F1: The Making of a Racing God

Chapter 153 A Heavyweight New Beginning

2020 was a year full of disasters and hardships.

With the situation in Shulong basically settled, Alonso began to try to add new experience to his racing career.

Before the season ended, Tou Ge extended an invitation to Shu Long, asking if he wanted to go to the Dakar Rally to relax.

When people are not doing well in a certain endeavor, they are likely to lose their enthusiasm and confidence due to a series of setbacks, just like Alonso himself during those years of torment at McLaren.

First, Red Bull's promotion was thwarted, and next year there will be a heavyweight test from Haas. Alonso also wants to take this opportunity to let Shulong rediscover the joy of driving in other racing competitions.

Because Shu Long had absolutely no experience in similar racing competitions, and the Dakar Rally itself was quite dangerous, even if Shu Long wanted to go, Red Bull and Haas wouldn't allow it. Even if he wanted to participate, he could only helplessly decline.

When he returned home and started following the progress of the race, he saw the news a few days later that Alonso and his navigator Coma had crashed while crossing a sand dune in the tenth stage. Fortunately, they were unharmed.

Accidents are extremely dangerous on stages with such complex natural conditions. Just a few days ago, on the seventh stage, a Portuguese driver named Paulo died in a collision.

And this seems to be just the beginning of a scarlet prelude to 2020.

The suddenness of the lockdown following the confirmation of the new strain caused Shulong, which was originally scheduled to stay in China until after the Lunar New Year, to be urgently recalled by Haas to avoid affecting the new car launch on February 19 and the first round of winter testing due to force majeure.

Before leaving, I only briefly told my family that if needed, I could donate 500 million to 1000 million RMB in the name of the company, as a small contribution.

Last year, he earned a total of $635 million from Red Bull, including his base salary and points bonuses.

Including sponsorships from TikTok and other sources, the total annual income is approximately $9 million. Although the exchange rate fluctuates, it should be over 60 million RMB.

The profits from just one year were roughly equal to the revenue of the family business over many years.

This income certainly cannot be entirely considered personal income, otherwise cutting nearly half of it in taxes would be extremely painful.

However, these are basically handled by his mother and the tax optimization consultant team behind her, which can save about 50 million RMB in revenue. Shu Long, who is usually a bit stingy with money, did not hesitate much this time and prepared to donate one-fifth of it.

When it comes to matters of principle, no one in the family objects; on the contrary, they even manage to make Grandpa Shu happy.

This is already the limit of what Shulong can control in a short period of time. The rest of the money will only go to waste if left unused, so he will definitely invest some of it in financial management.

However, Shulong didn't want the profit sharing from Film Hurricane. The studio's annual revenue was less than two million, so the small amount wouldn't be of much use to him. He simply left it in their account as reserve funds for their operations.

It's just a bit of a shame that, once again, due to unforeseen circumstances, the whole family couldn't get together for the Lunar New Year.

Since becoming a race car driver, my income has increased, but my time is mostly out of my control, and I spend very little time with my family.

Thinking back to his conversation with Magnussen and Grossman's wife Marion before the Lunar New Year, Shu Long realized that he was finding it difficult to balance work and life.

The solution is simple: either bring the whole family to live abroad, or simply return to China when there are no competitions.

Even among all the drivers in the paddock, there aren't many who work overtime as diligently as him; most of them still take their holidays when they should.

The small team had no choice but to work harder in order to improve their results.

However, for most drivers who have already established their reputation, their only obligation is to push the car built by the team to its limits. Whether or not a satisfactory car can be built is the team's responsibility.

With bright hopes for the future in mind, Shulong threw himself back onto the sofa in Faenza Cottage, intending to rest for a while and then go to the nearby supermarket to buy a fast food meal.

I took out my phone to check the latest developments in the paddock, and the first headline that caught my eye was Kobe's plane crash.

Shu Long's first reaction was that this was probably a clickbait news story, but after clicking in and reading it from beginning to end, he realized that it seemed to be true.
He played basketball with his classmates when he was in school, and sometimes when he was free in the paddock, he would get together with a few people to shoot a few hoops for fun. However, he didn't have much time to follow the NBA and basically didn't watch football.

But even those who don't watch the NBA know how significant the name Kobe is.

It's not always superstition, but with these unsettling events happening one after another, Shu Long always felt that it was some kind of ominous sign about his competition this year.

On February 19th, the first round of winter testing began at the Circuit de Catalunya, and Shu Long's earlier intuitions were indeed initially validated.

A week before the winter test, Shu Long also went to Haas's factory, learned about some parameters, and then ran the simulator.

Haas's original simulator wasn't very useful for reference, but after a winter break, Ferrari fulfilled their promise from last year and sent people from Ferrari to adjust the team's new simulator.

At that time, I didn't feel that the problems with the racing car were that serious, because with the major rule changes approaching in 21, the Haas on the simulator was actually not much different from last year.

However, unless you actually get on the track and compete with other teams, you sometimes can't see how serious the problem is.

Because McLaren is fast, Match Point is fast, and Mercedes is ridiculously fast!
In comparison, Ferrari's problems are particularly serious: it lacks both speed and stability.

Now Shulong understands why they kept their promises so well. So you yourselves are also facing problems and want to find free outsourcing, right?

The prevailing opinion seems to be that Ferrari is hiding its strength again, just like last season. However, based on my actual experience driving on the track and my observations of the Ferrari cars I occasionally encountered, I can see that...

Ferrari may have hidden a little, but definitely not much.

With Haas also holding back, Ferrari's lap time was almost on par with Haas'.
Ferrari is slow, the new engines Ferrari provides are slow, and even Arro and Haas are incredibly slow!

It is gratifying that Steiner listened to Shu Long's advice and carried out a limited expansion and reorganization of the team, which greatly alleviated the difficulty in adapting to the new tire regulations.

Although Magnussen still reported similar issues, Shulong was able to largely ignore these minor flaws by making minor adjustments to the driving details during the ride.

The reason for the limited expansion is mainly because team owner Gene Haas is assessing the possibility of staying in F1. If borrowing the dragon still cannot improve the team's current situation, he will consider retiring from F1 after 2020.

The current situation for Haas is that his performance is poor and he can't get sponsorships. Gene Haas, who was already reluctant to invest more, naturally couldn't agree to Steiner's sweeping reforms at this time.

Douyin's contract with Little Red Bull has five games left to expire, and it's uncertain whether it will be renewed or not. Moreover, it's also a question whether they will choose to follow Shulong.

So when Shu Long heard the news from the "English teacher," he was speechless and had no other choice but to mutter "stingy guy" behind her back.

The tire issue is essentially resolved, but Haas' VF-20 this year has a significant problem with handling consistency.

Shulong's main feeling right now is that the car's center of gravity seems to gradually shift backward as the laps progress, and the tuning scheme that was finally determined will lose a lot of grip.

Shu Long has already conveyed his specific experience to Haas's team. His current race engineer, Gary Gannon, initially analyzed that it was caused by the rear suspension overheating and softening, but the specific reason for the overheating could not be determined in the short term.

Another thing to be thankful for is that the performance of the Toro Rosso AT01, which was improved from last year's version of the race car, does not seem to be as good as expected.

Shulong himself wasn't entirely clear on the specifics.

Because of Red Bull's mess, Shu Long was still involved in Toro Rosso's mid-season development in the second half of the season, but he didn't get much involved in the development of the car for the following year. At that time, Gasly and Kvyat were mainly following up on this matter.

Now, it's not just Kvyat who has regained control of the steering wheel; even Gasly's fastest lap isn't entirely satisfactory.

Although he felt a little sorry for his former teammates, to be honest, Shu Long was slightly relieved. There have been enough dark horses emerging this year; if even Toro Rosso takes off, he might have a hard time even making it into the points zone this year.

This is not the case last year when Toro Rosso could make up for their poor lap times in the race. Haas's current problem with overheating rear suspension not only affects qualifying lap times, but it has the biggest impact on maintaining lap times over long distances.

In the second round of winter testing, Haas still couldn't find a solution to the rear suspension problem.

Unable to rely on others, Shu Long could only become a workhorse on the track, trying to use the sensitivity of the "Tai Chi" entry to the balance and center of gravity of the race car, and to build a driving strategy that would minimize the impact of lap time by doing a lot of laps.

This was much more difficult than imagined. The entire second-wheeler, Shulong, worked nearly 380 laps to rebuild a driving habit that was completely different from any other type of race he had ever participated in.

From the selection of the route to the judgment of the braking point and braking force, the throttle range, engine gear, speed, and torque selection, everything has been completely overhauled.

The rest of the testing time was given to Magnussen, and we could share some experiences with him.

Magnussen ran just as many laps as Shulong in the second round of testing, but even with extra help from others, he only made a tiny, negligible improvement by the end of the second round.

It's not that these operations are complicated. As one of the world's top driving experts, Magnussen could understand what Shu Long was talking about just by looking at the data.

However, his more than 20 years of racing experience have etched a very solid set of driving knowledge into his genes. It often becomes part of the driver's instinctive judgment during driving, and it is not something that can be reversed in a short period of time.

Even though Shu Long had clearly told him how to brake at each bend and how to brake after exiting the bend.

But when it comes to the actual performance, Magnussen's body will still stubbornly follow his subconscious response. He may have finally overcome his instincts on one corner, but then he will completely revert to his instincts on the next.

There's really nothing we can do.

This also shows how important the term "photographic memory" is to Shu Long. It can not only be used to memorize tracks, but also, when combined with other terms, it is much cheaper for him to learn and adapt to racing cars than for other drivers.

Shulong made considerable progress, which made him less hopeless about the new season's matches. But then, someone came up and added fuel to the fire.

Just ten minutes before the end of the second round of winter testing, the FIA ​​released its final findings on Ferrari's power unit.

There was no indication that Ferrari's engine actually had a problem, nor were the final investigation results made public; it was only said that a confidential agreement had been reached with Ferrari.

This operation was very confusing and completely crushed Shulong's last hope.

Although nothing was said in the end, it essentially confirmed the conclusion that Ferrari's engine was problematic.

Such an answer was certainly not satisfactory to the other teams.

So, under Horner and Toto's leadership once again, the other seven teams in the paddock that did not use Ferrari engines formed an anti-Ferrari alliance and issued a joint statement to the FIA, demanding that the FIA ​​clarify the truth of the matter.

Regardless of their motives, Horner and Toto, who were working hard to trip each other up last year, are now on a remarkably united front. It seems they won't stop until they completely cripple Ferrari.

Under pressure, the FIA ​​could only offer a vague explanation: they were indeed very dissatisfied with some of the monitoring data provided by Ferrari's engine, but they also couldn't find any concrete evidence that Ferrari's engine had cheated.

In the end, the matter could only be left unresolved.

Poor Shulong has been craving Ferrari engines for so long, but now he can only drive a stripped-down version without even experiencing it. What kind of situation is this?

It faces internal troubles and external threats.

Shu Long, who had been in a state of constant anxiety, only remembered to discuss the feasibility of Mercedes' DAS with the team after the entire winter test was completely over.

After several years of winning the Constructors' and Drivers' Championships, it was thought that Mercedes would hold back a bit before the major rule changes, so that the team could build up some strength for the new rules next year.

Mercedes truly went all out to ensure Hamilton's seventh championship. Despite being threatened by Ferrari engines all year last year, they still managed to bring out what is possibly the most monstrous alien technology in F1 history this year – the W11.

DAS stands for Dual Axis Steering System.

It was a super black technology that was precisely positioned in the gray area of ​​F1 technical regulations, but because it greatly improved the performance of the cars, to the point that it would affect the normal ecology of the paddock, it was the first technology to be introduced and was subsequently banned by the FIA ​​in the 2021 season.

As the name suggests, this is a technique that allows drivers to adjust the front wheel camber during a race through their own actions.

Front wheel toe-in is the angle between the vehicle's forward direction and the plane of the front wheels; that is, when viewed from directly above, the front wheels appear to be either turned inward or outward.

In theory, on a straight road, the tires are pointing straight ahead, which means the car can get the best grip when the toe angle is 0.

Adding toe angle creates an additional angle between the tire and the direction of travel, which increases friction, affecting acceleration on straightaways while increasing stability during braking and cornering.

To ensure stability in corners, F1 cars usually sacrifice some performance on straightaways, and the front wheels are generally splayed outwards.

Mercedes' DAS (Direct Adaptive Steering) adjusts the front wheel toe angle by pushing or pulling the steering wheel, balancing the advantages and disadvantages of toe angle on straightaways and curves.

In other words, they don't need to compromise on the car's tuning to the extent of considering the car's performance in corners. Basically, there will be no understeer or instability in corners in any type of corner. At the same time, they can unleash the full potential of the Mercedes-AMG M11 power unit on straightaways.

Abnormal?

The winter testing has just ended, and the champion this year is basically a foregone conclusion.

For now, Shulong can only daydream a little, hoping that Haas can figure out this technology mid-season and then put it on his own race car.

The answer is obviously no!
The principle behind this device isn't actually that complicated. The challenge lies in designing an operating system that can operate smoothly under high-intensity driving conditions while ensuring suspension strength.

Haas currently lacks both sufficient R&D personnel and adequate R&D funding.

Even Red Bull and Ferrari might not be able to implement this system in their cars before next year, so Haas can forget about it.
Fine.

Last year, Hamilton was always the one lapping others, even in Monaco, where he was most likely to be lapped, he never managed to get a touch on the back of the car. This year, he doesn't even dare to imagine how many times he will be lapped by Mercedes.

With a slightly apprehensive feeling, I returned to Australia to prepare for the opening match.

With the country almost completely under lockdown, Shu Long naturally couldn't see his family and friends in the paddock. Shortly after he landed, news spread from the paddock that three McLaren crew members had tested positive for COVID-19.

Following this, two engineers from the Haas team were also taken into quarantine for testing after showing signs of suspected contact with the virus.

This caused widespread panic, and the start time of the competition was repeatedly postponed.

After a difficult decision, and out of concern for the health and safety of paddock staff and drivers, the Australian Grand Prix was ultimately cancelled.

Subsequently, China, Bahrain, the Netherlands, Spain, Monaco, and the Vietnam Grand Prix, which was included in the calendar for the first time this year, all decided to postpone their events.

The 2020 season, which got off to a bad start, is already showing signs of being over.

(End of this chapter)