F1: The Making of a Racing God

Chapter 163 Emergency Substitute

When Alonso first asked Shulong if he wanted to participate in endurance racing, he wasn't actually asking on behalf of Toyota, but rather on behalf of Renault, which had already adopted the Alpine name this year.

This sports brand, owned by Renault, will not only compete in F1 this year, but will also enter the highest class under the new WEC rules, namely LMH (Le Mans Hypercar), which was just changed from LMP1 (Le Mans Prototype 1) this year.

The original rules were too costly, causing manufacturers to withdraw one after another, leaving only Toyota as the dominant player. After the new rules are implemented, the budget may be reduced to about one-third of the original LMP1.

This move is also intended to attract more factory teams to join, and Alpine was one of the first teams to come back and try it out.

The budget for the new rules also shows that the LMH category is now slower than before.

The Alpine A480-Gibson used by Alpine this year is a modified Rebellion R13 LMP1. It is essentially a product of the faster LMP1 standard, but it is a compromise solution made due to Alpine's limited development time.

Although it will be weakened by the restrictions and adjustments of the BoP rules, Alonso believes that this car still has certain advantages, and Shulong might be able to win the championship if he drives it.

The main reason is that although Alonso successfully won the 24 Hours of Le Mans twice in 18 and 19, his cooperation with Toyota has not been deep since he did not renew his contract in 2020, and strictly speaking, his say is indeed limited.

Many teams had already officially announced their driver lineups last year, so it wasn't easy for Shulong to get in and replace someone to complete a race, especially since this race was the Le Mans 24 Hours endurance race, which was the most important race for all drivers.

But Alpine is different. Alonso is a veteran who has been with Renault through its most glorious years and has influence with many high-ranking officials. At least securing a position for Shu Long shouldn't be a problem.

However, Red Bull clearly has other plans, as their main influence still rests with Toyota.

The No. 8 car crew that Alonso used to drive for, apart from Japanese mainstay driver Kazuki Nakajima, Brenton Hartley and Sebastian Buemi are all currently sponsored by the Red Bull system.

Both of them happened to be the kind of players who were completely out of luck with Red Bull and were eliminated from Toro Rosso due to poor performance.

When there are direct interests at stake, some things become much easier to discuss.

Of course, Toyota also welcomes Shulong's participation. Almost 20% of their global market share is in China, so bringing Shulong in as a brand is definitely a win-win situation.

Moreover, Shu Long's ability in F1 is indeed evident to all. He is definitely one of the most competitive players in the paddock, so there is no need to worry about his skill level.

While we can't expect him to carry the team from the start, he should at least be able to hold his own and not drag the team down.

The F1 Super License is the highest level of racing license among all FIA motorsports events, and it can completely replace WEC events. It doesn't even require any additional assessments; basically, you just need to go through the motions and get the FIA ​​to certify it.

These are not major issues. Toyota readily registered Shulong as one of their drivers for this year. However, whether he can replace someone in this year's Le Mans and which team he joins are all subject to preconditions.

Most importantly, Shu Long needs to ensure that his condition has not been affected by the major accident, and that his physical recovery is sufficient to withstand high-intensity racing driving.

Moreover, he must demonstrate a sufficiently convincing performance in terms of adaptability to the race car and speed.

After all, whether it's Hartley or Buemi, although their results in F1 can only be considered complete failures, they are both world champions in the WEC, which is a different story. Their status is not as easy to grasp as it is in F1.

But no matter what, in the world of motorsports, besides the involvement of interests, the skill of the drivers is the only true currency.

The F1 season kicked off in Bahrain on March 28, while the WEC series did not officially start until the Spa 6 Hours in Belgium in early May. After the winter testing, Shulong gradually resumed his physical training.

Strangely enough, lying in bed for a long time did not seem to have much impact on his bodily functions, as if his state had been fixed by the system in some way.

And as time went on, his previous wounds seemed to heal well, with almost no overgrowth, leaving only a few pale pink flame-shaped marks on his neck, hands, wrists, and ankles.

To be honest, it seems pretty cool.

It might also be related to that "healthy and fit" status, since the staff of various teams in the paddock, including many drivers, have been infected with the virus. Norris and Leclerc, for example, have all been affected.

As a result, Shulong's nucleic acid test results have not shown any abnormalities even once.

Um.
Although he didn't drive in a car after the season started, Shu Long still appeared in the Red Bull pit lane in the paddock as a reserve driver for every race.

As for Albon, who, like Shu Long, was a Red Bull reserve driver, he was assigned to participate in the DTM German Touring Car Masters with Liam Lawson, a Red Bull junior driver.

It wasn't just because of the so-called commercial compensation contract last year, which Red Bull wanted to use to increase Shu Long's exposure; Shu Long's own strong personal desires also played a part.

The regulations will remain largely unchanged in 21. The introduction of 18-inch giant tires, which was originally planned for this year, has been postponed to next year. However, there are still some minor adjustments to the aerodynamic regulations.

However, the main focus is on reducing the downforce of this year's race cars.

As the final year of the aerodynamic racing regulations, most teams have explored the aerodynamic upgrades to their limits, resulting in an exaggerated level of downforce in recent years, to the point that sometimes even the tires struggle to withstand it.

Several bizarre tire blowouts last year, including Kimi's suspension failure at the Red Bull Ring and Shulong's loss of control in Bahrain, were very likely caused by this reason.

Therefore, this move is not specifically aimed at weakening any particular team, but rather seems to be a compromise made for the sake of the safety of the race.

In addition, teams can no longer arbitrarily choose their own tire compounds for each Grand Prix. Every race weekend, each team will be given two sets of hard tires, three sets of medium tires, and eight sets of soft tires. The time to notify teams of tire compounds in advance has also been shortened from 7 to 9 weeks to 2 weeks.

After a series of adjustments, the characteristics of this year's F1 cars on the track will inevitably be very different from last year. Shu Long hopes that he can be prepared at any time, rather than being notified at the last minute and then being completely clueless.

This was, of course, one of the psychological tactics Alonso taught him.

It is said that as long as Shu Long maintains a high level of exposure in the paddock and stays in the P room every day to make his presence felt, then Perez will be under a lot of pressure.

Then, in the opening race of the Bahrain Grand Prix, Perez failed to make it into Q3, finishing 1.7 seconds behind his teammate Verstappen on a single lap. With such a performance, he was not even enough to overtake Albon.

On the second day of the main event, although he eventually overtook P5, this seemed to be thanks to Red Bull's extremely strong competitiveness this season.

Verstappen won qualifying with a decisive 0.4-second advantage over Hamilton, and his performance in the long distance of the race was equally impressive.

Although Hamilton took the lead with a different tire strategy, Red Bull's long-distance ability this year clearly allowed them to stay close to Mercedes throughout the race, and even overtook Hamilton on the penultimate lap.

Unfortunately, this overtake was completed outside the track restrictions, and he had to return the position, allowing Hamilton to get off to a winning start.

How many years has this been in a row? This is probably the hardest Hamilton has ever had to secure their first win. Also, Gasly set a good P5 qualifying time in the opening race, although he was forced to retire from the race due to an accident. It's clear that Gasly has managed to keep Toro Rosso performing well this year despite the budget cap.
On the contrary, due to budget cuts, all the teams showed signs of discomfort, as if their hormonal balance was disrupted.

Only Haas is still as bad as ever!

Both cars were at the bottom of the qualifying table. Ma Zeping is just stupid, wicked, and utterly incompetent. He spun out of the race on the first lap. In his debut F1 career, he couldn't even make it past Turn 3. It feels like an unbreakable milestone.

The highly anticipated son of the racing champion didn't seem to be that impressive, finishing the race in P16, simply because four cars retired after him, making him virtually invisible throughout the race.

Magnussen didn't seem to get angry at all about losing his seat to these two people; he was just smiling all the time.

During the break, Shu Long chatted with his good teammate who had served time in jail with him last year behind the pit lane. He learned that the other man would also be going to endurance races in his spare time this year, and his teammate was his father, Jan Magnussen, who had briefly been an F1 driver.

The man had a shiny bald head and looked almost exactly like his son Kevin. In fact, because he was bald, the man actually looked younger than his son.
However, Magnussen and his team don't have the same level of resources as Shulong. Kevin and his father will ultimately represent the High Class Racing team in car number 49, competing in the LMP2 class, which is the next level below LMH.

According to information Shu Long heard from Zhou Guanyu, Ye Yifei seems to be preparing to give up Formula Series racing due to funding issues. This year, he will focus entirely on endurance racing and will represent Team WRT's No. 41 car in the LMP2 class as Kubica's teammate.

Zhou Guanyu's season went quite smoothly. Shu Long didn't have to participate in races and would give him private coaching every day. Then, in the season's opening race, Zhou Guanyu directly climbed to the top of the F2 podium.

During the winter break at the beginning of the year, he also took the time to participate in the Asian F3 race, where he easily fried fish. Now he has obtained all the points required for his super license, and if everything goes smoothly, the results for this year's F1 seats should be finalized.

This may also be Zhou Guanyu's last year of opportunity.

Ye Yifei chose to switch careers because he lacked the funds to continue pursuing his F1 dream, while Zhou Guanyu, although from a more affluent family, has invested unimaginable financial resources and energy in racing over the years.

As I get older, my hopes of entering F1 will only become slimmer. I don't know if there's any point in continuing to invest in it endlessly. It may be time to let go soon.

At such a crucial time, Shu Long naturally didn't mind giving his friend a little push.

The F1 season has officially gotten back on track. The Shanghai Grand Prix was postponed again due to control measures, and only two races were held in March and April.

Shulong has gradually entered a state of full-scale preparation for the race. Not only has he started to actually work on the development and testing of the Red Bull team, but he also occasionally goes to Toyota's Shizuoka R&D headquarters in Japan to start to adapt to and learn about the Hypercar prototype.

These are all top-level racing cars in their respective racing categories. The driving difficulty of a Hypercar is actually not low, and there are significant differences in performance between Michelin tires and Pirelli tires.

Moreover, due to its more complete airflow layout, the Hypercar actually has an advantage in straight-line performance compared to open-wheel racing cars like F1 cars. The biggest difference lies in cornering.

Not only is it far inferior to F1 in terms of downforce, but the more complex and redundant body structure also makes the race car more sensitive to changes in the center of gravity. Although the driving intensity is much lower than that of F1, the delicate control of the car's dynamics in corners is not less demanding than that of F1.

Especially in judging the braking point, the consequences of Hypercar missing the braking point are much harder to recover from than in F1. Moreover, the focus of endurance racing is to maintain focus for a long time, and in terms of difficulty, it is not lower than F1.

However, all of these difficulties were almost nothing to Shu Long. The lap times he achieved on the Toyota test track on the first day already fully met the standards of the champion team's main attacker.

Even in the face of extremely poor visibility night race tests and long-distance fatigue driving tests, the standards demonstrated by Shulong can only be described as superhuman and absolutely top-of-the-line. It would be more than enough to replace the team's mainstay.

There has always been heated debate about whether WEC or F1 drivers are better, but judging from the test results that Shulong has been secretly conducting recently, "dimensional reduction attack" may be the most appropriate description.

Red Bull and Toyota were initially worried that Shu Long might be traumatized by the accident and develop a fear of speed that would cause him to lose his motivation.

However, judging from Shu Long's performance in the tests, sometimes they actually wish this crazy guy who was holding back his energy could take it easy a little.

This puts pressure on the original team members, and whoever is the slowest will be the unlucky one who misses out on this year's Le Mans.

As the season progresses, the competitive landscape of WEC is becoming clearer. The No. 7 car remains the strongest performer in the single season, and its consecutive championships have essentially secured the overall WEC title this year.

So Toyota's eighth car this year is indeed the place for Shulong, which is also the car that Red Bull can currently manage the best. Only Hartley said he was very annoyed.

Does this name sound familiar?
He's the unfortunate guy who was forcibly replaced by Shu Long at the 18 Brazilian Grand Prix. Red Bull did keep its promise and brought Hartley back into the Toyota team. He not only filled the void left by Alonso but also won the 24 Hours of Le Mans last year.

I can't believe that even after coming all the way to WEC, that damned Shulong still hasn't let me go!

Of course, this is just a joke. Hartley was also an absolute star in the No. 8 crew, and his speed was even faster than that of Nakajima, the team's main attacker. He took on the No. 8 crew's qualifying duties many times.

Therefore, the person Shulong will replace this time is Sebastian Buemi, whose speed limit is relatively low in the current No. 8 crew.

Just as Shu Long was busy completing the final integration with the team before Le Mans, Horner suddenly called.

"Dragon? I only want to know one thing right now: are you ready to return to the paddock?"

"Of course! I'm always ready!"

The news came somewhat suddenly, so much so that when Shu Long heard Horner speak, he thought he was joking, because Perez's performance in the first half of the season was indeed not bad, and his adaptation speed to the car was obviously much faster than Albon and Gasly's.

But a message that followed quickly confirmed the information: Shu Long needed to hurry to the Hungaroring circuit in Hungary to change clothes and prepare for his first race of the season.

He is not replacing Perez, but rather preparing to substitute Verstappen, who suffered a 51G impact at Silverstone in the last match.

The impact of this attack was actually less than that of the one in Bahrain that struck Shulong.

However, at that time, the impact was borne by the front of the Shulong vehicle, and the monocoque also absorbed a lot of the impact force. With the assistance of the Hans system, the impact force distributed on the Shulong was actually relatively even.

In addition, given the long body description of Shulong, apart from the burns, there weren't many particularly noticeable aftereffects.

Max was more unlucky; the impact was entirely borne by the side of the car.

At the time, he didn't seem to be seriously injured, but the impact caused significant damage to his retina. If it doesn't recover, he may have to miss the next Grand Prix.

　I want to see Hulkenberg and Binotto fall in love! (With great enthusiasm!)

　　
　
(End of this chapter)