F1: Absolute Car Feel

Chapter 265 Mercedes-Benz Front Row
As the season draws to a close, the race for the drivers' championship remains highly unpredictable.

Media outlets around the world have questioned whether Hamilton can defend his title.

The 22-point difference, along with only five Grand Prix races remaining, together form this chain of doubt.

If Hamilton makes even the slightest mistake—and this is judged very strictly, failing to win a Grand Prix is ​​considered a mistake—

They could very well lose their title.

Because if Wu Shi wins, it will widen the gap by at least 7 points.

29 points, compared to four Grand Prix events.

Even if Hamilton wins every game, as long as Wu Shi can maintain second place in every game, the points will never be caught up.

In a Grand Prix where surprises are common, it is very difficult to consistently win.

As a result, there have been more reports that Wu Shi is about to win the world championship.

The FIA ​​and F1 are both happy to see this happen, and some promotional posters even feature the rivalry between Wu Shi and Hamilton.

For the British and most Europeans, supporting Hamilton to win the title was a matter of course.

But for Williams fans, Wu Shi fans, Hamilton haters, and Mercedes haters, supporting Wu Shi is the right thing to do.

When the two sides clash, the popularity of F1 skyrockets.

As a result, the sales of merchandise from both companies increased, but it seems that Yiwu ultimately benefited.
In any case, the Mercedes team has realized several key elements to defend the championship.

Therefore, after the Japanese Grand Prix, they held an emergency internal meeting.

The main purpose of this meeting was simple: to ensure that the world champion driver stays at Mercedes.

To put it more bluntly, how do we help Hamilton defend his world championship title?

After everyone had a complete analysis of the vehicles, drivers, and the track ahead, they discovered that one key point was the other driver.

Everyone's eyes involuntarily turned to Nico Rosberg.

"Nico, we need you. The whole team needs you to pull yourself together. If you can get a top-two finish, then Wu Shi will be knocked off the championship throne in just three more games."

"After tuning and optimization, our car has reached its perfect point this season, and you should go for it and win every race."

"Wu Shi is not invincible; they have obvious weaknesses. In the next five Grand Prix matches, we will specifically optimize your strategy."

"."

As Rosberg listened to the endless stream of words of advice, encouragement, and reproach, he felt as if countless hands were gripping his neck.

He almost suffocated!
why?
why?
He clearly puts in his best effort in every game, and he thinks much more about every game and every moment than he did last year!

Why did this happen?

Are those people who are encouraging him genuinely encouraging him, or are they secretly mocking his skills?
Is he really no match for his childhood friend and rival?
Is he really incapable?
Yes, he is not as good as Lewis, because Lewis has a wealth of experience.

But why not as good as Wu Shi?
Why is this inexperienced young man so amazing?

He kept pulling at his hair, his mind filled with self-doubt, paranoia, and the thought of his father's face.

World Champion
World Champion
"Nico?"

"Nico?"

Rosberg suddenly woke up, breaking out in a cold sweat, and looked at Toto who was calling for him.

"Yes, you should stay focused during the meeting."

"I know."

At Williams headquarters, the post-race debriefing meeting for the Japanese Grand Prix is ​​still ongoing.

Everyone's lap times were revealed.

Lewis' lap times on medium tires are generally maintained at 1 minute and 38 seconds, which is actually not faster than on hard tires.

"We should take this into consideration; perhaps hard tires are the best option?"

"Well, if the second Stint uses the same neutral tire as the Lewis, perhaps we can get closer to what we expect."

"The main issue is that we haven't obtained the long-distance test data for the tires. If we had known that hard tires would have such strong durability, we would probably have adopted the recommended strategy."

"The strategic issues still cannot be resolved immediately, but the tire-changing skills still require more training."

"We still have plenty of ideas to put into testing for further optimization of the FW37."

"."

Multiple departments held consultations, and an endless amount of information and data was laid out before them.

Wu Shi was feeling a bit dizzy looking at it, and had no choice but to follow the crowd and slowly figure things out.

At the end of the meeting, Massa smiled and patted Wu Shi on the shoulder:

"There are still five races left, you have to hold on! It's not time to surrender yet."

Wu Shi nodded and said, "Of course, this is the world championship. The competition will stop when the result is announced."

"very good."

Massa looked out the window at the overcast sky, where the sun was nowhere to be seen. The distant year of 2008 still lingered in his mind.

“Every point you lose unexpectedly during the season will come back to haunt you in the final race,” he said.

Wu Shi remained silent. In 2008, at the Brazilian Grand Prix, the last race of the calendar, Massa won the race but still lost the world championship.

Not to mention that the Singapore Grand Prix remains controversial due to the crash incident.

Just looking at Massa's mistakes on the track, you can see that if he had scored a few more points, would all of this have happened?
The car crash in Australia, the spin in Malaysia, and the fine in Singapore.

These were all caused by his own actions, not by external forces.

However, that's how competition works. You make mistakes, and your opponents make mistakes too, but if you make more and more fatal mistakes, you will lose everything.

What does Wu Shi have that Hamilton has that he has now?
They fought with all their might in every game, pushing themselves to the limit by eliminating all mistakes, and ultimately securing all the points they could get.

Of course, he was also lucky.

Mercedes' double retirement, the veteran's blunders, and Mercedes' vehicle malfunction all contributed to him earning more points than expected.

"I know I won't let this year be mine."

Wu Shi did not mention any specific year.

After all, every driver who missed out on the WDC can name a few years.

Perhaps one more of him wouldn't make a difference, and one less of him wouldn't make a difference either.

But he doesn't want this year to become a year in which future generations will look back on his F1 career with sighs and shakes of their heads.

Two teams are busy helping their drivers compete for the world championship, and the other teams are not idle either.

Force India and Sauber have filed a complaint with the European Commission regarding the distribution of F1 commercial revenue.

To put it simply, they believe that the regulations issued by FOM give European teams an additional advantage.

This affected the fair competition in the game.

Their primary focus is on granting additional revenue to Red Bull, Mercedes, Ferrari, McLaren, and Williams.

Ultimately, both teams want a more reasonable and larger share of the profits.

This is understandable, but the EU needs to review it, and F1 hasn't said anything about it.

Red Bull also has a lot of issues to deal with; their dissatisfaction with Renault engines is something they inevitably mention every week.

In fact, with the 2016 season approaching, they do need to finalize their next engine.

Ferrari, however, is unwilling to cultivate competitors.

And Mercedes? They also flatly refused to cooperate with Red Bull. Having been turned down by both companies, Newey stated directly:

“We may be forced to leave F1 because Mercedes and Ferrari refuse to supply us with their engines.”

"It's purely out of fear that we'll beat them with our own engines."

This immediately drew criticism from many media outlets who said that Newey was just bragging.

In short, the chaos in the paddock continues, and it is unknown how long it will last.

F1 itself wasn't idle either, stirring up trouble internally as well.

Bernie Ecclestone has suggested that CVC Capital Partners, a major shareholder in F1, could sell its 35.5% stake.

But Bernie Ecclestone did not disclose the buyer.

But this didn't stump the reporters.

While they couldn't uncover all the buyers, they did manage to uncover at least one UAE-based fund, Qatar Sports Investments.

2015 was also a turbulent year for F1!

During the first half of the season, many people said that F1 was no longer entertaining, and F1 was facing a crisis of a significant drop in viewership.

Many media outlets have described it as an expensive and uninteresting sport.

In fact, if it weren't for Wu Shi's meddling, this year would have indeed turned out this way.

Mercedes will secure almost all pole positions and victories, leaving no extra points for the other teams.

But now, Mercedes is still struggling to secure the championship for Lewis Hamilton.

The general public is happy to see Mercedes suffer a defeat, even if this mentality is not as strong as it would be a few years later, it is certainly present this year.

Ahead of the Russian Grand Prix on October 11, Renault released a letter of intent to grant Lotus a stake in the company, thus sparing it from debt liquidation.

This led the London High Court to agree to a ten-week stay of liquidation pending Renault's acquisition of Lotus.

Meanwhile, Barton and Toto also confirmed that they will continue to play for McLaren next year.

Mano also released good news: they will become a Mercedes customer team next year.

American Alexander will miss the Russian Grand Prix.

This guy went to participate in the last game of the GP2 Championship.

The Russian Grand Prix is ​​approaching amidst great preparations.

Wu Shi traveled to Russia on Wednesday and arrived at the Sochi circuit.

This track was only put into use last year, and the entire track runs through the venues of the 14 Sochi Winter Olympics.

Surrounded by the Black Sea coast and the Caucasus Mountains, the scenery is truly beautiful.

However, this also has a side effect: the track maintenance cost is very high.

The Black Sea winds that constantly blow towards the track have accelerated its aging.

Therefore, in order to maintain the operation of this track, Russia must spend a lot of money on maintenance every year.

Russia has never been particularly well-off financially.

However, for Russia, the economic value of the Sochi circuit is secondary; they value its political value more.

In 2015, Russia was becoming increasingly isolated. Whether it was the Sochi Winter Olympics or major international events like Formula 1, these were all part of Russia's propaganda efforts to demonstrate its openness.

Wu Shi arrived here so early to gaze into the distance because Mercedes-Benz had achieved something significant on this racetrack:

Complete victory!

It wouldn't be an exaggeration to call Mercedes the king of Sochi.

From 2014 to 2021, Mercedes won the drivers' championship here.

This track seems to be the embodiment of the Mercedes dynasty.

In 2022, the Russian Grand Prix was cancelled due to various political factors.

Therefore, Red Bull, Ferrari, and McLaren never had the chance to overturn Mercedes' achievements here.

Like all the tracks that Mercedes excels at, this is a medium-to-high-speed track that is very demanding on the engine.

Both DRS sections only provide overtaking opportunities for vehicles with straight-line speed.

In addition, the most distinctive feature of this track is the huge left-hand bend No. 3, which forms a semi-circle.

This section is a full 750 meters long, and the average speed of an F1 fighter jet passing through it is around 270 kph.

Such high speeds will continuously generate 5 lateral G-forces, which will put a lot of strain on the rider's neck.

A gust of wind blew by, and Wu Shi, who was wearing a coat, still hunched his neck; the wind was a bit chilly.

Thursday is the track day, Friday is the practice session.

The match began as usual.

In the first training session, Hulkenberg ran the fastest lap time of 1 minute 44.355 seconds, securing the fastest lap.

Hamilton barely managed to achieve any good results due to slipping.

As for the reason for the slippage, it's unclear whether the old man hadn't figured it out yet, or whether the oil stains on the track hadn't been cleaned properly.

The first thirty minutes of practice were spent cleaning up this damn grease.

Fortunately, at least it didn't rain, so the collection speed was still good.

However, during the second practice session, a heavy rain came.

This again deprived most drivers of the opportunity to fine-tune their gear.

Wu Shi sat in the race car, his goggles open, staring blankly at the rain outside.

The broadcast camera focused on him, who seemed dazed.

The Sochi circuit is extremely demanding on setup skills, just as all medium- and high-speed circuits test the balance of a team's setup.

Just like in the previous race, Williams still faces the trade-off between downforce and low drag.

This cannot be simulated by a calculator. At best, a computer can help you optimize the route, but it cannot provide the team with tuning parameters that are completely in line with reality.

Jonathan stopped looking at the screen and instead looked at the drizzling rain outside the pit room.

Fortunately, the weather improved and the ground dried by the third training session the following day.

Like Suzuka, this is the only opportunity for testing and tuning.

However, Sainz Jr. caused a major accident, and the damage to the race car was extremely terrible!
The organizers immediately displayed a red flag, ending the match.

Sainz was dragged off the track while lying on a board.

Even though it's not the right time, Wu Shi still felt that his luck had run out.

The car didn't perform as well as expected, even though he achieved the second-fastest time of the race.

Fortunately, Sainz was taken to the hospital and it was confirmed that he was not seriously injured.

A 46G G-value was perfectly handled by this young body.

There's not much to say about the qualifying session in the afternoon. If you can't even keep up with two Mercedes in practice, how can you expect to dominate in qualifying?

Rosberg clocked a time of 1 minute 37.113 seconds, which seemed quite impressive, but Hamilton surpassed him, taking pole position by a mere 0.02 seconds.

Wu Shi gave it his all and finished third with a time of 1 minute 37.412 seconds.

This time is 0.3 seconds slower than Mercedes, but 0.5 seconds faster than Vettel who is in fourth place!
Wu Shi has done his best!
Mercedes got their wish and secured a front-row starting position.

　I've been too busy lately and haven't been able to update much. I'll increase the frequency when I have a bit more free time!
　　
　
(End of this chapter)