F1: Absolute Car Feel

Chapter 271 He's playing me.
With the pre-race preparations, including the drivers' parade, completed, it was 1 p.m.

The Mexican Grand Prix warm-up period has officially begun.

The weather is very nice today, with a temperature of 22℃, which feels very comfortable.

A surface temperature of 56°C is also a tire-friendly temperature.

The probability of rain is only 10%, which is quite small, meaning there is a high probability that nothing unexpected will happen.

F1 cars roared through the stadium area with their engines blaring.

Even though the engine sound isn't as good as it used to be, the experience is still extraordinary once you're there.

Fans cheered loudly, expressing their excitement in a language unfamiliar to most drivers.

The sounds were so loud that even the riders, who were wearing helmets, could hear them.

Wu Shi glanced at the sound slightly, but quickly focused his attention back on the race car.

He was going to start third and was thinking about how to proceed when the race started.

For him, this game is the easiest of the next three.

Because whether you get second or third place today, you've already accomplished your mission.

He remains confident in securing his position on the podium.

The second place is still a bit uncertain, but if we don't get second place, then the pressure in the next two games will be much greater.

Fortunately, the team came up with other strategies during the recent discussions, but it remains to be seen whether they will be effective.

He looked ahead and saw Rosberg and Hamilton following very closely, showing no intention of slowing down.

This would certainly be good for Hamilton, but it is not in his best interest.

So he became the driver who held down the car.

But as soon as he started to slow down, Rosberg immediately slowed down and also started to slow down, which would cool down all the drivers' tires.

"They're working together really well now."

Wu Shi said to Jonathan in TR.

“Yes, he wants your tires to cool down too,” Jonathan replied.

Knowing Mercedes's idea, Wu Shi stopped holding back and stepped on the gas to follow.

Sure enough, Rosberg immediately rushed to the front and stopped in the front row.

Wu Shi was seated in the second row, and neither of the two drivers' cars were facing the other, which seemed to indicate that they would not continue competing.

Shortly after, Vettel took his place beside him.

The two Red Bull drivers also took their positions.

With the Mercedes safety car pressing down on Button, who was in last place, as they entered the main straight, all the drivers were in position.

Race operators waved green flags as they ran past from behind along the entire track.

The first red light then lit up, followed by others.

Wu Shi squinted, focusing all his attention on the lamp.

Swish!
The red light suddenly went out, and he instantly released the clutch. The gears engaged, propelling the vehicle forward.

His starting speed this time was within the normal range.

Vettel and he started around the same time.

However, Kvyat and Ricardo, who were behind them, were surprisingly fast.

Wu Shi remained unaffected on his left-hand line.

His gear shifting and acceleration were incredibly smooth, almost reaching the limits of what a race car can achieve.

Therefore, unless there is a major mistake at the start, it is very difficult for the car behind to overtake.

Vettel, on the other hand, was in a different starting grid than Wu Shi, and was targeted first by the Red Bull duo.

He had to look left and right for defensive options to avoid being attacked from behind.

Just as Wu Shi was running smoothly, he discovered that Mei Ben and the other two ahead of him had encountered a problem.

He had assumed that Rosberg was now acting as the number 2 driver, assisting Hamilton.

As a result, Rosberg got off to a very fast start, and the surging No. 6 Mercedes pulled alongside No. 44 Mercedes in the middle of the straight.

Before Turn 1, Rosberg, who started from the inside, took the center line and entered the corner first.

This time, the two started fighting again, and it was Rosberg, who is always bad at starting, who dealt a heavy blow to his teammate.

Wu Shi was overjoyed. When he drove over the curb at bends 1 and 2, the car lifted up slightly, just like his mood.

From his vantage point, he even saw Hamilton's rear end slip as he entered the corner.

Unfortunately, it was just a very small slip, and there was no loss.

Susu!

The three cars immediately widened the gap and formed a small platoon.

After Rosberg moved up to first place, his crew in the Mercedes pit area were naturally very happy, but dared not celebrate loudly.

The eerie atmosphere made the director unsure whether to show the camera on them.

“Lewis is ahead of you now, follow him,” Jonathan said in TR.

After listening to this, Wu Shi pondered it and understood what Jonathan meant.

Hamilton will gain 7 more points regardless of whether he wins the championship, but if he doesn't win, the points he can catch up with will be much less.

So his primary task now is to prevent Hamilton from competing with Rosberg, and ideally, to wear out Hamilton's tires as much as possible.

This is quite simple; for Hamilton, every move he makes now will inevitably attract the highest level of attention from the other party.

Simply showing a strong offensive desire and even the slightest possibility is enough to make Hamilton wear down his tires to defend.

This is another psychological battle between the two players as the competition has progressed.

Wu Shi stared intently at the rear of Hamilton's car, his blood boiling with excitement.

laugh!
Before Turn 12, he feigned an attack on Hamilton, which immediately drew Hamilton's defensive move.

Jonathan's lips twitched slightly when he saw this, knowing that the kid understood what he meant.

Hamilton, who was in the thick of it, may not have realized the problem immediately, but with so many eyes watching at Mercedes, someone immediately pointed out Williams' "fatigue" strategy.

Bono then advised, "Be careful not to overreact; your goal is to get back in the lead."

Hamilton, who had long since grown from a young man into a seasoned veteran of the paddock, immediately understood what he meant upon hearing this.

Therefore, he maintained relative restraint during the subsequent series of curves.

Swish!
At the end of the first lap, Rosberg led Hamilton by 0.6 seconds, Wu Shi by 1.3 seconds, Kvyat by 1.7 seconds, and Ricciardo by 3.4 seconds.

As for tilting his head?

His right rear tire was knocked down by Ricciardo. Ricciardo was unharmed, but his tire blew out, forcing him to pit for a tire change.

This completely disrupted all his plans.

When the second lap arrived, the gap on the track became even more obvious.

Rosberg was more than a second ahead of Hamilton.

Wu Shi, on the other hand, was closely following Hamilton, waiting for the DRS to be activated.

However, on the third lap, Hamilton's speed suddenly improved, reaching 1 minute 24.889 seconds.

“Lewis has adjusted the engine mode,” Jonathan said in TR.

"Do we need to do that too?" Wu Shi asked.

“No, as long as Rosberg is in front, his actions are useless. You need to get back into his one-second zone as soon as possible,” Jonathan replied.

Wu Shi turned the corner and looked at Hamilton's car from behind.

Williams is no longer struggling to keep up with Mercedes as it did at the beginning of the season. The large investment in research and development and continuous optimization have made the car competitive in certain situations.

The FW37's excellent mechanical grip allowed Wu Shi to follow the car as closely as possible, but at the cost of tire wear.

'Threatening Hamilton.'

He gritted his teeth and focused all his energy on driving.

Swish!
On the fourth lap, Wu Shi set the fastest lap of the entire event, with a time of 1 minute 24.313 seconds, immediately entering Hamilton's 1-second zone.

With the activation of DRS, Wu Shi will be able to attack Hamilton at will on this track with two DRS zones.

"Now it remains to be seen how Mercedes will address this issue."

"We've always placed Hamilton in the champion's position because he has everything needed to win a race. "But we've overlooked the fact that Williams may not have the ability to win, but could potentially prevent Hamilton from winning."

"If Hamilton can't win the championship, Wu Shi will naturally not have to achieve the difficult goal of reaching the podium."

The soldier gave a long speech to describe the current situation on the field.

Fei Ge immediately retorted, "Then why doesn't Rosberg just give up his position?"

"Impossible! They are sworn enemies, this is absolutely impossible." The soldier said firmly.

Meanwhile, on the track, Wu Shi had just experienced the super acceleration buff of DRS + slipstream on the starting straight, and his speed directly broke through 360kph!

Hamilton only needed to turn his head to see that white race car that looked like a torpedo into Turn 1.

Although he knew it would be difficult for Wu Shi to surpass him so directly, he still had to move into the inner line at Turn 1, using the car as a blocking weapon.

Otherwise, Wu Shi might have actually come close to launching an attack.

He knew Wu Shi's speed was extraordinary, but faced with such an attack, he had no way to escape immediately.

“Are we going to continue like this?” Hamilton asked in TR.

“Of course not, we’re in communication, Lewis,” Bono’s voice came back.

In reality, Wu Shi couldn't hold on for long. Although this set of tires was used less in the Q2, it couldn't withstand his haphazard approach.

Looking at the various telemetry data, Jonathan knew that Wu Shi's tires were now severely worn.

But he could only remain calm; as long as he didn't speak, Mercedes had to assume that Wu Shi was simply attacking Lewis.

Only in this way can we find a way to keep Hamilton in second place.

Even if Wu Shi finishes in 4th place, he will only be 6 points behind 2nd place.

This is far more worthwhile than Hamilton winning the championship.

zizi~
"Nico, you need to get Lewis over there." That line appeared again in Mercedes TR.

“What if we let Wu Shi go?” Rosberg immediately countered.

"."

"Haha, I told you, how could he possibly let him win? Look how Hamilton treated him on the track before!" the soldier laughed.

“But Rosberg does have a point. What if he lets Che Wushi go with him?” Fei asked.

"Hmm, that's a problem," the soldier nodded, smiling.

“No, I’m overthinking it. Even if Wu Shi goes there, Hamilton can still get more points, and he can make Rosberg attack Wu Shi at all costs,” Fei Ge said.

"That's right!" The soldier punched his palm.

The two then realized a problem: if they could consider this factor, what about Mercedes-Benz?

"Oh! So Rosberg was just pretending to know what he didn't!" the soldier laughed.

However, Jonathan then suddenly spoke up and told Wu Shi:
"We need to save on tires."

Wu Shi immediately slowed down his lap time to conserve his tires so he could complete his first stint normally.

"What does this mean?" The soldier was stunned again.

Fei Ge also fell into deep thought.

Actually, it's quite simple: Wu Shi couldn't complete the first stint he was supposed to finish by maintaining a high lap time.

All they had done before was wear down Hamilton, preventing him from threatening Rosberg's position.

Westbrook's strategy is simple, and the core is to understand one thing: to catch up by 25 points in three games, Hamilton must win all three to be on the safe side.

If Hamilton fails to win even one race, Wu Shi's advantage will become enormous.

Now it's up to Rosberg to make a decision. If he backs down, there's nothing more to say.

If they don't allow it, then Wu Shi will have one foot in the hall of WDC.

Unfortunately, this didn't last long, as Rosberg was getting Hamilton to catch up with him.

Jonathan was somewhat disappointed.

However, after putting Hamilton into his DRS zone, Rosberg started to accelerate again.

Just three laps later, Rosberg once again pushed Hamilton out of the 1-second zone.

"He's playing me," Hamilton said directly in TR.

"Hahahahaha!"

The old man's words made the commentators burst into laughter; his words were utterly ridiculous.

"Didn't Lewis say before that he would win on his own? Now Rosberg has shown him that he needs the help of his teammates."

David talked about the two Mercedes drivers while glancing at Wu Shi's lap time.

Wu Shi is now trailing the two players in front of him by 0.2 seconds almost every lap, which is an extremely consistent way of being pulled away.

He then explained: "Judging from Wu Shi's current situation, his previous relentless pursuit of Lewis must have been for other reasons."

"Perhaps he just wanted Rosberg to not hand over the position to Lewis on the track, so that Lewis wouldn't be able to catch up with Rosberg on worse tires."

"If Lewis only got 2nd place, and Wu Shi got 3rd place."

"Then this station will only narrow the gap by three points, which means that Wu Shi only needs to win third place in the next two games to win the world championship."

"This is not an impossible task for Wu Shi."

David didn't finish his last sentence; third place wasn't an impossible feat for Wu Shi.

However, achieving two second-place finishes and one third-place finish is a difficult task.

With the championship race so close this year, is it possible that only Williams hasn't given up on research and development?

No, Mercedes is also making improvements.

Perhaps tired of the chase, Hamilton slowed down.

He knew in his heart that the team would help Rosberg when he didn't want to give up his position on the track.

However, something that would upset him immediately came along, and Rosberg slowed down.

"Did Lewis get DRS?" Rosberg asked in TR.

“Yes, but Nico, we’re not just giving you DRS to Lewis, we’re also giving you a position. This is the team’s decision, and you should follow it,” Mercedes said in the TR.

“Yes, I’m carrying it out, but shouldn’t we let him catch up first?” Rosberg continued.

"I feel like Rosberg is getting revenge," the soldier remarked.

“He does indeed harbor deep resentment towards Hamilton,” Fei Ge nodded.

Hamilton really doesn't treat Rosberg like a human being this year; when he's on offense, he's completely focused on getting past them.

Rosberg's repeated concessions only emboldened Hamilton to take advantage of him further.

So it's no wonder their relationship could improve.

Rodrigo observed the situation on the field; as a member of the strategy team stationed on-site, he needed to have a sharper intuition.

Although everyone was laughing at Rosberg for teasing Hamilton, he knew that Hamilton would most likely return to first place in this race.

Anyone who has managed a racing team knows that drivers don't always have an absolute amount of say.

Even if Rosberg enjoys majority support within Mercedes due to his nationality, those at the dinner table are more concerned with their own interests.

Or rather, recruiting domestic drivers is itself for some kind of benefit.

If Rosberg dares to sabotage Mercedes' plans to win both the team and driver championships, he won't last long.

Rosberg would also understand that the consequences of completely disobeying the team's orders were something he couldn't afford.

Whether it's from the perspective of contracts, team management, or public opinion.

Rodrigo's idea quickly became a reality, and after toying with Hamilton twice, Rosberg actually gave up his position.

He gripped his earphones, his mind replaying the various plans discussed in the strategy team's internal meeting.

After a long silence, he said to Jonathan:

"We will implement Plan C."

After a long pause, Jonathan asked:

"This method has been calculated, and once the gap widens, there's no way to overcome it, not even for Wu Shi."

"After all, we still have to give it a try, don't we?"

(End of this chapter)