F1: Absolute Car Feel

Chapter 151: September's Hunting Grounds News Never Stop

The Singapore Grand Prix has concluded.

Whether it was Hamilton overtaking his teammate Rosberg in the overall standings, temporarily shifting the title of this year's defending champion, or Wu Shi being 25/1000ths of a second slower than Ricciardo and missing out on a top-three finish, it all made one realize how many exciting things happened in the paddock this year.

Of course, the biggest news on Monday came from Ferrari.

Montezemolo, who has been at the helm of LaFerrari since the 1990s, has officially announced his resignation as chairman of Ferrari.

Immediately, news media outlets published articles lamenting the end of an era.

With his resignation, the Agnelli family's control of the Fiat Group has made its influence over Ferrari absolute. ①
Fiat Group CEO Sergio Marchionne began to change the team according to his ideas.

It can be said that Ferrari's internal struggles in 2014 had only just come to an end at this point.

However, in the next eight years, Ferrari will also face problems such as frequent changes in top management and chaotic team management.

Endless internal strife turned the glory of this red powerhouse racing team into something that only existed in memories. Countless dreams of the Iron Temple were shattered, and it gradually turned into a clown.

During the internal struggle, the previous agreement between Montezemolo and Wu Shi was also brought up, with both sides being discussed, but the core point was that Montezemolo was completely wrong.

Even Martina was affected by this struggle.

It has to be said that it was fortunate that Wu Shi did not go to Ferrari, otherwise one might suspect that the circus might have terminated the contract directly, at worst paying some penalty fees.

Regarding the penalty for breach of contract, on September 27, Sid brought back the results of his negotiations with Mercedes-Benz.

First of all, Wu Shi failed to fulfill the requirements stipulated in the previous agreement, and this result is considered an objective fact.

Secondly, Tony Ross was dismissed by Mercedes and is being pursued for legal action because he made unauthorized modifications to the race car.

Finally, according to the agreement, Mercedes-Benz shall be liable for breach of contract damages for this dispute caused by the inadequate management of its personnel.

Yes, the compensation is twenty million US dollars.

At that time, Wu Shi's penalty for breach of contract was also so high, so the compensation would not be low after all.

This compensation is absolutely astronomical!

Therefore, neither Wu Shi nor Xi De has spoken about the practice match anymore, and the reporters naturally cannot get any information from them.

In a similar situation to the negotiations with Mercedes, Wu Shi also flew to the United Kingdom and reached a three-year contract with Williams.

This result surprised Wu Shi's entire team, as few teams are willing to offer such a long-term contract to a rookie.

After finalizing the F1 contract, Wu Shi will face the next challenge – the F1 Super License.

At that time, there were no regulations such as requiring one to be 18 years of age or to accumulate a certain number of points. Whether or not a super license was issued depended mainly on the team's recommendation and the results of basic physical fitness tests and track ability verification.

The FIA ​​will assess these factors and then decide whether to issue a super license.

Therefore, Mercedes and Williams jointly recommended Wu Shi to the FIA, and the basic physical fitness test and track ability verification were tentatively scheduled for December.

Even if Wu Shi doesn't have a super license yet, he can still compete in 2015, since the FIA's regulations and controls on this matter are far too vague these days.

Otherwise, he wouldn't even have been able to play in the practice matches a few days ago.
The announcement of Wu Shi's F1 contract with Williams immediately caused another shockwave in the paddock.

What's wrong with September? Why are all these big events happening this month?!
After the contract was finalized, CCTV's Sang Tong approached Wu Shi again on September 28 for a brief interview, which will be broadcast on the news channel's live news program.

On September 29th, just before four in the morning, Wu Shi was sound asleep when the blanket was suddenly pulled off, waking him up. He struggled to open his eyes in the glaring light and saw Louise's excited expression. He took a deep breath and mumbled sleepily, "My little darling, aren't you going to sleep?"

"Look! It's on the news in China!"

As she spoke, she placed the phone in front of Wu Shi, who naturally kept his eyes closed, and heard the professional announcer's voice in his ear:
Williams Racing officially announced on the 27th that 16-year-old Chinese driver Wu Shi has officially joined the team and will compete as a driver in the 2015 Formula One World Championship. Wu Shi has thus become the first official F1 driver from China and the youngest official driver in F1 history.

"He will make his debut at the Australian Grand Prix, the opening race of next season's F1."

"In 2013, after winning the KZ European Karting Championship and the KZ World Karting Championship, Wu Shi announced that he would join the Dutch Van Amersford team to compete in the European Formula 3 Championship and participate in the 2014 European F3 season."

“截止到今天，吴轼已经在欧陆F3本赛季进行过的9站27场比赛中赢得23场胜利，锁定了F3的年度冠军。”

"Since embarking on his professional racing career, Wu Shi has set numerous world records in various karting events and F3 racing, and holds the titles of the youngest European Karting Championship KZ class champion, World Karting Championship KZ class champion, and the youngest European F3 champion."

The host briefly recounted Wu Shi's achievements in a calm and steady manner, which made Wu Shi even more drowsy.

He's been on CCTV channels before, and now, apart from the evening news, there doesn't seem to be any channel that excites him anymore. But to get on the evening news, he'd probably have to be a world champion.

The last person to be featured on the evening news and leave a deep impression on him was Liu Xiang, the hurdler.

"Louise, what's so interesting about this? You've already seen it on Italian news channels. Going to watch domestic news now won't help; you won't understand it anyway. Go to sleep."

After saying that, without waiting for Louise's resistance, he pulled her onto the bed and turned off the bedside lamp.

Huchi~huchi~
Louise, pulled onto the bed, blushed instantly and breathed heavily; she was far from being able to sleep.

September 29th has just passed, and the Red Bulls' second team will hold a press conference on September 30th.

At the meeting, Toro Rosso announced a partnership with Max Verstappen, who, having just turned 17 today, will replace Vergne next year, partnering with Kvyat in the 2015 F1 season. ③
It was also announced that Verstappen will participate in the first training session at the Neon Grand Prix.

The series of sensational news is hard not to be surprised.

Wu Shi had anticipated this, so after seeing the news, he immediately called Verstappen.

"Congratulations! What a coincidence, we'll be competing against each other again next year."

"Haha! Thanks! But I'm not confident I can compete with you next year."

Verstappen, unusually yielding, continued:

"I've driven a lot of miles in the 2012 F1 car for this practice session, but I still feel very strained. I have no idea how you can drive so well without ever having driven an F1 car before!"

"Most importantly, the organizers actually allowed someone with absolutely no experience driving an F1 car to participate!"

Wu Shi smiled after hearing this and said, "You'll have to ask Mei Ben about that."

He knew perfectly well that Mercedes had gone to great lengths for this matter, whether it was for him or because of disagreements within the team, only they themselves knew the truth.

　① In reality, Montezemolo issued a statement on September 10.

　　②In 2014, drivers who did not obtain a super license were required to have at least 300 kilometers of driving experience in an old F1 car in order to drive an F1 car in practice sessions during race week. This clause was not listed as a mandatory requirement in the article.

　　③现实中，维斯塔潘加盟红牛二队最早公布于8月19日，9月30日红牛二队官宣维斯塔潘将参加F1日本站的一练。

　　
　
(End of this chapter)