F1: The Making of a Racing God

Chapter 76 A Tribute to a Legend
The outside world's perception on the track is actually correct; Toro Rosso's car is indeed a bit faster than Red Bull's.

However, it wasn't a problem with the aerodynamics; it was simply that Shu Long had just pulled out a little bit of his underwear and adjusted the team's magical little knob during the second stage of the race.

This year, Honda provided engines for the four cars in the Red Bull system. Compared to last year, in addition to performance optimization and some improvements in stability, the most important thing is that there is an additional qualifying mode in terms of engine power.

As the name suggests, this thing can unleash a huge amount of engine power in a short period of time, even rivaling Mercedes and Ferrari this year, but it is basically only used in qualifying.

Just like the Eight Gates and Kaioken, which unleash potential and continuously drain health, this ranking mode will naturally reduce the lifespan of the power unit to a great extent, causing considerable damage to the engine, motor, and battery.

But the price was worth it. After setting a lap time that would guarantee his qualification, Shu Long decided to start saving on tires.

In this respect, his overall strategy once again seems to coincide with Ferrari's.

Ferrari's use of yellow tires in the Q1 is almost certainly unrelated to their race strategy, as the tire choice for the Q1 does not affect the tire compound required for the start.

However, if Ferrari wants to challenge Mercedes for pole position despite knowing that its performance has some shortcomings, then reserving enough new red tires for the next two qualifying sessions is indeed necessary.

Because of its narrow width, the Albert Park circuit is prone to obstruction during flight loops, and drivers are unlikely to achieve results that even they themselves are not satisfied with.

So now we see a very strange phenomenon: many of the smaller teams are calmly staying in the pits waiting for the track conditions to improve, while the larger teams are constantly updating their lap times.

This is a track where teams will be very busy in qualifying. Each driver needs to make at least two effective flying laps in a single qualifying session, and it's not uncommon for them to make three or four more.

Once the number of laps increases, the final qualifying results will depend not only on the team's ability to capitalize on window breaks, the overall performance of the car, and the driver's individual driving skills, but also on who has more tires remaining at the end.

So when Hamilton used an old red suit to climb back to P1, Shu Long remained unmoved in the pit stop. When Locke switched to a new red suit and climbed back to P1, Shu Long remained unmoved in the pit stop. Even when the least favored rookie before the match, the older Giovinazzi, pushed Shu Long to P5 with a score of 1:22.431, he remained unmoved.

Geoffrey's sudden power spike was indeed an accident, but the overall situation wasn't particularly unexpected.

直到Q1停表，束龙身后最接近的他的成绩还是马格努森第二个飞行圈的1：22.519，接着就是雷诺车队霍肯伯格的1:22.540。

Hold the handle in hand.

Eliminated were Williams' poor two burdened players, Stroll, who cruelly abandoned Williams to buy a team for himself, Sainz and Gasly, who were kicked out by Renault.

It's unclear whether Gasley used ranked mode or not, but having been sitting in the Poker room looking at the stats panel, he knew that the push windows Red Bull gave Gasley were definitely not clean.

It seems that the strategy team has devoted most of its energy to Max.

As for Stroll, who wore the pinkest racing suit in the paddock this year, Racing Point's competitiveness at the beginning of the season was indeed insufficient. His teammate Perez's lap times were just around the Q2 cutoff, and being less than 0.1 behind his teammate on a single lap was actually not bad.

The one who needs the most criticism is Sainz. This is his fourth year in the F1 paddock. Back then, when he couldn't beat Verstappen within Red Bull, it could be said that Verstappen's father was shameless. But now, being 0.3 laps behind the complete rookie Norris is somewhat unacceptable.

Let's not talk about Williams' two unfortunate brothers.

Most of the cars ahead of them were about 0.1 or 0.2 seconds behind the car in front of them. When it came to Williams, Russell, who was second to last, was 1.2 seconds slower than Sainz, who was third to last. Kubica, who could only use his left arm to exert force for almost the entire race, was almost three seconds behind.

The impact of the arm injury on Kubica is visible to the naked eye.

He actually did a decent first lap before stopping the clock, but he lacked precision in controlling the car during the full-throttle exit from Turn 10. His right rear tire slammed into the guardrail, and he finally suffered a tire blowout and went off the track before Turn 11.

Last year, Toro Rosso fell too far behind in the early stages. Even though they earned 15 points from a podium finish at the penultimate race in Shulong, they were still second to last in the team standings for the year. This year, they are next to Williams, who are in last place, in the pit lane.

Seeing Kubica being pushed back to the pit room in such a pitiful state, Shu Long couldn't help but sigh.

After all, he once created a miracle with one hand. To be honest, I really hope that Kubica can prove his determination with his performance.

After all, not everyone can understand the difficulties involved. Most people may only focus on a single statistic and a single result. Even someone like Kubica, with such achievements, will inevitably face some criticism.

Q2 is related to the starting tire choices of the top ten drivers, so most people will be relatively restrained in their tire use in this section.

Drivers with the potential to reach Q3 speeds typically only use two sets of new tires for one flight lap at the start and one at the end.

Drivers who might be eliminated in Q2 have more freedom in choosing their starting tires. In order to secure a starting grid position closer to the points zone, the situation often reverses that of Q1, with smaller teams racing outside and larger teams resting in the pits.

Albon, who was in the same pit lane, adopted a small team strategy. He was ranked P9 in Q1, but after entering Q2, as veterans such as Raikkonen, Ricciardo and Grosjean started to push hard, his lap time hovered between 15 and 13.

Like Albon, Giovanni Arroyo also struggled. His amazing lap time in Q1 was probably just a fluke. He made a lot of mistakes throughout Q2, and his fastest lap was almost 0.3 seconds slower than his own in Q1.

In contrast, Norris, competing for the first time, was much more consistent, with his lap times steadily improving, and he drove the McLaren that made Alonso's head spin last season steadily into Q3.

Even more stable than him was Shu Long. This guy was more like a member of a major team than the drivers from the Mercedes team. In Q2, he only made one push lap throughout the entire race.

1:21.752 is ranked P5, only 0.011 slower than Leclerc ahead of it.

The reason why the Mercedes-Benz and Ferraris run so many laps is that the process of making push laps is also a process of rediscovering the limits of the car. Even if they have already secured Q3, it does not prevent them from running a few more laps to get a feel for the car.

However, for Shulong, which has a series of entries to help it, the limits of racing cars have never been a subjective question with vague scoring standards. It is more like an objective multiple-choice question where "one is one and two is two". The difference in how far to push the racing car is simply choosing one of A, B, C, or D.

Propelling the tires is a matter of one lap; pushing them an extra meter is a pointless waste of the tires.

Of course, there is an even more important reason: he had one less set of red tires reserved for this stop than others.

Of the two sets of hard tires, three sets of medium tires, and eight sets of soft tires provided by Pirelli to each team for this race, most teams and drivers chose to return one set of hard tires, two sets of medium tires, and three sets of red tires to Pirelli.

Shulong only submitted one set of yellow tires, while Hongtai submitted four sets.

In other words, before entering qualifying, everyone else had five sets of red soft tires available, but Shulong only had four.

It's not that he has blind confidence in himself; rather, it's the race tire strategy that he and the team agreed would be most effective in securing a podium finish, after discussions in meetings.

The white tires performed terribly in this race, with almost all teams struggling to warm up their tires. They were 1.5 seconds slower per lap than those with red tires, and even after warming up the tires, their lap times were still 1.1 to 1.2 seconds slower. Durability was the least useful attribute here; even if the white tires could run from start to finish, they couldn't make up for the twenty-odd seconds lost during pit stops.

Considering the overall tire wear on the track, a red-yellow one-stop or red-yellow-yellow two-stop is the most likely pit stop strategy. The reason for reserving two sets of new yellow tires specifically for the race is to give themselves more strategic initiative in the race.

Starting with Q3, Shulong was the first to secure a spot at the maintenance area exit in this round.

There is an eight-minute break between Q2 and Q3. The track temperature has dropped slightly, but the overall grip is much better than the first two sections.

Q3 is only 12 minutes long, and Shu Long will likely need to do three laps in a row during this time. The effective lap speed of the first lap in completely clean air can greatly alleviate his psychological pressure in the latter two laps.

Right behind him was Norris, who had been racking up lap times really fast in the qualifying race today.

According to the team's data analysis, Toro Rosso and McLaren are roughly equal in competitiveness at this race. Shu Long is just a newcomer who has only run one more race. Norris's benchmark for the whole race is this "egg-scooping brother" he met a few years ago in Carlin.

But how come we just can't catch up no matter how hard we try?

I ran it three times in Q1, and my fastest lap time was about 0.2 seconds slower than Shulong.

Q2趁着赛道条件变好，千难万险好不容易刷了个1：22.423，结果转头一看束龙只是出来溜达了那么一圈就直接晋升到1：21的俱乐部当中去了。

In this round of pushing, Lando also secretly caught the tail of Shulong, and in the end, he only got 1:22.304. When he returned to the P room and saw Shulong's three-stage purple 1:21.933, he wanted to dig a hole in his helmet.

Shulong's time was actually slower than his time in Q2, mainly because he was blocked by Gross, who was preparing to push for a lap, at Turn 15.

However, this time Grosjean really couldn't be blamed. The information Haas provided to the driver was a bit delayed, which happened right at the crucial moment when Grosjean had pulled a large angle to prepare for a full acceleration on the starting straight.

At this point, neither releasing the accelerator nor braking worked, and the car ended up in a terrible predicament, stuck on the race track in Shulong.

Thanks to the "eagle eyes," Shulong was able to detect and anticipate Grosjean's movements on the straight after Turn 14, and deliberately braked earlier, taking a narrower line on the combination of Turns 15 and 16.

Although Haas had been minimized from interfering with him, he still lost about 0.3 lap times in this segment.

"Did you see that? This guy has completely blocked the road!"

"Copy! We're already giving feedback. Now let the tires cool down, then push for the next lap without pitting for two laps."

After one round of lap times, Shu Long's ranking dropped to P7, while Grosjean, who had just blocked him, jumped to sixth place with a time of 1:21.870.

However, Shu Long quickly found a good window with an old red lap showing a total distance of four laps. He even got ahead of Leclerc with a lap time of 1:21.633, and was even a little faster than Verstappen's fastest lap in Q2.

Mercedes was incredibly fast in this race, with Bottas and Hamilton both achieving lap times in the 1:20 range, while other teams battled it out at 1:21.

But aside from these two alien-tech vehicles, Shulong might actually be able to go toe-to-toe with Red Bull and Ferrari in this race.

After entering the station and returning to the P room, I changed into four new red blankets wrapped in warm tires.

Almost simultaneously with Raikkonen and Magnussen pitting after completing their final flying laps in the first round, the entire crew coordinated and quickly removed all sorts of odds and ends from the car, releasing the dragon directly, aiming for a surprise attack.

Clean air! Clean air! This is our last chance to propel our vehicle. Clean air is more important than anything else!

Anyway, Red Bull's bottom line is right here. Now, any one of the three leading teams would be a win for them!

In order not to be blocked by the slower cars that were about to enter the tire warm-up process, Shu Long rushed through the warm-up laps at the pit stop, but the tire temperature on his steering wheel screen was lower than that of the Q1's first lap.

He braked hard before Turn 1, the race car hugged the apex of the corner as it exited, its front end pointing directly at the apex of Turn 2.

Turn 2 is a high-speed corner with full throttle. Here, Shu Long made a sharp turn at the apex, giving the front wheels a larger slip angle. With full throttle and the front wheels pushing against the understeer, the car smoothly drifted along the racing line at an extremely high cornering speed to the kerb at the exit of Turn 2.

"Ouch, Alonso!"

Anyone who watches the race for even a short time, whether a commentator or a fan, couldn't help but gasp in amazement at this stunning shot.

Although it doesn't have the exaggerated understeer dynamics of the old grooved stone tires, you can still clearly see some of the charm of the past.

It's unbelievable that in Fernando Alonso's first race of his first year away from the paddock, a young man would pay tribute to a legend in such a way!
This is also the secret that Shulong discovered during the previous practice matches. He's kept it hidden for so long, and now it's finally time to bring it out.

It was thanks to the super high rear stability brought about by the understeer characteristic of today's race cars, coupled with Pirelli's innovation in tire compound and structure this year, that Shu Long had the sudden idea to try it out. He just didn't expect the effect to be even better than he had anticipated.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much left. Apart from this spot, Shulong only went through seven or eight bends of tire temperature control before slightly replicating the course at bend number ten.

This section is similar to the transition between Turns 1 and 2. It's a transition from a low-speed turn requiring heavy braking to a high-speed turn requiring full throttle. The front tires are at just the right temperature so that they have good grip on the ground without putting too much strain on them. They just need to avoid getting too hot.

The race car barely grazed the barrier that Kubica had just taken down, and on camera, everyone's Adam's apples seemed to freeze in mid-air.

It's definitely going to damage the tire, but since it's only been one lap, so what if it's damaged?
Three green sections crossed the finish line, 1:21.473.

"I've done everything I can, where are we now?"

“P4 guy, Vettel is up ahead at 1:21.250.”

"Ah~ Fxck! Anyway, well done everyone!"

　感谢席慕东风、书友20170728230405292、A乔碧萝殿下的榜一、陌神%空、傲娇的知恩酱、醒着做梦739、是小壬王啊、六斜轮椅、守望先锋作战部部长、魔龙VS幻天、书友20230609774_bC、ZGMEX20AP、书友150731224125178、飞舞的蛋壳、书友20200628165529651、百想影帝地光、书友20220305132136590、老蔡大王、山-鬼、aspirinl、earydrt、2爱枫林晚、新智和Ecstasy大佬投喂的月票！
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　　I managed to squeeze in some time to finish it, but it seems I'm 12 chapters behind. What should I do?

　　
　
(End of this chapter)