F1: The Making of a Racing God

Chapter 80 The Choice Between Reason and Bestiality
Just as Shu Long overtook Stroll, Leclerc and Verstappen also engaged in a fierce battle.

Ferrari, at this race, had overall figures that were faster than Red Bull's, making it unlikely that they would experience the same feeling of being just one step away from victory as Shu Long did in a one-on-one race.

On the starting straight in the DRS zone, Leclerc successfully gained a speed advantage alongside Verstappen, but because Verstappen blocked his inside line, overtaking him at Turn 1 was practically impossible.

However, Leclerc's original intention was not at Turn 1; he wanted to maintain wheel-to-wheel contact with Red Bull all the way to Turn 2.

With the tires already parallel, even Verstappen couldn't blatantly squeeze outwards into the lane. Instead, Leclerc, who occupied the inside lane, could force Verstappen into a narrower lane, compelling him to slow down.

This is similar in concept to Shulong overtaking Stroll, but it's actually easier, because his positional advantage is essentially gained on the straights, while Shulong, lacking sufficient top speed to pull away, can only gain an advantage in corners.

Of course, the above was just Leclerc's original idea, because this less difficult operation did not succeed.

To maintain wheel-to-wheel parallel with Verstappen on the outside, Leclerc's braking point must be later than Verstappen's. However, how much later is not a standard that can be quantified on the spot. The driver can only rely on his intuition and instinct.

Unfortunately, Leclerc's intuition this time didn't seem to be so accurate, or perhaps he was a little too greedy.

It really is just a tiny bit, maybe less than five meters if you're late. From a top speed of 320 km/h to 190 km/h, this process takes about 0.07 to 0.09 seconds in the driver's perception.

However, on a narrow track like Albert Park, this error of less than 0.1 seconds made it impossible for the car to enter the corner properly. Leclerc even went so far as to run onto the grass and slice off a watermelon, widening the gap between him and Verstappen from less than one second to about two seconds.

The broadcast cameras were completely drawn to this failed battle. The official English commentary was more about regret, but on the domestic Five Stars platform, the three guest hosts, in addition to their regret, also had a bit of schadenfreude.

“That was a very basic mistake by Leclerc. He never made that when he was driving the Sauber last year. A mature driver must be able to judge the right time to make a move.”

"But he's a young man, so it's understandable. Of course, everyone can see that the psychological pressure on a driver after joining a big team is completely different, so we should give him a few more races to hone his skills."

Compared to Verstappen, who tattooed the Red Bull logo on his face as soon as he appeared, most commentators actually preferred Leclerc, who was more aggressive and knew how to maintain a competitive edge, both in terms of personality and driving style.

Of course, if we were to single out physical appearance, Leclerc would be more likable than Verstappen, who looks like a blond, spiky pig.

But there's nothing we can do; what can we do when a dragon-shaped object appears in China?

From appearance to potential to the inherent sense of belonging stemming from shared blood, every aspect of them fully deserves their unconditional favoritism.
Rather than feeling sorry for Leclerc's courageous attempt that ended in failure, they are now more concerned about whether Leclerc's mistake can allow Shulong to make up for its previous strategic errors.

Then, right after that shot, a scene even more reckless, irrational, and "mature" than Leclerc's choice was blurred onto the screen.

In stark contrast to the previous attempts, this was a complete success. Aside from slapping the commentators' previously definitive conclusions in the face, the studio was filled with an unspoken silence.

How can I explain this? It seems a bit inconvenient to find suitable language to describe this scene.
After a fierce battle between the brain and the tongue, the final, fragmented pieces pieced together sounded to the audience roughly as follows:
"Holy crap! This is too much?!"

The English commentary, which is always speaking as fast as a machine gun, is not much different. The only difference is that they have something to say, but most of the time they just mechanically repeat "Oh my god" and "Watterfa".

As commentators, they may not be able to fully grasp the real difficulty of overtaking for the drivers, but the precise insertion between cars, with the closest distance between them possibly less than five centimeters, is enough to make one's mouth dry.

Shu Long had no idea how the outside world would judge his actions just now. All he knew was that when he saw the yellow-plated, red-bottomed Ferrari coming out of the station, his head was throbbing.

Leclerc did lose nearly a second due to his mistake, but the lap time advantage he gained during those eight pit stops that night, utilizing the clean air, was more than just a second.

Shu Long can see the Ferrari now simply because the starting straight is long enough; in reality, the gap between him and Leclerc is at least three seconds.

What does it mean to truly be something that is desirable but unattainable?

The idiom "looking at plums to quench thirst" implies that a goal can motivate people. However, sometimes looking at plums not only fails to quench thirst, but can also easily breed inner demons.

Is it useful to see a Ferrari?
It’s useless!

Since they can't benefit from DRS anyway, and long-distance racing can't be like qualifying where you push the tires and car performance to the limit to get faster lap times, most of the time they have to coax the car to run.

At this point, the difference between an Earth-based race car and a Mars rover truly becomes apparent. Leclerc, in clean air, has fewer race mileage remaining, so his yellow tires only need to run 28 laps, allowing him to be more unrestrained in his tire usage.

On the contrary, Shulong has already run nearly ten laps on his yellow tires. If he doesn't want to ruin the time advantage he saved by stopping twice, he must make sure that the total mileage of his tires reaches at least 200km.

At this point, let alone chasing Leclerc, the question of whether or not to defend against Gasly behind him was also a problem.

The answer is no.

Shu Long not only didn't defend himself, but he even slowed down his advance slightly after letting Gasley pass, giving himself a relatively clean stretch of air.

This left many domestic viewers puzzled. Just moments ago, he was unstoppable, so why did he suddenly falter after overtaking a weakling?
Surely he can't just be good at beating weaker opponents, right? Or is he facing workplace bullying, and the drivers from the affiliated team have no choice but to give way to the main team? The commentators were also quite puzzled. Their first suspicion was that Shulong's car had some kind of malfunction, but after seeing that he maintained a two-second lead over Gasly and then his lap time returned to normal and he was slowly catching up, even the professional commentators didn't know how to draw a conclusion.

The reason is actually not that complicated.

Gasly hasn't pitted yet, so his actual position is probably five or six places behind Shu Long. In terms of the overall race results, even if Red Bull's car is faster, the two of them are not directly competing for the title right now.

The so-called Red Bull pressure is nonsense. After all, this is only the first game of the season. They didn't even restrict Shulong from competing for position with Verstappen, let alone Gasly, who started from P16.

Gasly's overall performance at Toro Rosso last year was also quite impressive, but regardless of the age difference of more than four years, the younger and more promising Shu Long is clearly the higher priority in terms of development.

However, regardless of Horner or Marko's motives, it seems that no one is talking about Albon, another Red Bull driver, right now. In the eyes of the media, he seems to have entered a subtle state of extremely low presence.

Nobody mentions it at all. Sometimes, even when the camera accidentally pans across Alben quietly preparing, the commentators and hosts can't think of many extra adjectives to describe him.

Excluding these irrelevant off-field factors, the reason why Shulong made such a spineless decision at this time was that the crew's strategic focus had shifted from the failed comeback against Locke and Talpao, and instead they were eyeing Vettel and Hamilton who were further ahead.

For reasons unknown, Ferrari allowed Vettel to make his first stop on lap 15, which at the beginning of the race seemed like a sign that they were determined to implement a two-stop strategy.

In addition, given the sensitive nature of this year's tires, which has been heavily criticized by drivers, many commentators even praised Pirelli's ingenious tire compound adjustments today, forcing all teams to adopt a more stop-and-go racing strategy to increase the unpredictability of the race.

A race where one team leads from start to finish is really boring, especially after Liberty Media took over the operation and management of F1. Their biggest passion is to make the races more exciting and entertaining.

All these reasons combined led almost everyone to assume that the match would turn into a battle for the second stop.

For Toro Rosso, which doesn't actually have a significant advantage in long-distance lap speed, the only chance to overtake the rover in front is to use a one-stop-two-stop strategy. Therefore, for Toro Rosso, maintaining its tires is more important than anything else right now.

Today, motorsports has evolved into an art form that is no longer a reckless game where one can carve out a bloody path simply by being full of passion and fighting fiercely.

It is an elegant, suit-wearing thug who believes in gray violence that walks on the edge of rules and limits, yet disguises itself with absolute science and rationality.

The reason Shulong let Gasly pass was because he didn't want to waste tires on pointless defense. Taking advantage of Gasly's slipstream at this time could indeed help him catch up with Leclerc faster, but even if he caught up, it wouldn't make much difference. It's better to have a longer-term perspective.

Overtaking a young man with average racing competitiveness and skills requires a lot of effort. At this stage of the race, even if Shu Long is lucky enough to catch Leclerc's DRS, it is hard to achieve anything. Even if he overtakes, he may not be able to hold on.

As it turned out, the judgment made by Shu Long and the team was indeed reasonable. Gasly's first set of yellow tires didn't make it to the pits until lap 39. If Shu Long had gotten carried away and engaged in a pointless battle with him earlier in the race, it's very likely that the race would have ended up with the dilemma of whether to make a second pit stop.

The only good news is that Vettel's competitiveness on the old yellow tires has clearly declined since lap 26, and he has relinquished his podium position after Verstappen's continuous attacks on the yellow tires for more than ten laps.

This is also bad news, because after this window, the probability of Vettel and Hamilton choosing to stop and run to the end is almost 100%.

According to the team's feedback on lap times, they are now even about 0.4 seconds slower than Shulong in long-distance laps, but they had already accumulated a lead of more than 17 seconds before that.

This is a very awkward number. The remaining ten-plus laps of race distance are not enough for Shu Long to catch up with them. If they choose to pit at this point, they will indeed fall behind Shu Long. Anyone with a brain knows that pitting at this point will not bring any benefit.

The P6 seems to be the best that a Toro Rosso can achieve in this race.
However! This is not the ultimate achievement that Shulong could make in this competition!

To enhance the spectacle of the races and increase the suspense in the championship battles between teams and drivers, the FIA ​​introduced a new rule this year.

Or rather, this isn't entirely a new rule, but rather an ancient rule that has been absent for nearly sixty years, existing since the very beginning of F1 – the fastest lap reward in the main race.

After a series of evaluations by the organizers, this rule has now been reintroduced into the race's points system, with certain restrictions and improvements made. Only the top ten finishers can earn these points.

On lap 48, Shu Long confirmed two questions with the team.

First, how many seconds is Bottas, who currently holds the fastest lap record, ahead of Hamilton? Second, how many seconds is he ahead of Magnussen behind him?

Bottas, who had been leading in the clean air of P1, performed exceptionally well this race. His strategy was unaffected by Hamilton's earlier trial runs, and he completed his normal pit stop on lap 25.

Now, relying on yellow tires that are ten laps newer than Hamilton's in P2, he has already widened the gap of 23 seconds between himself and his teammate, a five-time world champion, through consistent long-distance performances. It can be said that this race win is practically in his grasp.

As for the possibility of him changing from red to purple, Shu Long thinks it's unlikely.

The average pit stop time on this track is between 23 and 24 seconds. If there is any mishap during the tire change, Bottas will lose 25 points of the championship for that one point.

At this moment, the gap between Shulong and Magnussen behind him was also a very subtle 22 seconds.

(End of this chapter)