F1: Absolute Car Feel

Chapter 224 The Third Speeding Lap
As expected, it rained before qualifying, but the rain stopped when Q1 started.

“We need to stay on the track a few more laps to make sure our time is good enough to get into Q1,” Jonathan said.

“Yes, I know.” Wu Shi nodded.

Have you seen the news from BBC?

"what?"

“They think you’re not good at the Red Bull Ring, and that you’re going to give up your lead and go back to your original rankings in this race,” Jonathan said with a laugh.

"Haha, even though I'm in Williams, it seems like the local media don't really like me?" Wu Shi said with amusement.

“Who knows?” Jonathan shrugged.

Q1 starts because the road surface is slippery due to the recent rain, which has disrupted the strategies of all the teams.

Lap times definitely improve gradually, and whoever starts later has the advantage.

Even highly competitive teams like Mercedes, Ferrari, and Williams are having a headache because of this.

Drivers are forced to constantly monitor the track conditions in order to achieve the best lap times.

In Formula 1, it's not uncommon for things to go wrong.

Fortunately, sufficient lap times maintained the lower limit, with most teams completing a Q1 run of up to 12 laps, which is quite rare.

Wu Shi advanced in tenth place, while Hamilton encountered some unexpected problems, failing to set a sufficient lap time and finishing in 13th place to advance. He almost failed miserably.

罗斯伯格的窗口期不错，跑出了1分10秒976的成绩，是唯一一个跑进1分10秒的。

The last to be eliminated were the Ma Nuo duo, while Kimi was surprisingly knocked out.

Ferrari's strategy team switched to semi-wet tires when the road surface was wet, but as the road gradually dried, they did not switch to dry tires.

Barton and Perez were also eliminated.

Patton's replacement of the power unit has resulted in multiple penalties, with a minimum penalty of 25 places.

This year's rules are a bit different. Instead of the penalty of being forced to the back of the line and then having the remaining penalty positions waived or carried over to the next stop, the remaining penalties will be applied directly at this stop.

Passing through the repair area once, penalty time, etc.

“There won’t be any rain in Q2,” Jonathan said.

It's hard to tell whether it will rain or not, but once the clouds have moved, it's definitely not going to rain.

Q2, most drivers are starting to consider using supersoft tires for high-speed racing.

"I'll drive it once on the old tires first," Wu Shi asked Jonathan.

“Of course, no problem.” Jonathan agreed and then relayed the information to the crew.

Initially, the track conditions were still not good enough, and many drivers, like Wu Shi, decided to test the waters first.

Only Vettel remained still. If Wu Shi's most memorable moment in qualifying 15 was his record-breaking lap times, then Vettel's most memorable moment was that he almost always only did one flying lap in Q2.

Clearly, he still intends to do the same thing at the Austrian Grand Prix.

Compared to other tracks, doing this here is very risky, since it's a track that's only recently returned to the calendar and the familiarity with it isn't high.

However, for many geniuses, the first lap is to get to know the track, the second lap is to become familiar with the track, and the third lap is to speed across the track.

Wu Shi used the old tires not to race, but to test the track and feel the changes in grip.

Due to the effects of rain and new asphalt, the grip on the track varied from lap to lap, and the slipperiness of the curbs was constantly changing.

Before Q3, he needs to make sure he knows the trend of changes in track grip.

After achieving a time of 1 minute 10.111 seconds using the old tires, Wu Shi returned to the pit lane to await his next exit.

"This result is a bit uncertain, but Wu Shi will obviously switch to the new supersoft tires for racing, otherwise these old soft tires may become the tires he has to use for the start of the race."

After briefly mentioning Wu Shi's situation, the commentator turned his attention to the drivers on the track who were constantly trying to achieve new results.

The Mercedes duo quickly changed to new soft tires and prepared to speed off.

Alonso made several attempts this time, but McLaren really didn't perform well, with his time hovering around 1 minute and 10 seconds, making it completely impossible for him to make it into Q3.

So he gave up not long after.

With five minutes remaining, the two Mercedes drivers took to the track again for their second flying lap on the new supersoft tires.

The previous results weren't bad, but it seems they need to get a feel for Q3.

Vettel then exited the station.

Wu Shi exited the station later than him.

Both of them started trying to speed.

"Wu Shi is currently ranked eighth and has a real chance of making it into Q3. He has to run well, otherwise he will suffer a big loss in the main race."

Starting on the old soft tires is not as good as starting on the new supersoft tires from tenth to fifteenth place.

Vettel took the lead and sped off. The German was incredibly fast, completing a time of 1 minute 09.392 seconds in just one lap, moving directly into third place.

After finishing the race, Vettel called it a day.

Wu Shi was doing his first speed lap at this moment. The starting straight of the Red Bull Ring was a section with a drop followed by an rise.

Turn 1 is located at the top of the hill, which is almost equivalent to a blind turn.

Because this place is located at the junction of uphill and downhill slopes, the visibility is poor, the road conditions are complex, and the vehicle tire grip changes drastically.

If you don't control your direction and speed well, you may not be able to reach the left shoulder, which means you'll run too short and likely waste a lot of time.

In the main race, this means even greater wear and tear on the tires.

Wu Shi had already tested the direction and speed here beforehand, so after crossing the shoulder, the directional correction was minimal, and the vehicle swayed directly onto the left shoulder.

As the vehicle stabilized and the front of the car aligned with the direction, another long downhill stretch began.

This "straight" has been marked with a Turn 2. Without this turn, the Red Bull Ring would only have 9 turns, a single-digit number of corners, which would be too meager for an F1 circuit.

The extra-long "straight road" is similar to the main straight road at the start of the journey, first going downhill and then uphill.

As we approached the top, the only view we had was a small section of the red and white shoulder on the right corner. Turning into turn 3 relied entirely on my accumulated experience.

Fortunately, this is the slowest corner on the entire course, with speeds around 80 km/h.

Once you pass this point, there's another extremely long downhill slope.

Turn 4 is finally not a semi-blind turn anymore, but it is a turn at the end of a downhill slope, and the difficulty of navigating it is no easier than the previous turns, and may even be more difficult!

Because of the downhill slope, the car's speed will be much higher than usual. Also, because it is downhill, the braking distance is longer. Furthermore, because it is downhill, the load on the front wheels increases significantly, and the steering grip decreases.

Taking all three factors into account, any over-driving maneuver by the driver here will result in understeer, which will lead to a direct plunge into the gravel run-off area.

This is also a key area of ​​the track's restricted boundaries, and many drivers hope to use the larger curbs to cushion the impact of the aforementioned factors.

This makes it very easy to go beyond the track boundaries here.

Fortunately, after this bend, the undulations of the entire track are reduced.

Although the elevation difference is reduced, the cornering speed is also increasing, making it feel like the driver is swaying rapidly from side to side on the track.

The extremely high G-force brings an endless sense of stimulation, and the brain really enjoys the feedback after performing extreme actions in every second.

Swish!
Wu Shichao crossed the finish line on soft tires with a final time of 1 minute 09.621 seconds, which is not a particularly outstanding result, placing him only fifth.

Rosberg took first place again with a time of 1 minute 08.634 seconds.

Hamilton was 0.4 seconds behind, followed by Vettel, who was 0.7 seconds behind.

"Wu Shi's lap looked very smooth, but his speed was indeed slow," David commented.

“He probably hasn’t figured out how to run this track yet,” John nodded.

"So, does that mean his ability to learn the track is relatively weak?" David asked.

“No, how many of the first seven stops did he run?” John shook his head.

David didn't respond, knowing he would continue.

"Perhaps he just doesn't have a good grasp of the racing line in high-speed corners, or he hasn't found the right qualifying strategy for this track," John said.

Wu Shi's current achievements are undeniable, and people can only analyze his failures based on whether he was good at this particular track.

The commentators' idea was simple: no driver can be good at every track.

However, Mercedes and Ferrari dared not be careless in the pit lanes.

“Wu Shi’s time is 1 minute 09.621 seconds, which is almost 0.6 seconds behind yours,” Bono told Hamilton.

"What was Massa's score?" the old man immediately asked.

"1 minutes, 09 seconds, 719."

“那吴轼的成绩至少是1分09秒2，Q3他绝对能够跑进1分08秒。”汉密尔顿果断说道。

Bono paused for a moment, then asked, "Tell me the basis for your deduction. We're also considering this possibility."

"This doesn't really need any basis. He hasn't lost to Massa in rankings, and his speed isn't outside the top three. No matter how he performs in Q2, that doesn't reflect his true ability."

Just as Hamilton affirmed, Vettel also told the team that Wu Shi was definitely hiding something.

Clearly, the front-row drivers have no faith in Wu Shi's lap times at this moment.

Jonathan overheard these TR exchanges and asked in the TR:
"It seems everyone has high expectations of you?"

"Huh? I don't know, really? This is a confirmation for me, please thank everyone for me." Wu Shi wrestled in TR.

The commentator couldn't help but laugh after hearing this:

"It seems we need to change our judgment. Wu Shi is not unsuited to this track, he just hasn't shown his strength."

"I didn't expect several world champions to speak so highly of him," David said.

With the end of Q2, the eliminated drivers have been identified.

Bottas finished 11th with a time of 1 minute 10.190 seconds, just three-thousandths of a second behind Kvyat.

Following them are Eriksen, Sainz, Riccardo, and Alonso.

Verstappen has moved into Q3 again, surpassing Red Bull's Kvyat to take sixth place in Q2.

He finished slightly behind Wu Shi with a time of 1 minute 09.631 seconds.

In the pit lane, Wu Shi said to Jonathan, "The track conditions are not ideal; it's still very slippery."

Jonathan replied, "Understood, we've prepared two speed runs."

"Given the slippage that occurred during practice and the first two qualifying sessions, we recommend that you speed ahead."

With qualifying entering its third session, the battle for pole position is in full swing, and everyone will be giving it their all, which means the possibility of mistakes increases.

During practice sessions, not only rookie drivers, but even veterans like Hamilton, Rosberg, and Vettel experienced slippage.

Clearly, people are still not very familiar with this track that only returned last year.

Wu Shi hesitated. The track conditions were getting better and better, and starting early meant facing greater challenges.

However, the team's strategy group's decisions are often probabilistic choices supported by a large amount of data.

Ultimately, he had no particular ideas of his own, so he followed the team's instructions.

He was the first to leave the station shortly after Q3 started.

"Hey! Wu Shi got off the train so early." The commentator immediately noticed.

Most pole position contenders only go on their high-speed runs in the last five minutes, so the first flying lap won't be out so early. "It seems the drivers' predictions were wrong this time, and ours were right. Wu Shi might not be very good at this track, so he's preparing to pit first."

As the two commentators finished speaking, Nasr and Kvyat also entered the game.

During Wu Shi's warm-up lap, he felt that the grip in the first four corners was still very poor, and the track temperature was too low, so the supersoft tires warmed up very slowly.

"I need to do another round of warm-up tires. Is there a window in the back?" Wu Shi asked in TR.

“There are only four cars on the field right now. If no other cars come on, you won’t be hindered,” Jonathan replied.

"it is good."

Wu Shi responded and began the second round of warming up the tires.

The warm-up speed was increased to raise the tire temperature as much as possible.

During this process, the braking ratio is adjusted and heavy braking is applied to allow the front wheel brake temperature to rise rapidly.

At this point, he began to envy Mercedes' "Magic Button".

The "magic button" can warm up the tires with one click. It not only uses braking balance to bring heat to the front wheels, but also prevents the MGU-K from recovering energy, thereby transferring excess heat to the tires.

Even if you have the idea for this kind of cutting-edge technology, you might not be able to achieve the same level of performance as Mercedes-Benz.

The second warm-up round brought the tires to operating temperature. The brake system was still a little cold, but that wasn't a problem anymore.

“Start speeding,” Wu Shi reminded Jonathan.

“OK, there are seven cars on the field right now. Nasr is speeding ahead and won’t get in your way,” Jonathan said.

Wu Shi turned through Turn 10 and entered the starting straight.

As soon as DRS was activated, the entire car accelerated wildly and began to shake violently.

Going from downhill to uphill brings a wonderful physical and mental experience, but Wu Shi had no time to pay attention to these things. He was silently calculating in his mind, and his eyes were fixed on the right side of the top of the slope.

In the blink of an eye, the race car rushed up the hill, braked, turned right, steered back, drove onto the left shoulder, and began to descend the hill.

Having navigated Turn 1 smoothly, Wu Shi had already gotten the hang of it and charged downhill again.

At this moment, on the slope, Kvyat was still warming up his tires. He stood close to the right side, making room for Wu Shi.

The vehicle sped along, quickly transitioning from a downhill slope to an uphill one, and in the blink of an eye, it arrived at Turn 3.

Wu Shi glanced at the right-hand corner, began to downshift and slow down, and then turned right while pressing on the left shoulder.

Because of his high utilization of the track, he entered the apex of turn 3 with great ease.

After exiting the bend, you hardly need to counter-steer to reach the left shoulder.

Then there was another long downhill slope.

'The grip at Turn 4 is very poor.'

Wu Shi had a clear judgment, so he slowed down very sharply, completing the deceleration when entering the corner 50 meters away from the apex.

This way, the braking force required for subsequent traction braking will be much lighter, and the front wheels will have more grip to cope with steering.

Even so, it's still impossible to bite the apex of the bend, or rather, biting the apex here isn't the best way to drive.

The vehicle was pushed to the left shoulder, and the curve was not yet fully over.

The wetness on the shoulder was even worse, pushing the entire race car almost to the edge of the track; any further and it would have been the gravel area.

'call! '

Fortunately, everything went according to plan, the race car successfully completed the turn, and grip was restored.

The subsequent bends were not as difficult for Wu Shi as this one.

After all, the grip on that bend was too uncertain, and he wasn't entirely confident.

"There was a bit of a push at Turn 4, but overall it was pretty good, very smooth, just as smooth as Q2," the commentator said.

"You mean the results will be the same as Q2?" another commentator laughed.

"Hey, can't you read a timer?" the commentator joked.

The two realized that Wu Shi had been hiding his true strength in the first two qualifying rounds.

Jonathan remained expressionless. He hadn't expected to make a decisive contribution on his first lap.

Swish!
Williams crossed the finish line, and his time was recorded.

1 minutes 08 seconds 708.

It was 0.074 seconds slower than Rosberg's Q2 time, but getting under 1 minute and 08 seconds in itself means something.

Jonathan breathed a sigh of relief when the minimum score was released.

"It seems the predictions of the champion drivers were correct," the commentator chuckled.

As Wu Shi finished his first flying lap, the other drivers followed suit and began their own flying laps.

Hamilton took the lead with a time of 1 minute 09.225 seconds, which was slightly disappointing.

It turns out that the slip occurred at turn 4, almost ruining the entire Flying Spur lap.

"The second lap will definitely be a fierce battle!" the commentator exclaimed.

Rosberg performed well, finishing the first lap with a time of 1 minute 08.655 seconds, slightly faster than Wu Shi.

This is going to be even more interesting.

Massa, Kvyat, and Nasr then set their own times, but none of them broke 1 minute and 08 seconds, essentially eliminating them from the race for pole position.

Verstappen also set a time of 1 minute 09.612 seconds, which is slower than Q2, so he will definitely have to do a second flying lap.

The situation on the track was now clear, and everyone was waiting for the second lap to try and achieve a better result.

With Q3 entering its final five minutes, the drivers began their final flying laps in droves.

As arranged by the strategy team, Wu Shi was still placed at the front for the flying laps, and he had already switched to new supersoft tires.

On a track with only one stop, it's perfectly normal for the Q3 to use two sets of tires for high-speed driving.

After he finished warming up the tires, he realized that the track conditions had improved as everyone warmed up their tires and sped off.

At least at Turn 4, the old man, the princess, and the wobble all went over the kerb, which changed its grip.

Therefore, Wu Shi was more confident in running at his absolute limit.

As he prepared to enter the main straight, a small Red Bull in front of him was accelerating.

Wu Shi realized that it was Pan Zi, who had entered Q3.

Without hesitation, he followed and caught the tail current, while Panzi sped up to pull the tail current for him.

Swish!
Williams, number 59, began his high-speed run.

The broadcast camera immediately stopped focusing on the others and started tracking Wu Shilai directly.

The first three corners are almost 0.15 seconds faster than the previous flying lap.

"This lap will also break his own record. What lap time will he achieve?! Will he be able to reach pole position?!"

The commentator, seeing the continuous broadcast footage, also became excited.

On the steep downhill before Turn 4, the red lines on the tire edges flickered, creating a striking contrast against the deep black ground.

The sound of racing car engines whirred and whooshed along with the wind blowing in the opposite direction.

'against the wind'

Wu Shi was not worried at all; on the contrary, his eyes lit up even more.

The difficulty of Turn 4 lies in the front wheels having too little grip; now, the headwind will help the car slow down better!
In the blink of an eye, he had an idea in his mind. At 50 meters, he continued to brake as he entered the curve.

"The brakes came on way too late this time, way too late!"

"He'll go off the track! He's still too young!"

Both commentators are seasoned experts; they can tell just by looking that the braking point is wrong, which will definitely cause the car to understeer.

Once you push the nose, the whole lap is over.

However, right under their noses, number 59 Williams struggled and squeaked as he turned into Turn 4.

A slight understeer instantly brought the race car to the left shoulder.

Click, click, click!

Just like the previous lap, the left tire almost touched the edge, but managed to turn at the last moment.

Whoosh!

With a significant increase in torque to the rear wheels, the race car sped through Turn 4.

"It's amazing!"

"Ohhh!!!"

Seeing this, the two commentators were filled with admiration and forgot to continue their commentary.

However, they recovered quickly.

"I was lucky just now, it almost got out of control."

“No, that’s real strength,” David affirmed.

At the small timing point after turn 4, Wu Shi's time was already more than 0.2 seconds ahead of his own on the previous lap.

Because he was the first to start the second lap, Wu Shi had no way of considering whether to slow down later on based on the final results of the others.

He could only continue to race at full speed.

Half a minute later, the white Williams dashed across the grid lines with a "whoosh" under the gloomy skylight.

1 minutes 08 seconds 408!

The pole position has temporarily fallen to Wu Shi.

That one extreme lap gave Rosberg a nearly 0.25-second lead over him on the previous lap.

In the broadcast footage, everyone in Williams' pit room jumped up.

"Wu Shi, well done! A perfect lap!"

"Thank you!"

"Bring the car back. Just like you always say, do your best and leave the rest to fate. Now we just need to wait for the final result."

Jonathan said.

Wu Shi smiled but didn't say that he thought he could improve his lap time a little more when the track conditions were at their best at the end of the race.

Hamilton soon began his second flying lap, a lap in which he had to ensure his lap time was good and consistent.

A world champion is a world champion; while maintaining a steady performance, he achieved a time of 1 minute 08.455 seconds.

This achievement surpasses Rosberg's, but still lags behind Wu Shi's.

"It looks like Hamilton is about to take his third flying lap."

This is the consensus of everyone.

When Rosberg was in the middle of the cool-down lap, he started trying the second flying lap, determined to win!
(End of this chapter)