, after the practice session started, Shu Long returned to Haas's garage. There's a saying that you should know when to stop, and the atmosphere in the Red Bull pit room with Verstappen around was just too oppressive.

The familiar crew members simply greeted each other, but no one wanted to say more than a few words to Shulong under the gaze of old Verstappen.

Perhaps only Max could ignore his father's pressure and chat with Shu Long. Then, they ran into Alben at the door, who was there to prepare for the match.
It's quite awkward. Max has already implicitly accepted that Shulong will be his teammate next year, so his attitude is rather casual.

But it's one thing to secretly enjoy the privilege of someone else's seat, but when it happens to happen to the victim, that's a bit... well, right?

Pan Zi didn't seem to care much. This guy had rather unusual tastes. Shu Long knew a little about the secrets that were not known to others, such as his girlfriend whose identity was mysterious and who had not yet been officially announced to the public.

She is an older single woman, divorced with a child, and her ex-husband and his family still know each other.
However, Shu Long wasn't so shameless, and Max pushed the wheelchair away in a panic.

Well, although he's not completely unable to walk yet, his family still got him a remote-controlled wheelchair.

These past few days, Shu's parents have been busy dealing with the racing team. Gan Mengning doesn't want to dress up like many other racers' girlfriends to grab attention and exposure, so they bought him this gadget for his convenience these days.

This undoubtedly sent a signal to the outside world that his injury was not optimistic. In the past few days, various media outlets have been making pessimistic comments about him, while at the same time they have started to vigorously promote Mick Schumacher, who will replace Shu Long next year.

The afternoon and evening practice sessions don't reveal much. Just look at what the Bahrain Grand Prix was like, and you'll see what this Sakhir Grand Prix, which didn't even change tracks, will be like.

Of course, there is another big news that may be more noteworthy than Shu Long's signing situation: Hamilton is in the spotlight, and Russell, who was still with Williams, has been directly brought over to replace him.

Russell, who had been tormented by Williams for a whole year without scoring a single point, finally got a good time. He showed a good lap time on his first time driving a Mercedes, and many people believed that he was the best candidate to replace Bottas.

In contrast, Haas immediately revealed its true colors after losing its dragon harness, with the two players in the car struggling in Q1 throughout practice.

Grosjean, who replaced Shu Long, hadn't really touched a real car for a whole year, and the poor competitiveness of the race car was beyond his imagination.

He couldn't drive at all with the setup left by Shu Long in last week's race. His fastest lap time was even more than a second slower than Magnussen's. It wasn't until he spent a practice session and a half finding a setup that suited him that he improved a little, but he couldn't be happy at all.

The overall aerodynamic layout of the race car is not very compatible with Ferrari's engine this year, and the tire consumption is too high! It is very likely that the tires will overheat before it can even complete a single lap.

He doesn't even know what he's supposed to compete for on the track with that car. Is it just about who can embarrass themselves more?! How did that kid manage to score so many points in that car?!

Shu Long was able to drive this junk car into third or fourth place in practice, but he also had to change the tuning for long-distance tire maintenance. In the end, his qualifying results were usually around thirteenth or fourteenth place, and he only made it into Q3 three times throughout the season.

Saturday's qualifying session was as expected, with both Haas cars failing to qualify in Q1, effectively ending their season early.

Sitting in a race car and smelling the rubber and gasoline fumes is a completely different experience from sitting in a pit shed and being choked by exhaust fumes. The first thing Shulong did when he got back to the hotel was to take a few breaths of his girlfriend's breath to recharge, and then he found a comfortable spot on her lap to lie down.

Gan Mengning is actually quite thin. Lying on her lap isn't exactly comfortable, and it's a bit uncomfortable, but just being close to her makes me feel at ease.

She was just sitting on the bed doing a live stream, without turning on the camera, just talking to the chat one sentence at a time.

The little girl was startled when Shu Long suddenly burrowed his head into her arms, almost losing her professional tone. The comments section was filled with questions about why she had suddenly stopped for several days; Gan Mengning's excuse was that she was on a business trip and would stream the game again when she returned.

As soon as she mentioned going on a business trip, everyone knew what was going on and started trying to get Gan Mengning to reveal any new plot details about her character.

Unfortunately, Gan Mengning's "business trip" this time wasn't for voice acting in the first place, so there was no new plot at all. She kept spouting nonsense but couldn't get a single key word out of him.

The comments section was filled with "stranger," so it seems this girl has slipped up more than once or twice before.

Gan Mengning is less than four months younger than Shu Long and is currently a junior in college. Her so-called live streaming and voice acting are only side jobs for now.

Actually, her lie was very easy to expose. Many places in China have not yet resumed normal work. Many game companies have either slowed down the frequency of updates or are working remotely through online cloud collaboration. So there is no such thing as a business trip.

Now, some viewers in the live stream have started to realize that something is wrong. Gan Mengning, who was stammering, saw that she was losing control of the situation. In addition, Shu Long was watching her and laughing, which made her feel a little uncomfortable. So she hurriedly made an excuse and cut off the live stream.

Because Gan Guangchen and Chen Ya had good grades since childhood and came from a well-off family, they didn't expect their daughter to earn much money, so they didn't interfere much when Gan Mengning was choosing her university major.

Gan Mengning has been a big fan of anime and manga since childhood and is now studying Japanese at Xiamen University.

With few classes to begin with, and the school not yet officially resuming teaching, Gan Mengning naturally had plenty of time to pursue her hobbies.

The opportunity arose one day after the college entrance examination. On a whim, she sent a sample to a well-known bishoujo game company. To her surprise, she was immediately chosen and landed a role with a small part but considerable popularity.

Later, she caught the eye of a director and was signed to his studio.

There are basically no restrictions. Occasionally, she will cooperate with others to participate in promotional activities. If there are suitable jobs that the studio receives, she will be given priority consideration.

Well, that's good. Gan Mengning originally joined the studio just because she didn't want to look for work everywhere on her own. Although she would have to share a portion of her income with the studio, she wasn't really looking to make a lot of money from it.

From then on, things spiraled out of control.

As the business model of voice acting in China gradually moves from behind the scenes to the forefront, many people, while paying attention to their favorite characters, also pay attention to the voice actors who breathe life into these characters.

Starting from junior high school, Gan Mengning recorded covers of anime songs in her spare time and uploaded them to Bilibili, unknowingly accumulating over 100,000 followers.

Originally, there was no intention to promote it, but ever since she got the role, some sharp-eared netizens have dug up Gan Mengning's account.

Later, she was invited by several popular seniors in the studio to play games together a few times. A large group of fanboys shouting "Double Fan Delight" instantly flooded her account.

After a period of time where the popularity of her roles and voice acting complemented each other, Gan Mengning now has nearly one million to two million fans, which is much higher than Shu Long's.

It's not sour at all~
After officially entering F1, both Red Bull and Haas urged Shulong to establish his own promotional social media accounts in China, so as to realize his commercial value as soon as possible and bring a lot of sponsorship to the team itself.

However, things didn't go as planned. The sponsorships weren't much, and the fans who worked so hard to accumulate enough followers didn't even get half as many as some accounts on Douyin that just played around with Zippo lighters. Instead, they received several malicious comments that were truly disheartening.

Originally, Weibo was the main platform for Shulong's promotion in China. Apart from sharing business-related information, they didn't post anything else. It was all handled by the operations officer appointed by Red Bull.

Then, as luck would have it, the operations team came up with a funny program where they read comments. Shu Long, who remembered he had a Weibo account, logged in and browsed through it on a whim, and from then on, he basically gave up the idea of ​​actively engaging with the platform.

There were actually quite a few friendly comments, many of which offered encouragement and support, but unfortunately, a few negative comments were just too glaring.

Shulong has a good memory, and the characteristic of a good memory is that he holds grudges; he can't forget something he's only seen once.

The situation is pretty much the same on social media abroad. There are maggots parasitizing on keyboards everywhere. But to outsiders, Shu Long can only care about the part that he gains their approval through conquest. Similarly, what one least wants to see at home is the denial from one's closest compatriots.

While foreign media outlets sometimes relish witnessing the furious expressions of those who criticize others, similar content domestically feels like a knife being plunged into one's chest.

Because you don't want to be disappointed, you simply give up all expectations? And then you try to prove how rational and clear-headed you are by hurting others?
Now, things are much better. Weibo has simply handed everything over to the operations team, just to meet their job requirements.

Shu Long only occasionally posts a few photos on his usual A-B account, just to meet the promotional targets set for him by Red Bull and Haas. He has quietly amassed less than 100,000 followers, and most surprisingly, he has never submitted any content.

Watching Gan Mengning carefully cover the camera and leave the live stream, Shu Long felt both cute and amused. He couldn't help but rub his face against his girlfriend's pajamas and kiss her soft belly button.

A cute exclamation.

"Hey, what are you doing?! Luckily I've already logged out, otherwise it would have been broadcast!"

"Is it really necessary to be so cautious? If you're socially awkward, then don't do live streaming. Listening to your awkward conversation makes my toes hurt."

"Well, there's nothing I can do about it. I originally thought I was going to play games anyway, and I could earn some pocket money by streaming. But then I accidentally gained so many fans, and I didn't want to disappoint them."

It's unbelievable. Only someone as extraordinary as you could have come up with something like this.

Is fame a good thing? Of course it is!
Many people are desperate to become famous, especially in today's era of social media, where fame means a lot of money.

However, Gan Mengning's family was not short of rice to begin with, and this business only made her feel mentally exhausted. Because she did not want to affect her normal school life, she had been carefully protecting her privacy.

During her live streams, she usually appears in a chibi-style white fur suit, intending to just throw something together, but unexpectedly, quite a few people actually fell for it.

Why are you looking at me like that? I'm not buying it!

[Brand? What brand? Impossible! I removed it a long time ago! Pshaw! I have no idea what you guys are talking about.]

Is someone talking about me behind my back?

【How could I possibly be a simp? I'm the one being pursued! Seriously!】
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(Flashback 18 years ago)
　Regarding the issue of sponsorship, besides the policy of prioritizing the development of electric vehicles, many domestic companies, whether car manufacturers or other enterprises, actually face a significant obstacle.

　　Most domestic companies earn and spend RMB, but now team sponsorships are in USD. Even with the same sponsorship terms, after factoring in interest depreciation, taxes, and a whole host of other miscellaneous costs, the price that domestic companies have to pay is much higher than that of foreign companies.

　　Most private enterprises can't afford to play this game, and even state-owned enterprises that can afford it wouldn't approve large sums of money just to sponsor a single driver and give money away to foreigners. So there's a reason why Zhou Guanyu's actual sponsorship over the past three years has been so meager.

　　Is there any company that earns and spends US dollars, has huge financial resources, and also has a need to promote its technological innovations and expand into larger markets?

　　Yes, I personally believe so.

　　While most people can meet these needs on their own, I'm talking about you, old rice, hurry up and pop some more rice!
　　How about we get Zhou Guanyu involved next year to print racing balusters on Cadillac cars?!
　　(Fictional characters)
　　Thank you to readers 20210809225031649, Li Xiaoyao, and 140531132828506 for their amazing monthly ticket donations.

　　Thank you so much, Huan|Jinghua Shuiyue, for the 5000 Qidian Coins reward! That's incredibly generous, it really puts me on the edge of my seat.
　　
　
(End of this chapter)