F1: The Making of a Racing God

Chapter 97 Despair at Home Ground

Friday's practice day basically put everything back on track for the team.

After sending a voice message to Shu Long on her phone to cheer him on early in the morning, Gan Mengning repacked her bandit outfit, hung the camera for filming today's VLOG around her neck, and headed to the competition venue without waiting for her parents.

VLOGs can't just be about filming scenes. Whether it's the original sound from the scene or the post-production dubbing, Gan Mengning needs to interact with her fans. However, she becomes a little reserved when she's with her parents.

The two families have been acting separately these past few days. After all, as Shu Long's fame has grown, the exposure of his family has also increased day by day. If they get too close to each other now, it will inevitably arouse suspicion from those with ulterior motives.

Don't underestimate the commercial value of these driver gossip stories in the paddock; there are plenty of people willing to put in the same research-oriented spirit to create all sorts of interpretations.

Because she received the highest-tier paddock ticket, Gan Mengning was able to move freely throughout the pit room and VIP area, unlike last time in Melbourne when she had to squeeze into the stands for a seat.

The Paddock tickets at the China Station are indeed cheap, but the place has everything you could want in terms of food, drinks, and entertainment, and the service is just as good as those places where tickets cost hundreds of thousands.

There's absolutely no need to worry about getting lost or not being able to find anyone. The members' area is only so big, and you're likely to bump into parents and their speed-running partners several times while wandering around.

After entering the paddock with the tag around her neck, Gan Mengning didn't wander around. She waited for a while at the driver's entrance and happened to run into Shu Long, a sleepy-eyed worker scratching his head on his way to work.

Here's where the appeal of VLOGs comes in, doesn't it?
After coughing twice, revealing the same Yan He voice she usually uses during her live streams, Gan Mengning, like the fans waiting on the roadside, pulled out a Red Bull hat, grabbed a pen, and chased after him.

"Shulong! Keep it up today!"

While chanting the above lines, Gan Mengning tried her best to squeeze next to her boyfriend, who no one knew about her. Just like other enthusiastic fans, she tried her best to hand over the things she wanted to be signed to Shu Long.

The person, who was still half asleep, naturally accepted it. After signing it and returning it, he bent down to take a photo with the other person, when the pleasant and familiar scent next to him suddenly made him wake up.

Gan Mengning's ability to adjust her voice is truly exceptional. Shu Long, who had been signing autographs until he was numb, didn't recognize her at first. Now that he saw that familiar bandit outfit again, heaven knows how hard he had to try to resist the urge to roll his eyes.

What exactly are you trying to do?!
They try every means to protect their identity information, and now they try every means to dance on the tightrope. What kind of strange mentality and behavior is this?
Are you not afraid of being exposed now?

Unfortunately, Shu Long couldn't get a definite answer for the time being. He didn't even dare to linger, lest those "Leeuwenhoek" types on the internet notice something amiss.

In fact, Gan Mengning actually quite enjoyed the adrenaline-fueled stimulation that made her hair stand on end, especially since she would edit the footage and post it online afterward. She felt a unique thrill, like having sex in a high-rise building without drawing the curtains.

It seems like we've been exposed, but it also seems like we haven't.

Joining in the fun as a fan gave her a novel experience of getting to know Shulong from two different perspectives.

One is a rising star in the Chinese racing world, while the other is a thoughtful and somewhat unconventional boy at home.

And the fact that both of these belong to her is just... wow, so satisfying!

Regardless, with such an extraordinary person as her boyfriend, Gan Mengning sometimes actually looks forward to the day when her fans will find out.

This emotion was intertwined with her reluctance to reveal her true identity, and sometimes even she herself couldn't understand what she was thinking.

It's like this: many people yearn for the life of a hero, but that doesn't mean they're willing to take on the responsibilities of a hero; they just want to enjoy the treatment of a hero.

Gan Mengning wanted to show off what a proud boy she had, but she wasn't prepared to bear the consequences of the exposure. So all she could do was playfully squat on the edge of the cliff, enjoying the feeling of weightlessness while maintaining a great deal of restraint.

It's a pity, isn't it?

Even though she had already admitted to her fans that she had a boyfriend, and even though she had unusually posted a vlog of her last trip to Melbourne to see the opening ceremony, no one had the imagination to connect Shulong with "Dou Ke's" mysterious boyfriend.

The leap between the two is so great that the idea might have just popped into one's head, and even the person who came up with it might find it somewhat amusing.

Thinking about it carefully, there's nothing particularly strange about it.

So many new F1 fans have recently become fans because of Shu Long, and there's no rule that says "Dou Ke" can't be one of them. Plus, if you ignore Shu Long's weird vibe of being a decadent middle-aged man in his daily life, his appearance is undeniably top-notch, so it's perfectly normal for him to attract young girls who didn't follow racing before.

Aside from their initial strong urge to complain, Shu Long didn't actually think about things as much as Gan Mengning did.

In his first year as a full-fledged driver, he happened to be competing in the 1000th Grand Prix on his home turf, so the pressure he's been under these past few days has been immense.

He tossed and turned in bed until almost 3 a.m. yesterday before finally falling asleep, so it's no wonder he looks even more listless than usual today.

However, after arriving at the scene, Shu Long realized that he had worried too much in the past few days.

When he saw just how big the audience was, the pressure from the overwhelming support of the home crowd was truly overwhelming. The moment he appeared outside the pit room, the deafening roar was so powerful it almost knocked him to the ground.

The point is, if you're going to cheer me on, then cheer me on. But what's the point of posting so many huge headshots?

Looking at the "self" that had sprung up everywhere in the main stands like mushrooms after the rainy season, Shu Long felt a sudden urge to tense up, a sense of absurdity akin to Junji Ito's "The Balloon of Heads" being brought into reality.

I tried to clear my mind of all the random thoughts and treat this match like any other away game. I quickly got into the work mode for the match weekend.

His testing tasks this race week were incredibly demanding. First, the upgrade kit he gave to Albon last week would be installed on Shulong's No. 1 race car this week, which meant he needed to rediscover the car's limits under the new features.

Meanwhile, in the pre-race tire compound selection, the team also deviated from the norm and, in addition to the three sets of regular dry tires (one red, one yellow, and one white), chose an extra two sets of white tires, one set of yellow tires, and seven sets of red tires.

In this race, the Shulong team had two dry tire compounds available: three white and two yellow, or eight red.

In fact, quite a few teams have made strange choices. For example, Mercedes equipped itself with a large number of yellow tires, leaving only five sets of red tires as a reserve.

Here we need to talk a little about this year's tire compound. Although every race uses the same red, white and yellow compound, the choice of C1 to C5 is actually different for each race.

For example, at the Albert Park circuit, the opening race, Pirelli officially provided the following tire compounds: C2 (hard tire), C3 (medium tire), and C4 (soft tire).

Because the tires wear out more at the Bahrain circuit, Pirelli officially provided the three hardest tire compounds, with the C1 compound being the hardest tire for that race, while the original C2 hard tire became the yellow medium tire.

This year's China Grand Prix uses the same tire compound as the Melbourne Grand Prix, with C2 as the hardest white tire, and so on for the others.

The C2 performed poorly on white tires in Melbourne, but most teams subsequently made some upgrades to their cars to address the tire temperature issues this year. Many teams also implemented some upgrade kits at the previous Bahrain race.

Although the C2 is disliked by everyone in Melbourne, it is a hot commodity in Bahrain's tactical main force, and many teams have already collected the actual effects of upgrade kits on the C2 formula.

Toro Rosso is one of these teams. Based on Albon's performance in the previous race, the new upgrade kit makes the white tires a great option for the Chinese Grand Prix!
So the plan for the entire testing cycle was basically to put the main car on yellow tires in the first session, and then switch to red tires to test the car's limits while adjusting the overall balance of the car.

In the second phase, the primary goal is to find the rhythm of the white tires over long distances, while ensuring that the cars starting on red tires don't have too much of a disadvantage in long-distance lap times under this setup.

In the third section, the focus was on finding the limits of the red tires under light fuel conditions, while switching to white tires again, and refining the long-distance settings based on that.

Almost all the test tasks were completed very smoothly, but Shu Long's expression could not be relaxed no matter what.

Based on the data from the first two practice sessions, it has essentially confirmed the predictions of most teams that white tires are absolutely god-like in this race.

First of all, it was expected that the red tires would be far ahead in terms of the fastest lap time. The funny thing is that the yellow tires lagged behind at this race.

The estimated lap time limit for the yellow tires is 1.37 seconds slower than that for the red tires. While the white tires are slightly slower, they are only 1.77 seconds slower than the red tires' limit and 0.4 seconds slower than the yellow tires' lap time limit.

Is this disadvantage really a disadvantage?
I don’t think any racing team is crazy enough to think their car is so good that it can jump from Q2 to Q3 on white tires, right?
That's not a Mars rover anymore, that's called a maglev!
For white tires, the lap limit is not important at all; what matters is the performance over a long distance. And for this race, the white tires are expected to have the fastest average lap time over a long distance among the three compounds.

In other words, for cars that make it into Q3, there is only one fastest tire strategy for the race: firmly adhering to the red-white one-stop strategy.

This is good news for the big teams, as a relatively fixed tire strategy allows them to consistently leverage their car's performance advantages. However, it's not so favorable for mid-table teams like Toro Rosso.

For small teams to achieve big results with limited resources, besides the perfect performance of the drivers, they can largely rely on the team's strategy and information asymmetry with larger teams. Such a tire strategy has essentially killed off Shulong's hopes in this regard.

This was his first time playing on home soil, and it's no exaggeration to say that before the competition, Shu Long was prepared with the determination to get on the podium!
However, the result was not as expected.

The new upgrades to the car have indeed greatly improved the overall track performance. The overall balance is much better than in the previous two races, and Shu Long can finally switch his driving style from the awkward understeer to oversteer.

But here's the problem: while the race car is balanced, it has also lost its ability to go to extremes. In short, it's great to drive in every way except for speed.

This refers to the lap speed cap without qualifying. Don't be fooled by Shulong's lap time being P8 after the third practice session, which was less than 0.02 seconds behind Verstappen's 1:34.447.

But this time, his lap time lead over Albon, which was previously consistently more than 0.5 seconds, has now dwindled to less than 0.2 seconds!
To put it bluntly, it's not that Shulong regressed due to arrogance, nor that Alben improved at this station; it's simply that this broken car's limits are pretty much reached, and even Shulong can't squeeze out any more of its potential.

The data proves that Shulong's feeling was correct; Toro Rosso's lap ceiling at this race was indeed outrageously low.

Based on the data analysis of the first two practice sessions, Toro Rosso's lap time was third from the bottom among all teams in this race. Shulong's ability to squeeze into P8 in the third practice session may simply be because other teams were hiding their strengths.

Now, let alone the podium, Shu Long doubts whether he can even make it into Q3 in qualifying. Never before has he felt so utterly powerless.

Fortunately, it's not entirely hopeless, which is what makes Shulong feel most ridiculous.

The new upgrades may have made Toro Rosso too balanced, as the car performed exceptionally well over the long distance at this race, ranking second among all ten teams, with an estimated average lap time only 0.2 seconds slower than Mercedes.

The Shanghai International Circuit is a relatively easy track for overtaking. With the car's performance, if Shu Long can get into the top five in qualifying, he might even dare to dream of winning the championship.

But that's on the condition that he can make it into the top five.
Judging from the current situation, this idea is nothing short of a fantasy, so naive that it's almost endearing.

The data analysis of practice sessions by the organizers can only be used as a reference. In reality, the performance of a car is closely related to its starting position. The further back the car starts, the more it is affected, and the greater the difference from the theoretical values.

Just as Shu Long was having a headache over the afternoon's qualifying session, the team told him that he also had to make an appearance at the carnival, as required by the event organizers.

Ugh! Are you kidding me?!
Although Shu Long was extremely annoyed, feeling that this was just a ridiculous mess of not knowing what was important and what was urgent, he could only patiently and obediently cooperate.

　I'm desperate too, I owe 17 more chapters (18 - 1 = 17)...

　　I was out the other day and didn't have time to copy down the thank-you list for the monthly votes, how am I supposed to catch up now? Waaaaah~
　　
　
(End of this chapter)