F1: Absolute Car Feel

Chapter 158 Q1 Gathering Momentum
After the winter test, Wu Shi and Massa both believed that the vehicle should not lose a lot of speed for the sake of balance, so the FW37 recovered some of its top speed to some extent at this time.

The trade-off is reduced rear wheel grip, making the vehicle very prone to fishtailing when entering corners.

Therefore, after Wu Shi achieved a good result in the second timeout, he lost his advantage in the third timeout due to several slow corners, and only achieved a time of 1 minute 30.366 seconds when he crossed the finish line.

Kimi didn't fare much better, finishing with a time of 1 minute 30.188 seconds. It's unclear whether this was due to the soft tires not being suitable for today's track, Kimi making a mistake, or the use of varicose ethane.

This made the mid-table teams, who wanted to switch to soft tires to try and make it to Q2, hesitate. As for the teams at the bottom of the standings, they hadn't even considered making it to Q2. They either used up too many tires in practice or planned to save the tires for the race, but they would never use them in qualifying.

After a short wait, Massa's time came out: 1 minute 30.246 seconds.

The crew immediately analyzed the data of the two drivers and made a judgment by referring to Ferrari's performance.

Jonathan and Massa's track engineer, Dave, discussed the situation and realized that both of them were at a disadvantage in the first two time slots, but would be much faster in the second time slot.

After drawing his conclusion, Jonathan immediately said in TR: "Medium tires are more difficult to get into working condition. You need to run a few more laps, wait for the speed command, and pay attention to the handling of the first and second timing segments."

"receive."

Wu Shi began cruising on the track.

Each qualifying session typically has two optimal lap windows: the lap after the initial warm-up and the lap with two or three minutes remaining before crossing the finish line.

While he was cruising, Vettel drove his Ferrari across the finish line.

1 minutes 29 seconds 307.

After reaching the top, Vettel did a cooling stunt and returned to the pit lane.

This result was enough to get into Q2, so there was no need to run any more. He also only used this set of medium tires for three laps.

I must say, Vettel is truly worthy of the name; his running speed is incredibly fast and precise.

After Vettel's demonstration, the teams began to compete, but none of them achieved a very good time on the first flying lap, with most hovering around 1 minute and 30 seconds.

Wu Shi TR: "Has everyone else finished running?"

Jonathan TR: "Yes, everyone has finished the first flying lap, and you are currently ranked within the top 15."

Wu Shi TR: "OK, are the conditions permissible? I'm ready to go for another race."

Jonathan TR: "Of course, you can start."

Wu Shi had no intention of wasting tires by cruising a few more laps, even though he was unlikely to use these tires in the race.

Upon returning to Turn 16, he had already reviewed the details of the entire track in his mind, and he already had a solution to address the shortcomings he had made during the first flying lap.

Buzz! Whoosh!

The No. 59 Williams sped across the checkered lines, its top speed 1 km/h faster than the first flying lap. It was better than nothing, but it was enough to show that the tires and track conditions seemed to be better.

In fact, the tires did have better grip, and the medium tires took much longer to reach operating temperature than during practice, which made him keep an eye on things.

Thanks to the stronger grip, the rear wheel slippage was reduced, and many corners did not require correction, so Wu Shi drove quite smoothly on this lap.

Wow!
The race car crossed the finish line, and the results were announced.

1 minutes 29 seconds 141!

It directly surpassed Vettel's 1 minute 29.307 seconds.

Jonathan TR: "Good job."

In TR, Jonathan's voice is faintly accompanied by applause.

“Yes, I think this result is good enough,” Wu Shi said.

After seeing this result, commentator David's smile widened, and he said:
"A very good performance. Wu Shi brought the time to 1 minute 29.141 seconds in the second lap."

"However, we see that Rosberg is already speeding along. His first two lap times have already broken the record for the fastest lap of the entire event, and he is already 0.1 seconds faster than Wu Shi."

The camera followed the No. 6 silver arrow, and after a few flashing shots, it arrived at the final bend.

sieve!
The silver arrow crossed the finish line, resulting in an even better score.

1 minutes 28 seconds 906.

It has to be said that Mercedes truly lives up to its name; with its neutral tires, it can easily break the 1 minute and 28 second barrier with a simple sprint.

However, this result had nothing to do with Wu Shi. After he returned to the pit area, crew members immediately came over to align the air duct with the blower and placed a track information summary screen in front of him. Wu Shi put on his goggles and saw the current situation on the track.

Massa, Hamilton, and Perez are on their second flying lap, while the rest of the drivers are waiting for better track conditions.

Kimi had already completed his second flying lap before him, with a time of only 1 minute 29 seconds, which was puzzling, as Vettel was a full 754 seconds faster.

When two teammates are too far apart, it always reflects certain issues.

The main problem is that Kimi was driving on soft tires. Wu Shi suddenly had a thought: Could it be that Ferrari's soft tires are not good?

While he was lost in thought, Hamilton crossed the finish line, improving his time to 1 minute 28.586 seconds, 0.320 seconds faster than his teammate Rosberg.

"Tsk tsk, those two are getting more and more into their rivalry."

Wu Shi said that Hamilton's previous time was also within 1 minute and 29 seconds, and there was really no need to improve his time to make it into Q3. But Hamilton insisted on surpassing Rosberg.

Jonathan wasn't so gossipy. As a track engineer, he needed to pay attention to a lot of data, so he asked seriously, "What do you estimate your lap time limit to be on white tires?"

"There's absolutely no problem within 1 minute and 28 seconds."

"What about cruising?"

"It will probably be a second or two slower," Wu Shi said.

Jonathan nodded and began comparing the data with the machine's predictions. He would definitely show the comparison data to Wu Shi tonight and then analyze where the discrepancies in the predictions lay.

Wu Shi knew that Jonathan would be very serious when he was in work mode, so he didn't say anything about anything outside of the game, even though doing so would help him relax.

One minute after Hamilton crossed the finish line, Massa crossed the finish line with a time of 1 minute 29.246 seconds.

Two Williams cars were closely following Mercedes, ranking third and fourth. This scene always makes one feel as if it's still 2014.

David also made a comment during the commentary.

As the qualifying time for this session comes to an end, everyone's latest racing lap times are being released one after another.

“噢！两辆迈凯伦的成绩定格在了1分31秒422和1分32秒037，看来他们还是没有解决和本田引擎适配的问题。

"Let's look at Red Bull's situation. Kvyat stopped running after leaving a time of 1 minute 30.402 seconds on the second lap. At present, this time is basically the cutoff line. Their decision is really bold."

Mexican driver Perez also crossed the finish line, bringing Power India to a time of 1 minute 29.990 seconds, but his teammate Hulkenberg was faster.

"The two rookies in the Toro Rosso are still trying, and it seems they are taking this opportunity to get more familiar with the track. This reminds me of Wu Shi, who went back to the pits on the sixth lap. Didn't he need to familiarize himself with the track? This was the first track he had ever been on!"

Because Wu Shi's performance is sometimes too incredible, the commentators can't help but mention it. However, this is indeed his advantage. Everyone thinks that he has never run on these tracks, but he knows that compared to some of the F3 tracks, the F1 tracks are the ones he is most familiar with!

"Max Verstappen set a time of 1 minute 29.248 seconds! This puts the STR team (Toro Rosso) at the top of the leaderboard! You have to admire how formidable these young players are!"①
"Sainz's time is also out: 1 minute 29.597 seconds. Oh, he's a bit slower than his teammates."

"Ricciardo crossed the finish line too! Let's see how the Infiniti Red Bull team's result is."
"1 minute 29.788 seconds."

"Oh, even though this is only Q1, the two little Toro Rosso cars standing in front of the big Red Bull still make me feel like I'm back in the Toro Rosso era."

With Ricardo crossing the finish line, Q1 officially came to an end.

Ericsson, Button, and Magnus were eliminated, along with Stevens and Merry from the Manor team, who did not participate, bringing the total number of eliminated riders to five.

Upon entering Q2, Wu Shi saw the crew hurriedly changing to soft tires.

"The weather isn't looking good; the clouds are getting thicker," Jonathan said.

"clear."

Wu Shi looked at the weather map displayed on the screen in front of him. He felt that it wouldn't rain, but he couldn't be sure, so he tried his best to get a good time in the first lap.

"What is the predicted score after closing the door?" Wu Shi asked.

“Around 1 minute and 28.6 seconds,” Jonathan said.

Currently, due to inexplicable restrictions on TR content, much data can only be obtained before the track is even used.

"Okay, I'll go out now."

　① When commentators on foreign websites refer to a team, they usually use the full English name or an abbreviation of the initials. For ease of reading, the following text will use the more familiar way of referring to the team, regardless of whether it is domestic or foreign.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)