F1: The Making of a Racing God

Chapter 175 This is a one-sided argument between the two directors.

No one expected that the casual remark Shu Long made on TR yesterday would actually come true.

The second day at Spa was still raining heavily. During the drivers' parade, almost everyone was unable to hold their umbrellas properly, and Ocon's umbrella was even blown off on the spot.

Even after the race started at the scheduled time, the rain only subsided slightly near the starting straight. The rain in the second stage was still so heavy that it could be seen that the wind patterns were visible.

Given these conditions, coupled with Norris's experience yesterday, it is clear that there are currently no conditions that can support the start of the tournament.

The race is different from qualifying. In qualifying, you can wait for a clean push window, and drivers who haven't set lap times will give way based on the signals.

But in the main race, no one will obediently give way to another car. The turbulent flow of dirty air combined with the dense spray of water kicked up by the car in front makes it obvious how dangerous such a situation would be.

Shu Long himself probably doesn't care. After all, as the driver who finally won pole position yesterday, he can completely ignore the so-called dirty air when starting from the front row. But it might not be the same for the drivers starting from the back row.

Having spent a year at Haas last year, he can empathize with the situation quite a bit.

At first, they said it would be postponed for ten minutes, then ten minutes later they said it would be postponed for 15 minutes, and then they said it would be postponed for 25 minutes.

Shu Long lay there in the race car for almost half an hour, even closing his eyes and dozing off for a while. When he woke up, he felt an itch on his back and asked the team if the race was still going to start.

The answer is open.

To be honest, it was quite comfortable to sleep in the warm cockpit on such a drizzly day. Every now and then, a pleasant, damp breeze would carry a few cool raindrops and brush against my cheeks below the goggles, creating a rather indescribable feeling of comfort.

It seems like the atmosphere was similar when I first encountered go-karting in Haigeng.
"This weather is perfect for a barbecue! I'm already craving juicy sausages. Anyone want to sign up for a barbecue after the competition?"

"Me. But focus, I'm about to try to restart the game."

"Why are we talking about this? Oh my god, I'm so hungry right now."

The signal for the race to restart was quite clear. Just now, to prevent the car from overheating, the team had put up a rain shelter, but that shelter was removed five minutes ago.

Sometimes, you can get a glimpse into a team's financial situation just by looking at this scene. Elite teams like Red Bull, Mercedes, and Ferrari have the luxury of having a rain shelter, while Haas, where Shu Long drove last year, only had a few engineers standing by to hold umbrellas for the driver and the car.

At 15:25 in the afternoon, all cars attempted to warm up their tires and form laps under the guidance of the safety car. Based on this setup, even if the race restarts, it will most likely require a dynamic start.

However, after two laps, apart from Shu Long, who was in first place with only one safety car ahead of him, and Verstappen, who was eager to catch up with Hamilton's points, almost everyone else was saying that the current track conditions were simply unplayable, and they couldn't see anything ahead.

However, the safety of all drivers could not be ignored for the sake of one or two drivers, so the race organizers decisively raised the red flag.

However, this wait lasted for nearly three hours.

The previous lap was the time when the race organizers could observe the least amount of rain. At that point, the rain showed no signs of letting up, and Shu Long even had difficulty seeing the fans in the opposite grandstand from the pit pit.

During this time, in order to appease the audience who were still soaked in the rain, Shu Long had to go out and perform three times at the request of the team. He waved awkwardly, which caused cheers. But what the fans came to see was not this kind of boring thing. What they wanted to see was the race.

It was 17:00 PM.

The organizers announced that, due to force majeure, they have suspended the countdown to the forced termination of the competition.

Under this year's rules, the total duration of the main competition cannot exceed three hours. This means that if there is still a chance to restart the competition before it is completely canceled at night, then Shu Long and his team will have about one hour of main competition time.

At 18:17 in the afternoon, the competition was finally restarted again following the organizer's notification.

However, the current waterlogging on the track is even worse than it was three hours ago, and with the approaching dusk and the dimming light, visibility on the track is even worse than before.

However, even Verstappen, who was less than 15 meters behind Shulong, was reporting to the team that he couldn't even see the taillights of Shulong's car.

It's clear that the organizers really want to get the race back on track. The safety car has been driving all the cars in circles, trying to see if they can use the F1 rain tires' ability to drain water and improve the track conditions.

But now it's not a question of whether the water can be drained or not. The severe flooding has made it impossible for the safety car to accelerate. Without enough kinetic energy to heat the braking system, Shulong is now feeling that his brakes are not working properly.

With 50 minutes remaining until the final time limit, another red flag was displayed out of desperation, which essentially confirmed that the match would be completely terminated.

According to the rules, the rankings for this match will be determined based on the current order. Shu Long directly won the Belgian Grand Prix, but everyone else will only receive half the points.

Hamilton, who had been feeling immense pressure because of Shu Long's arrival, finally breathed a sigh of relief.

If the match had proceeded at the normal pace, the gap between P2 and P4 would have meant that Verstappen would have directly closed the gap to 6 points. Now, with the points split in half, he has only managed to recover 3 points.

It seems that having Shu Long on the field might not be entirely a bad thing. If the two Red Bull players are locked in a fierce battle, then his chances of winning his eighth championship this year are still very high.

But this is only the beginning.
After the summer break, there are three consecutive back-to-back match weeks from Belgium to Monza, Italy. This means that four days later, Hamilton will face the pressure of playing two players in the front row starting with Friday's practice match.

The main competition day in Belgium on Sunday and the media day in the Netherlands on Thursday were only a few days apart, but a series of earthquake-like changes occurred in the paddock.

Firstly, a reporter from Alfa Romeo revealed some information, saying that Kimi might officially announce his retirement for next season at the Italian Grand Prix.

Along with this information, rumors also emerged that Bottas may have reached a multi-year contract with Alfa Romeo.

uh-huh!

Although Mercedes is currently keeping both Bottas and Russell in suspense, it's clear to everyone that once the championship race stabilizes this year, Bottas will inevitably be the one to be dropped.

So this legendary wingman of the paddock, following Barrichello, decided not to sit idly by and wait for his fate. Between being fired from the team and leaving on his own, he chose to leave with dignity.

Meanwhile, having obtained accurate information about Mercedes' seating arrangements, Perez officially began his series of actions. He attempted to contact Mercedes to see if they were willing to take him on, while simultaneously negotiating with Williams regarding next year's seating arrangement.
However, this news may not be so friendly to Hamilton.

Without the pressure of a seat next season, and with a long-term contract with a retirement team, it's clear that Bottas can hardly be expected to retain any fighting spirit to prove himself in the next 10 Grand Prix races and help him withstand the strong onslaught from the two Red Bulls.

Putting aside whether Bottas will still actively fulfill his duties as the number two driver, it would be good enough if he didn't vent his pent-up frustrations from the past few years during races.

What a headache! Didn't Toto previously confidently assure everyone that Ferrari had no intention of actively accepting Shu Long in the short term, and that the internal factional struggles within Red Bull might also prevent Shu Long from becoming an immediate asset for Red Bull?
According to the original script, even if Shu Long were to return, the most likely scenario would be after the Toro Rosso season in 2021.

How could the situation change so quickly? Could it be that the collision at the British Grand Prix and the clear-out in Hungary prompted Red Bull to make this decision?
While Mercedes is certainly worried, fans are quite happy with the current situation.

With VfL currently in a state of stagnation, most viewers have shifted their focus to the epic battle between Red Bull and Mercedes, and the arrival of the Sultan has undoubtedly added suspense to both the driver and team championships.

Fight! I love seeing rivers of blood!
Hamilton topped the leaderboard in the Dutch Grand Prix, but the two Red Bulls were close behind, with the overall time difference evenly distributed between 1:11.500 and 1:11.597.

This gap can no longer be attributed to differences in car competitiveness or driver skill. Even slight changes in wind direction, a little bit of wake turbulence, or interference from dirty air on the track can lead to such differences in performance.

Behind them are two Ferraris with a scale of 1:11.6, and further back is Bottas, who is already in the 1:11.7 range.

If this situation continues, even if Hamilton manages to secure pole position tomorrow, he will inevitably face a combined attack from both Red Bulls.

Of course, this is still the ideal situation, because Hamilton's own engine broke down during the second practice session.

Tuning a rocket engine within the rules isn't entirely without its costs. According to technical analysis from multiple teams, the secret to Mercedes' mid-season upgrade likely lies in the intercooler.

The working principle of this structure is to reduce the air temperature from 100°C to the ambient temperature. Technical instructions allow the air temperature to be up to 10°C lower than the ambient temperature.

In this way, cold air, which has a higher density than hot air, can burn more fuel in the same proportion, thus enabling the engine to "overclock" under the technical regulations given by the FIA.

The principle is clear to everyone, but the key thing Mercedes did was to separate the cold air and hot air between the intercooler and the supercharger in some way for a period of time, which allowed them to obtain about 20 more horsepower than other teams' engines during acceleration.

This technology perfectly compensates for the pain point of Mercedes' chassis being nerfed this year. Although its stability in corners is still not as good as last year, the W12 on the straights is truly a complete rocket.

The price to pay is that Mercedes engines, which have always been known for their durability and reliability, seem to have become a major problem this year. They have now unsealed all three power units that are limited for this season, and any further problems will result in huge penalties and retirements.

Of course, Red Bull's side is only slightly optimistic.

Thanks to Bottas's clean sheet in Hungary and Verstappen's 51G in the UK, they are now also using a third power unit, and Shulong, who replaced them mid-season, can only helplessly inherit the damage that belonged to Perez.

The outcome of the battle between Mercedes and Red Bull may largely depend on which engine is more durable, theirs or Honda's.

Due to this unexpected situation in the second practice session, Hamilton was unable to set a valid lap time, and Verstappen, whose red flag was lost due to Mazeping's accident, could only finish in P6.
但这并不代表汉密尔顿就能松一口气了，因为束龙直接跑出了1：09.331的成绩，以领先勒克莱尔的1：10.902超过1.5秒的海量优势稳居第一。

Most teams are still holding back, but this result clearly demonstrates just how dominant Red Bull is in this race.

The Red Bull team is having a bit of a headache; after the second training session, they gave Shu Long a long talk about mental health.

Didn't we agree to hide it?!

"I really did hold back! I was on the throttle in several corners, but you didn't tell me exactly how far I was going to hold back."

You're acting all aggrieved here? So you're implying you're blaming us?

Actually, you can't blame him. After all, he just came up from Earth Group like Red Bull and Earth Core Group like Haas. He never had as much room for maneuver before. He's still a bit inexperienced when he first got to drive the Mars rover.

Then, on the second day of practice, Verstappen, who had just been provoked by Shu Long, simply stopped pretending. Both Red Bull players clocked times starting with 1:09.0, ranking P1 and P2 respectively, leaving Hamilton, who was in P3, speechless.

Zandvoort Circuit, a super-old track that was discontinued in 1985 and only returned to the calendar today, and which was also renovated in 19, is a completely unfamiliar track for most teams and drivers that they need to learn from scratch.

However, Red Bull's two players are Verstappen, who spends all his time in the simulator and knows the track by heart, and a ruthless scanner who can "memorize everything" and understand the limits after just one lap or a few tries. In comparison, the time they need to spend learning the track is practically non-existent.

In the afternoon's qualifying matches, Q1 was as expected, but Q2 was where things got really interesting.

Williams' two red flags threw everything into chaos. Shulong's first flight loop was ruined by Latifi's red flag. After the race restarted and the tires were warmed up again, Russell's wall jump ruined everything again.

With only 3 minutes and 54 seconds left in Q3, Shu Long had no choice but to unseal his second set of new red gear and set a lap time that would at least guarantee his qualification.

The two coaches' passionate performances have made the situation in Q3 and tomorrow's main game unpredictable.

Shulong now only has one new red set left, while Mercedes, although fortunately, were not interrupted in the first round of flight laps, but their second round was also interfered with by Russell.

After weighing the importance of pole position at Zandvoort, they ultimately decided to keep their new tires for Q3 to compete for pole position. However, this means that the red tires they will start the race tomorrow will be a super old set that has already covered nearly 7 laps.

It's hard to say whether this is a loss or a gain.

As a rather old track, Zandvoort Circuit is extremely difficult to overtake due to its narrow track width, uneven surface, and camber design that covers almost every corner. However, it is not difficult to find opportunities to overtake.

Of course, this is on the premise that the driver is extremely confident in his skills.

The reason there are so many opportunities to overtake here is because drivers are prone to making mistakes on such tracks.

To ensure speed, race cars must push the limits, but at the same time, they must maintain a good balance. With corners featuring angles as high as 19 degrees, the road shoulders here are practically killers.

Once you get on the track and are even slightly jolted, it's very likely that the balance of the car, which is tilted at an angle, will be instantly broken. This is how Russell's red flag in Q2 was triggered.

So you either have to be bold and use the edge of the track to the fullest, while handling every extremely subtle change in the car as it bumps along; or you have to carefully control your line and speed when cornering, maintaining an ambiguous, close distance from those pretty red and white blocks.

It is clear that among all the drivers who intend to compete for pole position, every single one of them is a determined risk-taker.

束龙Q3的第一个飞行圈就将圈速做进了1：08.917，领先维斯塔潘的1：08.923暂时位居全场第一，汉密尔顿甚至才只跑了一个1：09.268还要在博塔斯的后面。

Unfortunately, Shulong ran out of new red tires for the second lap, but he still seized the opportunity on his last flight lap to improve his personal best to 1:08.906 using the old red tires.
Verstappen was firing on all cylinders in his first full home game, scoring 1:08.885.

Hamilton also improved by 0.3 points with the new red lap, but unfortunately he still finished P3 by a narrow margin of 0.017, completely sealing his defeat after his conservative strategy in Q2.

The fact that tomorrow's 7-lap start on the old red line seems to have already determined the outcome of the entire race.

(End of this chapter)