F1: The Making of a Racing God

Chapter 130 Luck is a fleeting thing.
When Shu Long woke up on Saturday morning, he ran into Max at Motohome and asked him a question.

Then Verstappen said the report was pure bullshit, and told Shulong not to believe these idle guys on the internet, and then told him to do his best in today's match.

In fact, Shu Long also felt it was unlikely. At this point in time, among the teams with a chance to compete for the championship, Verstappen seemed to have nowhere else to go besides Red Bull.

The same applies to Shu Long. Among the teams that can compete for the championship, Red Bull is currently the best option for him.

Mercedes' primary task right now is definitely to retain Hamilton's seventh title. After achieving the seven titles, they might even try to achieve an unprecedented eighth title.

The person spreading the rumor is more likely to believe it if they're talking about Ferrari, but they actually said Max is considering transferring to Mercedes?

What should we do now?
Why would he give up being Red Bull's number one driver to become a wingman?
Let alone with Verstappen's personality, even Shu Long himself couldn't stand this situation, it's just that he doesn't have as many resources in the paddock as Verstappen does.

Some might think that Max wanted to take advantage of his youth and peak performance to win a championship for himself by riding the wave of Mercedes' success.

But as for this kind of thing, even if Verstappen himself is willing, Toto probably wouldn't want to sign him to the team right now.

As the team owner, Toto may publicly express his expectations for any talented driver in order to have a backup plan in case of emergencies, but for now he probably only hopes that the team can maintain a relatively stable state.

Verstappen is known as a troublemaker in the paddock. If he were recruited into the team, do you think he wouldn't go after Hamilton?
If this got out, even the dogs on the street would laugh.

Not everyone in this world is named Bottas. Mercedes is a team that is already a sure thing to win the championship, so they don't need to gamble like other teams.

Hamilton's seven championships are of great significance to him personally, the team, and even the Mercedes brand. Many things can take a backseat to this achievement.

Moreover, Mercedes' original contract to participate in F1 racing within the paddock was only until 2026, and it was uncertain whether it would be renewed. Considering things so far in the future was really unnecessary.

Even if it's really about the team's future development, Mercedes already had other alternative plans.

Russell, who was discovered by Toto, was a two-time F3 and F2 champion. Although his wins were not as impressive as Shu Long's, he was still a talented driver whose achievements were second only to Shu Long.

However, until Hamilton completely faded away or Bottas became ineffective, Russell basically had no choice but to drive a bad car for Williams. Not everyone has the same good luck as Leclerc, who was born at the right time.

While Max did eliminate obviously wrong answers, this still did nothing to help Shulong in his current situation.

In fact, if Verstappen really wants to move to Mercedes, it might be a good thing for the remaining drivers in the Red Bull system.

Apart from Kakuta, who is still racing in F3, Red Bull's junior academy, which has recently experienced a slight generational gap, currently has no outstanding drivers to speak of.

Even Daniil Kvyat, who is currently a substitute at Toro Rosso, has his father-in-law, an F1 world champion, working tirelessly to help him regain an F1 seat.

If Verstappen does choose to leave, then Red Bull will have their remaining four positions divided among four players, one for each.

Unfortunately, as mentioned earlier, such a thing may only exist in fantasy at present.

However, Verstappen's words cannot be taken at face value. Perhaps the old Verstappen is a bit stubborn and believes that Mercedes is a better place for Max's future development.

Therefore, before the start of the third training session, Shu Long made a special call to Marco to confirm, and the reply he received was that the old man had not expressed any concern about Max leaving the team recently.

However, the timing of these comments, especially coming from Red Bull's home stadium, is certainly intriguing. Even Old Man Ma himself was a bit baffled as to the situation.

Could it be that the Thai side felt the pressure from public opinion was too great by forcibly promoting Alben against Shulong, and now they're trying to manipulate things on Verstappen's side?
That's a bit abstract.

If it's true, Marco thinks that even though he and Horner have many disagreements, they will definitely reach a high degree of consensus on their opinions with Verstappen.

The reason why Red Bull Racing deserves so much investment is because they have Verstappen as a pillar supporting the team's performance. Who would be stupid enough to lay off the head chef when a restaurant is laying off staff?

Otherwise, with drivers of Gasly's caliber, Red Bull's current performance might not even be as good as Toro Rosso's. Not only would investors not be interested, but the drivers probably wouldn't want to move either.

In short, Marko's message was that there was no need to pay too much attention; the most important thing was for the driver to perform well.

Then came the third practice session, which had some twists and turns, but the final result was quite good.

The increased chassis height yesterday ultimately had a significant impact, as the lack of downforce caused him considerable discomfort in several high-speed corners from Turn 5 to Turn 8.

Fortunately, raising the chassis isn't entirely without its advantages. Corners that were originally highly utilized, such as those with the apex and the red and white kerb on the outer edge of the track before and after the corner, can now be driven a little more to their limits. Corners like Turn 1, Turn 3, and Turn 4 all fall into this category.

However, this only slightly compensates for the losses in the second and third time slots. Overall, the speed is not as good as the data that Shulong managed to achieve by overcoming a nose wing obstacle, but the ranking is much more pleasing than yesterday.

The same was true for the qualifying matches in the afternoon.

Shu Long first achieved a P8 time, but was then pushed down to P14 by Haas, Arro, and Ricciardo. Originally, Shu Long wanted to save a set of red tires to try for a better ranking later, so he quickly got a new set of tires and went out again to get back to P10 to ensure that he would not crash in Q1.

In Q2, Mercedes and Verstappen once again attempted to set the fastest lap of Q2 using yellow tires.

The yellow and white tires in the previous races have already benefited several teams. As the cars gradually adapt to this year's tires, the white tires, which are less prone to overheating and bubbling than in previous years, are slowly showing their advantage in the race.

However, Toro Rosso simply doesn't have the competitive advantage to copy other people's strategies in this game.

After a solid first red tire flight lap, Shulong was in P11, with Alben just 0.1 behind him.

This is also the closest Albon has ever come to Shulong's lap time in qualifying.

However, to be fair, apart from Williams, the gaps between teams and drivers were actually quite small at this race, with the difference between the next and next positions mostly around 0.1 or even less.

After all, the layout of the Red Bull Ring is really simple. It is said to have ten corners, but strictly speaking, it can only be counted as nine.

A layout like Turn 2 would be considered a fake turn at best on other tracks. The fake turn between Turns 9 and 10 at the previous Paul Ricard circuit was more like a real turn than Turn 2 at the Red Bull Ring.

In other words, there aren't many opportunities for drivers to differentiate themselves based on skill here. The downside is that car performance dominates the results here; powerful, high-performance cars, like these Ferrari models, have a greater advantage.

Mercedes' decision to use yellow tires for their lap times in Q2 is not because they are confident in their absolute speed.

On the contrary, they were dominated by Ferrari for almost the entire race, and now they are only trying to make a difference in the race by changing their strategy.

Of course, the minimalist track layout is not without its advantages. The Red Bull Ring race is often quite exciting and is considered one of the best tracks for overtaking throughout the year.

This could be an opportunity for Shulong, or it could be a trap.

It remains to be seen how much energy Toro Rosso will have left to attack other cars in this race, and it's even more uncertain whether they can hold onto their position.

So in the final stages of Q2, Toro's strategy team once again found themselves in a dilemma.

First, it's certain that Red Bull can't get into the Q3 with yellow tires. Another thing to be certain of is that Shulong is really close to getting into the Q3 right now.

But whether or not to flash this Q3 is another question.

The yellow and white car will definitely have an advantage in the race. If Toro Rosso wants to make the most of the car's decent performance data over long distances, its strategy will definitely be more geared towards the race.

In other words, if they choose to stay in Q2 as the "chicken head" to retain their starting tire choice for tomorrow's main race, it might actually be more worthwhile than forcing their way into Q3 as the "chicken tail" with red tires.

But Shu Long's goal for finishing the race at Red Bull's home stadium is not just to squeeze into the points zone. If he can't even get into Q3, how can he talk about striving for a better ranking?
Since the driver himself had said so, the crew had no choice but to grant Shu Long's wish and put a new red car on him before releasing him.

One fortunate thing is that quite a few drivers damaged their front wings yesterday, a total of nine people. Many teams have also made modifications to their car setups to avoid similar situations from occurring.

However, not everyone adapts to racing as smoothly as Shulong.

The pressure on drivers is even greater during qualifying, and the margin for error is also lower, which means that many drivers' performance in qualifying today was somewhat unworthy of the competitiveness of their cars.

Sainz is one, Grosjean is one, and even Ricardo, who is currently only ranked P14, is one.

Since switching teams, Ricciardo has shown a variety of difficulties adapting to the car, going from a long-time podium contender to someone who often struggles to keep up with his teammate Hulkenberg even when he's in the midfield.

This may be one of the reasons why Verstappen was warned not to make the decision to switch teams lightly.

Fortunately, thanks to the kindness of these people who made room for Shu Long, Shu Long was able to enter Q3 with a score of P9. However, this meant that only poor Gasley and Lando Norris were squeezed out.

Do you think our zero vehicle damage since the start of the race is a joke?

So far, we have never seen Shulong make even a single subjective mistake, which is unique in the current paddock. It is absolutely no exaggeration to call him the Emperor of Protecting the Chariot.

Fortunately, Shu Long made it into Q3 with great determination. Before the race even started, Hamelin told Shu Long that Vettel's car had broken down again at Ferrari, and it was very likely that he wouldn't be able to achieve any threatening results in Q3.

As expected, Vettel didn't even leave the pit lane during the entire Q3 race. Post-race inspection revealed that his air pressure line connecting to the engine was faulty, a problem that was unlikely to be resolved quickly.

In other words, Shu Long only needs to achieve a warm-up lap time to be guaranteed a P9 starting position tomorrow.

Of course, we should still try our best to achieve what we deserve.

Q3 of this station can be described as a battle of gods, and Shulong does not have any extra new reds available, so his first flight lap was actually completed using the old reds he had used before.

However, he moved up one place in the rankings again. The performance of this older rookie, Giovinazzi, was not very stable. His lap time in the lighter fuel condition was not as good as the fastest lap he set in Q2.

However, it is indeed inappropriate to be so harsh on a rookie with limited potential, because his teammate Kimi's subsequent performance was not as good as his Q2 result.

Shu Long admitted that he had indeed been a little hypocritical just now.

When he saw that Giovanni had messed up, he thought that guy was bad. When he saw that Old Laitou's performance was also not right, he suspected that there was something wrong with Aro's car.

But isn't this also an opportunity for Red Bull?
Finally, thanks to a perfect lap with the car in its lightest fuel setting, Shulong successfully overtook Aro's two cars with a time of 1:04.097, leaping up to P6.

Finally, I'm no longer that damned "Seventh Brother Long". Isn't "Sixth Brother" a better title?

This time was actually 0.041 seconds slower than the lap time set by Old Lay in Q2. Fortunately, Aro's car seemed to have some kind of malfunction, and both drivers lost a lot of speed in Q3 with a lighter throttle.

Right in front of Shulong, in P5, was the team whose title sponsor had already given them an ultimatum. Magnussen, who had completely burned out on the second lap of Q3, almost caused Ferrari's engine to explode in the Haas car.

However.
For Shulong, it might mean "luck always favors those who work hard," but for Magnussen, it means "the rope breaks at its thinnest point."

It seems Magnussen damaged the car too much in qualifying, causing a hidden fault in the gearbox that had to be replaced. As a result, he was penalized five places and will start from P10 tomorrow. Shulong will naturally benefit from this and be moved up to P5.

It wasn't over yet. Hamilton, who couldn't beat Leclerc and ended up in P2, was also penalized and retired from the game because he blocked Kimi's flight path during Q1.

They haven't even done anything yet, does this mean they're going to just sit back and win straight to P4 starting point tomorrow?
I want to eat fart!
No matter how incredibly lucky you are, you should learn to be content by the time you reach page 5.

The rules clearly state that the position vacated after Magnussen's penalty will not be filled in the decision-making process; Hamilton, who was penalized three places, will be placed in P5 first.

至此判定结束，P5的汉密尔顿向前顺位到P4，而原本该从P6递补至P5的束龙则还是在P5发车。

Regardless, having such a starting position at Red Bull's home ground is a perfect start for Shulong, who urgently needs to assess his performance in the workplace.

If their strategy goes smoothly tomorrow, and Shulong can gain a slight advantage at the start, given Toro Rosso's long-distance performance in the top five of the paddock, they might even be able to dream of a podium finish.

(End of this chapter)