F1: The Making of a Racing God

Chapter 178 Needs a Warm Embrace

At this point, the Red Bull and Mercedes were positioned with Verstappen on the far left outside line and Shu Long slightly behind on the right inside line.

Hamilton's position was very delicate; he was positioned slightly between the two Red Bulls, allowing him to adjust his strategy at any time based on the movements of the two Red Bulls in front of him.

If Shulong were to go to the inside line and try to out-brake Verstappen on the intersection, Hamilton could choose to brake earlier and adjust his entry timing. In that case, Verstappen, whose entry rhythm was affected by Shulong, would be blocked on the inside line by Shulong first.

Let's call this plan A.

If Shu Long temporarily abandons this opportunity to attack and prioritizes his own cornering comfort, he will inevitably have to move to the outside to create more cornering space. Because if going inside is not to block the opponent's driving line, then it is simply self-harm.

In this way, Hamilton could also choose to brake late on the inside lane to do what Shu Long was supposed to do.

Let's call this Plan B for now.

The old man was now like a fisherman watching the snipe and the clam fight, the initiative of choice completely in his own hands.

The solution is actually quite simple: if the snipe and the clam make peace temporarily, then no matter how experienced the fisherman is, he will end up empty-handed.

It's not just about not fighting; at the very least, Shu Long needs to be willing to sacrifice his own lane to defend the paint, and Verstappen also needs to take advantage of this opportunity to widen the gap between himself and his teammates.

But this is a competition. Would anyone really let go of every possible opportunity to win?
As someone who's been through it all, Hamilton can say with absolute certainty that no one can control themselves when they're on a roll.

Shu Long thought that Red Bull's current goal was to take down Old Man Liu, but that didn't mean he would be willing to watch the opportunity he had worked so hard for slip away.

Narrow tracks all share a common problem, especially tracks like Zantwater with complex cornering conditions and relatively high speeds, where dirty air has a significant impact on following other vehicles.

When locked in a close battle, it seems like you can always create opportunities to overtake, but once you've gained a lead, it's really hard to catch up under the same conditions.

Verstappen thought so too; he did want to beat his teammates and win the title on his home turf, but his real rival this year was actually Hamilton, who was behind Shu Long.

If he can keep Hamilton in third place, then his 10 more points than Hamilton in today's game could help him return to the top of the standings. Obviously, it is not a situation that Shulong wants to see, as he was eliminated by Mercedes.

So the two Red Bulls coincidentally reached a consensus at this moment: they could help their teammate defend, but only a little bit.

Shu Long was the first to react. He changed lanes in front of Hamilton, and as if he were doing a braking test, he slightly eased off the accelerator to slow down. Then, about ten meters ahead of Hamilton, he stepped on the brakes and began to move towards the outer lane.

If the braking test is deemed a deliberate and dangerous driving maneuver, then Shu Long's actions would naturally be considered a violation. However, if it was merely a minor adjustment made for a more comfortable entry into the corner, then that would be a different matter.

Hamilton, highly focused, reacted quickly, as if he had planned it in advance, and turned to the inside to apply a late brake.

Just as he had managed to swing the front of the car out, he discovered that Verstappen had also used the space created by Shulong's throttle release to brake earlier, entering the corner at an even earlier time and blocking the space on the inside line.

Actually, launching a torpedo at this moment would be a good idea; if both sides retreat, at least they won't be overtaken.

However, doing so would definitely result in a driving penalty and demerit points on his super license, which is absolutely unacceptable for Hamilton, whose current lead is not that significant.

Left with no other option, Hamilton, who had been preparing for this moment for a long time, had to brake early and swerve behind Shulong to secure his exit from the corner.

It's quite a coincidence that Shu Long and Verstappen's defensive strategies at this moment were exactly what Hamilton had planned as Plan A and Plan B, respectively.

What does it mean to "go your own way and leave them with nowhere to go"?
Here it is.

"To be honest, this might be the most exciting defensive play I've seen in the last decade."

"It's hard to believe that these two Red Bulls were just fighting so fiercely a moment ago. Now I'm starting to believe they're teammates, but who knows what might happen later."

Although the two Red Bulls completely disrupted his offensive rhythm, Hamilton was still within the offensive range, so continuing the close combat at this point was obviously not a good idea.

Red Bull's strategy team was pleased with the seamless teamwork between the two drivers, but now it was clearly the "special moment" Horner had mentioned in the meeting, and they resolutely stopped the battle for position between Shulong and Verstappen.

Of course, it would be inappropriate to completely end the competition between the two drivers after only the first lap, so the team's current instruction is to pull Mercedes away first.

If all goes well, the competition between the two teams will resume before the first stint, minimizing the impact of team strategy on the outcome of their competition.

The opportunity came earlier than expected. Once the two Red Bulls started running at their normal pace, they left Mercedes more than 3 seconds behind by the eighth lap.

Red Bull is really fast on the Zandvoort track. Even though Zandvoort itself has a significant percentage of full-throttle runs, Mercedes' rocket engines don't really have much room to perform in this complex terrain.

The chassis, which has been weakened and is now inferior to Red Bull's, will put the car's grip and engine to a severe test when exposed to the polluted air from the two cars.

Not to mention that Mercedes' tires for the two cars at the start were even older than Red Bull's. Hamilton had already complained to his race engineer in the TR that he was having a hard time keeping up with the pace of the Red Bull car and asked the team if they could consider a second strategy as soon as possible.

Mick got into a fight with his Haas teammate Mazepin at the back of the pack, which resulted in his tires locking up and leaving a large flat patch. He pitted on the fourth lap and switched to white tires, effectively ending his run.

It's funny how these two brothers are. As regulars at the back of the pack, they often fight fiercely over who's last, yet they're practically invisible on the track.

In fact, Haas is more competitive this year than last year. Shu Long and Magnussen were just struggling to find the funds to upgrade their cars, but at least the data they left behind is still there.

With the full support of Ma Zeping's father this year, Haas has made many rounds of upgrades to the race car.

But let's not even talk about Ma Zeping, who was already at the bottom of the lower-level formulas. As a driver who has won the F3 and F2 championships, Mick is about the same as Shu Long in terms of honors, except that he failed to achieve consecutive championships. After moving to F1, his performance was actually about the same as his teammate.

The two had a disagreement during yesterday's qualifying session, with Ma Zeping accusing Mike of breaking the gentleman's agreement by overtaking him during tire warm-up and disrupting his push window.

Meanwhile, the paddleboarding darling, Young Master Mi, said that he had spoken with the team, so there was no problem with him overtaking and taking a flying lap first.

The result was that this farce between the two Haas bikes ruined Uncle Tilhead's flying lap.
Then today in the main race, Mick, who started on red tires, made a big mistake and was overtaken by Ma Zeping, who started on yellow tires, at turn one. The two, who were already using different strategies, didn't have the Red Bull's luck but got the Red Bull's problem, and almost killed each other.

Mick, who pitted for tires on the fourth lap, had no speed at all. By the eighth lap, Bottas, in P4, had already lapped him. However, Hamilton suddenly felt a little tempted when he passed by and saw the four white hard tires on the Haas car.

However, Mick's lap time was indeed too unconvincing. Even though Mercedes did intend to try a tactical surprise, they could only ask Hamilton to be patient and observe further.

On lap 10, Vettel, who started on red tires today after being eliminated in Q1 yesterday, pitted for white tires.

Hannah Schmitz, Red Bull's main strategist today, began calculating pit stop windows and had two race engineers beside her monitor Vettel's and the current lap times of the two Mercedes cars to analyze when the opponent might choose to pit.

Horner confirmed that the time was right, took a deep breath, and pressed the call button in front of him.

"Get back to normal race pace. You'll have about ten laps before the first stint ends."

Verstappen remained silent, realizing he had been unable to effectively shake off Shulong, and that the team with DRS would clearly regain control of the offensive and defensive battles.

However, Shulong, as the beneficiary, was more considerate of its team leader and responded enthusiastically in TR.

"Copy that! Love you!"

"Be careful, don't do what you did on the first lap!"

Shu Long chuckled a few times and began to gradually tighten the distance between his car and the car, which he had been deliberately maintaining at around 0.9 meters.

There's really no need to follow too closely when there's no chance to compete for position. The turbulence behind the car in front will not only greatly interfere with the stability of the car behind when cornering, but it will also be detrimental to the tire protection and engine temperature control of the car behind.

So basically after the first lap, Shulong consciously used a slightly slower but smoother line to take the corners, only briefly using DRS to get close to the position between the two cars after Turn 10 and Turn 14.

Of course, even with DRS, overtaking on this track is not so easy. Considering the safety issues of the later corners, the distance between the two DRS sections is actually very short, and the cost for the car in front to defend is not too high.

Therefore, the offense and defense at this point are not as dramatic as in the first round, but the risks are still considerable.

God knows how much pressure Horner was under when giving such instructions during the race, especially at Verstappen's home race. From any perspective, maintaining Verstappen's current P1 position seems to be the most appropriate option for the team.

If the Red Bull cars were to retire from the race due to their fight, Horner wondered if he would be torn apart by the enthusiastic and angry orange fans after the race.

However, such instructions were also necessary. It was not only to fulfill the pre-race promises to the two drivers, but also to keep Mercedes in suspense by issuing public TRs in case they suddenly changed their tune and muddied the waters of the entire race.

The reason for letting Shulong and Verstappen compete again is to deliberately expose a weakness to Mercedes, letting them know that there may be another opportunity to overtake them.

As for why Red Bull made this judgment, instead of believing that this move would lead Mercedes to be more determined to implement the undercut tactic, it has to do with the tire compound provided by the official supplier for this Dutch Grand Prix.

The three compounds selected from red, white, and yellow, from softest to hardest, are C3 to C1, which are the three hardest compounds. C3 is also one of the few compounds that can function as both a soft and hard tire in the calendar.

The fastest pre-race strategy predicted was not just a red-and-white pit stop, but in the ideal scenario, the first stint on red tires in a 72-lap race could be extended to 30 laps. Before that, pitting one lap earlier would undoubtedly be a loss for all cars starting on red tires.

So as long as Mercedes can see even a glimmer of hope, the chances of them pitting before lap 20 will be infinitely reduced.

Of course, that's a story for later. Currently, there's a 3.7-second time difference between Hamilton and P2's Shulong. At least until the opponent catches up completely into the DRS range, Shulong can focus on attacking Verstappen without any distractions during these 10 laps.

On the Zandvoort track, you can't dawdle if you want to overtake. If you can't make a decisive move, even if you manage to overtake, you'll still lose out.

Especially considering that the tire wear of the Shulong is already slightly higher than that of the Verstappen, and it is gradually approaching the first entry window.

On lap twelve, Shulong made his first attempt to attack from the DRS area after turn 14, which is on the starting straight.

The opportunity wasn't great, but he was there to observe Verstappen's overall defensive strategy.

First of all, Turn 14 is another large corner with a 19-degree angle. The difference between Turn 14 and Turn 3 is that Turn 14 has a very long arc, allowing cars to accelerate at full throttle before entering the straight.

In some ways, it is similar to the long, inward-curving corner 13 at the Shanghai International Circuit and the DRS straight that follows, but the DRS zone after corner 13 at the Shanghai International Circuit is much longer than that at Zantwater.

Therefore, Verstappen's defensive strategy here is also very clear.

He first pulled directly to the right side of the track after exiting Turn 14, not giving Shu Long a chance to use his slipstream to accelerate. When he approached the braking area, he quickly changed lanes to the left outer line.

Due to the unique structure of Turn 1, the car in front will naturally try to occupy the best entry path on the outside, and the car behind can only try to start from the inside if it wants to turn around and brake late.

When there is no significant difference in the performance of the race cars, the cornering speed of a car that barely squeezes into the inside line will be crushed by the cars on the outside, making it very difficult to overtake.

However, compared to the shorter DRS area after Turn 10, which has even more challenging connecting corners, the starting straight, where you can at least start accelerating in Turn 14, is more like a place to overtake.

After a round of testing, Shu Long was not in a hurry; he felt that Verstappen's tires were still a bit too good.

At this moment, the most crucial thing for a hunter is patience.

到了第17圈，束龙看着自己方向盘上已经从1：14.9衰退到1：15.4左右的圈速，便又一次试探性地向维斯塔潘施压。

Then he clearly saw that as Verstappen cut from the kerb of Turn 11 toward the apex of Turn 12, although he was still going very fast and his dynamics were very stable, his rear wheels slipped by nearly 7 degrees.

it's time!

On lap 18, DRS Shulong on the starting straight did not pull away, but simply tightened the distance between himself and the car in front.

From turn 1 to turn 6, Shu Long seemed to want to prevent the dirty air from the car in front from affecting his stability on the continuous high-speed curves, so he gradually increased the distance between the cars, as if he had once again entered a dormant phase.

However, by pushing the tires to their limits even further, Shulong managed to reduce the distance to 0.68 meters by taking only two consecutive high-speed right turns, number 7 and 8.

The main chase was completed at Turn 8, a corner with almost no lean angle, which places extremely high demands on the stability of the car's rear end when cornering at high speed.

Turn 9 was pulled back a little to 0.71, but this was because Shulong chose a line at Turn 9 that did not put as much stress on the tires in order to ensure the tire performance of Turn 10.

Turn 10 is a hairpin bend with a long arc and a wide angle. Usually, for such hairpin bends, you need to choose a line that can maintain speed and focus on exiting the bend, which means taking a slightly wider line and not deliberately getting too close to the apex of the bend.

However, Verstappen's tires were clearly not strong enough to withstand the intense outward movement, and Shulong noticed that his opponent had changed his cornering strategy just two laps before.

By braking slightly later and moving to the far right of the track, the driver dynamically moves inward toward the apex of the corner in a "V" shape, reducing the lateral load on the tires by straightening the line while ensuring that the speed loss is not too severe.

However, Shu Long's brief tire management earlier was all for this moment, using the space on the outside that Verstappen had given up as his takeoff runway for full acceleration, and he narrowed the gap to 0.48 in just one corner.

Verstappen clearly noticed Shulong's movements, but after grabbing the apex of the corner, in order to ensure his acceleration efficiency out of the corner, he could only slowly move towards the outside of the car, following the momentum of the car.

However, Shulong, who was already on a wide line in the bend, had much more room to change lanes and once again cut inside to take advantage of the gap created by Max.

As he exited the corner and crossed the line, the two indicator lights on the steering wheel that could be used for DRS lit up again. Shulong also turned on the small switch to control the adjustable rear wing system without hesitation, and at the same time pressed the overtaking mode button that he had specially set on the back of the steering wheel to discharge the engine at full power.

Undisputed acceleration advantage, and absolute comfort along the route.

Shulong overtook the opponent after only three-quarters of the way through the miniature DRS zone, but he did not rush to extend his advantage. Instead, he took the defensive middle line at the end of the straight and slowed down his tracking pace to wait for the opponent for a while.

He hit to the right, took the bend, and then checked the rearview mirror to confirm that Verstappen was about to launch a counterattack by turning his head to the left.

11号弯和12号弯的组合弯有点类似于2号万和3号弯的组合弯，都是一个接近90度的直角右弯衔接一个大倾角的左弯。

12号弯不像3号弯的倾角那么极端，但是它和11号弯之间的衔接要远比2、3号弯紧凑得多，整体过弯节奏要把控得更好。

The purpose of Shulong's design was precisely this: after stepping onto the apex of Turn 11, he quickly straightened his car and simultaneously pushed the Red Bull No. 1 car on his left downwards, forcing Verstappen to take a more narrow, inside line.

In the previous lap, Verstappen's rear wheels already showed signs of instability when facing corners that required rapid and continuous shifts in weight between the two sides. Now, being squeezed like this has completely disrupted his cornering rhythm.

With just one exit from Turn 12, Shulong turned the tables and gained a 0.87-second lead.

From Turn 11 to Turn 13, the right side of the track was filled with a long line of Verstappen fans dressed in orange. As Shu Long accelerated into the straight after the turn, he even wondered if his engine sound had turned into a "whoosh" sound.

Several more fans in the stands opened orange smoke grenades, as if to vent their anger.

"Mr. Horner?"

"what's up?"

"Is it true that I can snuggle in your arms after the game, as you said at the meeting? I'm counting on you today!"

"."

If you know you're afraid, then take it easy! Don't you understand basic social etiquette?!
Horner mentally finished the sentence, then sat in front of the pit wall and started wildly rummaging through his graying blond hair.

Hannah tried hard to keep her expression straight, because there was a photographer right next to them taking close-up shots without any sense of boundaries, but she still looked at Horner with her eyes, asking which side their next strategy should lean towards.

"Proceed according to the original plan."

So, whichever side comes first, the strategy will favor that side?

After overtaking, Verstappen's lap time dropped significantly as he entered the dirty air zone, reaching around 1:15.8.

While Shulong's lap time is dropping due to tire wear, he currently has the advantage of clean air and can still maintain a lap time of around 1:15.6.

By lap 20, the last lap of the free competition time limit that Horner had just agreed upon with them, Shu Long had solidified his advantage of about 1.3 seconds.

On the same lap, feeling cheated, Hamilton pitted and pulled out a set of yellow tires, pushing his lap time to the 1:14.2 range.

It was incredibly fast, but it was clear that the yellow tires couldn't possibly finish the remaining 52 laps. Mercedes seemed to have already decided to use a two-stop strategy.

But Red Bull can't just let things go unchecked. The red tires are badly worn out because of the two bulls' constant fighting, and they'll only get slower and slower. If they insist on sticking with the red and white tires and then stop, they might actually get undercut by the old man.

So on lap 21, Shulong was also called to pit, and he also chose a set of yellow tires.

Verstappen pitted on the next lap, but when he left the track, everyone noticed that he had decided to put on a set of white tires.
(End of this chapter)