F1: The Making of a Racing God

Chapter 185 Brothers with big wings can protect anyone.

"You practically idolize me? Does that mean I'm not entirely your idol?"

"Ah, this"

"Take them away! Get a more dedicated fan over here!"

Marco rolled his eyes next door, and shrugged at Duhan's pleading look, indicating that the kid should figure it out himself.

Get out of my way!

Okay, just kidding.
Shu Long pulled Du Han to a quieter spot backstage and asked him if he had any questions about the track and driving.

However, Du Han didn't rush to ask Shu Long for help. Instead, he hurriedly explained the topic about idols, because for Du Han, Uncle Michael Schumacher, who gave him his first go-kart, was his biggest idol in the racing world.

Shu Long was shocked to hear this; the background was quite impressive, with racing legend Michael Schumacher being his uncle!
But isn't Old Shu German? How come he remembered Dr. Marco mentioning to him that the child was from Australia?

Born in 2003, he is three years younger than Shu Long. He has a Disney-like appearance, with fair skin and a typical prince-like look.

I don't know why, but the way his eyebrows and eyes give people the feeling that his surname is Du Han is not so much like that of Prost.

Ahem, let's get serious!

His father shares the same name as his uncle Schumacher's son, Mick Duhan.

Regardless of whether Schumacher had a slightly wicked sense of humor when naming his son, this old man, Duhan, won the 500cc class of the Motorcycle Grand Prix for five consecutive years from 1994 to 1998.

This race sounds a bit low-class; its current name, MotoGP, might be more familiar to everyone.

In his own racing field, he's undoubtedly a top-tier figure.

The two families' fathers are neighbors and friends in Monaco. In terms of family connections, Doohan is probably one of the few drivers in the paddock who are second only to Mick, but after all, his father is from another industry, so Doohan is still far behind Mick in terms of resources.

Even in terms of personality, they are somewhat similar to Mick. Both of them are overly reserved because of their fathers' dazzling honors.

As for the opportunity to get to know Shu Long, it wasn't actually because of F3, but rather because of Shu Long's amazing performance at the 15 KZ2 World Championship.

In fact, Duhan was present at that race. He earned his ticket to the World Championship by winning the Australian Karting Championship and achieved a commendable third place on his first qualifying attempt.

Du Han was three years younger than Shu Long, so they naturally wouldn't be in the same group. After finishing his own competition, he stayed behind to check on the results of the other groups' competitions.

At that time, Shu Long's right arm was broken due to an accident at the beginning of the competition, and he fell to the back of the team. The scene of his crazy comeback to win the championship was deeply engraved in the young Du Han's heart.

It could even be said that Duhan's decision to join Red Bull's youth training system was more or less influenced by Shu Long.

The dream of Erlong is harmful!
The connection between the two left Shu Long speechless. If Du Han's personality didn't have enough talent to back it up, he would probably only feel pain if he continued to stay in Red Bull's youth training system.

Their future will either be ruthlessly eliminated or they will have no choice but to transfer to other youth training programs to seek a way out.

Before that, in order to somewhat make up for the guilt of leading people astray, Shu Long still set aside more than two hours to be a private tutor for a while.

For only an hour and a half, he was answering Du Han's questions. For the other hour and a half, Shu Long was sending voice messages to Zhou Guanyu at high intensity. He was speaking Chinese, which Du Han couldn't understand. He only knew that his idol teacher's tone was extremely intense.

It's no wonder Shu Long was so emotional.

Zhou Guanyu sent him a general overview of the UNI team's car setup, and after just one glance, it was clear that there was no need to compete.

Although Shu Long is not a professional mechanic, he has been training intensively in F1 for three years. He has driven a Mars rover and also worked in the Earth group. He even carried out poverty alleviation work in Haas, which is located in the pure Earth core.

Let's put it this way: the weather forecast for this week indicates a high probability of rain during this year's Russian Grand Prix.

What kind of plan did the UNI team come up with?

They wanted to try their luck in the rankings while it wasn't raining, but they were worried that their cars wouldn't be competitive if it rained, so they pulled off a stunt that pleased neither side.

The downforce settings, the overall suspension modes, and the engine mapping distribution all combine to feel like Zhang San wearing Li Si's pants while Wang Wu is wearing his slippers.

Not a single part of him looks human!
Red Bull was also having a meeting to discuss their setup for this weekend's rain race, and Shu Long certainly wouldn't leak his team's information, but he could still share his overall strategy.

There are only so many things that can be modified in the standard F2, and Zhou Guanyu can make minor adjustments based on his driving experience later.

When an outsider suddenly interfered and completely negated the team's previous work, UNI's engineers were naturally not very happy.

However, Lao Zhou has now invested in the team with funds, making him essentially a small boss. Naturally, his say in the team is vastly different from when he was in Prema.

There was nothing else they could do but add something ambiguous: "The market pie is only so big, who knows if they're really doing this for your own good."

Rather than being angry, Zhou Guanyu felt somewhat fortunate.

He has been criticized and belittled a lot along the way. Fans both in China and abroad have been pointing out his incompetence by citing his past achievements.

But how many miracles like Shulong can there be?

Zhou Guanyu is very fortunate to have the best mother in the world. From the beginning, this great woman has been instilling in Guanyu the idea that geniuses like Shu Long naturally have their own missions.

People like Shu Long may have been born with the ambition to make history and break records, but that doesn't stop ordinary people from pursuing their dreams. As long as they have a clear conscience, that's enough.

There are always people who, for unknown reasons, advise Zhou Guanyu that there are no friends in racing, and that the only person a driver can trust is himself.

Even Shu Long wouldn't offer help without expecting anything in return; perhaps at some point he would silently deliver the most painful blow before the finish line.

Currently, Shulong is the only top player in the domestic racing market. Once a second or third player enters the fray, the fruits left for him to reap will only become fewer and fewer.

But is it possible that Shulong was indeed not a saint completely without selfish desires, but unfortunately, he had desires that some people yearn for their entire lives yet cannot obtain?
They don't care!
Only those who have truly spent time together can know who is sincere. Even if the team members racked their brains, they probably still couldn't guess why Guanyu's mother, who often accompanied the team to support her son's races, would suddenly be absent.

Negotiations with Alfa Romeo are nearing completion. Mr. Vassell did mention, somewhat subtly, that he hoped Zhou Guanyu could provide some financial support to the team, since the small team is certainly not wealthy.

Unfortunately, with the success of Shulong Zhuyu, Zhou Guanyu, who has always been relatively unknown, found it difficult to attract decent sponsors before a contract was fully confirmed.

At this crucial moment, gossip first circulated in the hunting grounds that Vasser and Shulong were in close contact, and then Douyin, which had been cooperating with Shulong, suddenly approached them for sponsorship.
Although the person never mentioned it, this friendship is worth remembering.

Having gone this far, what's there to be afraid of?

"Let's change it this way!" Teacher Shu's hard work paid off.

First, Doohan, currently second in the standings, secured pole position in the final race, earning four valuable points for his championship aspirations. Following the F1 second practice session was the F2 qualifying session, where Zhou Guanyu took P2 with a slight disadvantage of 0.137 seconds, while Piastri secured pole position.

However, these are the results on dry ground. The real test of this car's performance will be in the rain later on.

Unfortunately, Du Han wasn't so lucky. He managed to revive one side, but the healing output on the other side was a bit insufficient, and he ran into some problems in the first round of the competition.

Although he withstood his teammates' attacks and the team's obviously unreasonable passing instructions to win the third round of the main race, he still regrettably handed the championship to Dennis Haug in the sprint race.

So Dohan's father's influence did have some effect, because the Norwegian driver, Dennis Haug, was also a Red Bull junior academy student, although he didn't get the extra help from Marko before the race.

Heavy rain fell all day on Saturday, and the F2 and F3 sprint races, as well as the third practice session for F1, were postponed or canceled.

It wasn't until 3 p.m. that the organizers, taking advantage of the reduced rain, hastily canceled the originally scheduled F2 sprint race, which had been postponed until now, and notified all teams to prepare for qualifying.

The characteristics of the Sochi circuit meant that even rain was not enough for the team to switch to a high downforce rear wing kit, so Shulong could only continue to use the medium downforce rear wing that was said to have problems with DRS on the track.

Fortunately, DRS is not allowed in the tournament right now, so it won't have much of an impact in the short term.

Moreover, there were surprisingly few opponents who posed a threat to Shulong in today's qualifying rounds.

Verstappen was destined to start from the back of the grid and didn't even go out to do any effective laps. He just ran around the track twice to see if there were any issues with his rain-time setup without the three practice sessions.

Ferrari, which also introduced some upgrade kits for next year, had decent lap times this week. However, Leclerc's upgrade is for next year's power unit, and he'll be starting from the back of the grid in tomorrow's race. He tried out two laps in Q1 but didn't even make it into Q2.

Bottas is moving fast and has also made it into the Q3, but he has also switched to his fifth power unit and will start 10 places behind tomorrow.

Bottas's lap times don't reveal any problems with his engine, but considering Mercedes' pre-race comments that they might adopt some necessary strategies to compete for the championship, it's hard not to suspect that Mercedes deliberately used Verstappen's penalty to send Bottas to the back row to block Red Bull.

Mercedes was practically feeding Hamilton, but the old man declared that if he wanted to win, he should win fair and square; he didn't need any off-field assistance!
The rain actually stopped during Q1 of qualifying. After completing the first qualifying session on semi-wet tires, everyone was considering switching to dry tires for lap times in Q2.

As a result, it rained quite heavily again during Q2, but stopped before Q3 started.

束龙在Q3的第一个飞行圈就推到了1：43.875，领先汉密尔顿接近0.2秒牢牢占据着P1的位置。

However, when the team called him to pit and change to a new set of semi-wet tires to do a second flying lap, Shu Long, who had a different understanding of the grip of the current track, insisted on staying on the track. He did a charging lap and then flew another lap, an attempt that seemed to push but didn't.

To be precise, the track was still a bit wet, but after 10 race cars took turns draining the water, it now seems like it's dry enough to run on dry tires.

I didn't say much to the team, just told them I was about to pit. It wasn't until I was pushed into the garage that I took off my helmet and communicated with the team in the most primitive way—yow!

"Red tire! Red tire! Hurry up!"

The mechanics, who had clearly prepared a brand new set of semi-rain tires, had enough trust in Shulong's capabilities. Without even consulting the strategy team, they put the tires back on the tire rack and removed another set of tires wrapped in a warming blanket.

Other teams will eventually notice something is wrong, but this kind of alternating wet and dry phase of the race is all about intelligence warfare, so we should stall for as long as possible.

With less than four and a half minutes left in Q3, if other teams realize this and rush to prepare, they might even miss the chance to do the last flight lap.

The fastest to follow up were McLaren's Norris and Williams' Russell; they were relatively lucky.

Because of last year's team rankings, Red Bull's pit garage is right next to Mercedes' pit lane entrance. When Shu Long came out of the pits with red tires, he would inevitably pass by the pit garage doors of every team behind him. Coincidentally, the two of them were in the pit garage at the time, and then, as if they had seen the answers to a multiple-choice question from a top student, they decided to follow without thinking.

Mercedes was a bit slow to react; to be precise, Hamilton's team was a bit slow to react.

They initially let Hamilton continue running on the track, intending to let Bottas, who was bound to be penalized, test his lap times on dry tires. However, before Bottas could even be called in, he saw Shu Long starting on red tires and quickly changed his mind, letting Hamilton go first.

As it turned out, the old man happened to be near the entrance to the repair area. Upon hearing the team's instructions, he quickly turned the steering wheel in.

The pit lane entrance at the Sochi circuit is quite tricky; it's narrow and features a sharp 90-degree turn.

Unlike on a racetrack where cars are constantly passing by at high speeds to drain water, the ground here is actually very slippery. In his haste, Hamilton attempted a rear drift, which completely destroyed his front wing.

Let's play!
Mercedes squandered a rare opportunity to quickly build a points advantage.

Shu Long finished in pole position with a time of 1:41.697, a result he was naturally very satisfied with.

What should you do if you know there might be a problem with your tail fin?
Just take pole position! Since P1 doesn't have DRS to use anyway, as long as we keep leading, it's practically the same as not having this problem, right?

Behind him was Norris, who reacted well. After Shulong's push lap, he finally caught a better track condition and ran a time of 1:41.993.

Next up is Ferrari's Sainz, whose time of 1:42.510 was far behind, but he still managed to secure a starting position in P3 for tomorrow.

As for Hamilton?
In the entire Q3, his only lap time was in the first round on half-wet tires, a time of 1:44.050, which secured him a P5 spot. The Mercedes was surprisingly outmaneuvered by Russell, who was driving a Williams.

Red Bull predicts Verstappen's best result in the main draw is P5, and they are quite confident that Shulong can hold onto his P1 position.

In other words, Hamilton's best possible result in the main race is a P2 finish. Even with Verstappen's penalty, the points difference can be kept to 7 points. If he wins another championship, he can catch up, which is already a result that minimizes the loss.

After qualifying, the team held a tactical meeting, which was mostly about Verstappen's strategy for tomorrow's race. The part about Shu Long was mostly about keeping his lead.

Red Bull's upgrade kit worked quite well this weekend, consistently outperforming McLaren by more than 0.4 seconds in both lap and long-distance performance.

If we also take into account the individual performance of the drivers, then barring any unforeseen circumstances, there shouldn't be any major problems.

Since he had nothing better to do, after finishing his own part of the assignment, Shu Long took out his phone and started watching the F2 sprint race.

The timing was perfect; the green light was about to start and the race was in progress when the scene suddenly shifted to a UNI team race car skidding and crashing into the wall, making Shu Long's eyelids twitch.

Thankfully, it wasn't Zhou Guanyu, but rather his teammate Drugovic. Otherwise, Shu Long would have wondered if his private coaching was cursed, causing everyone he taught to die.
At this moment, Zhou Guanyu also made a small joke in the voice chat, casually sending the engineer a "See?" message via TR.

He didn't say anything more, but it seemed to infuriate people even more than if he had said something, because Drugovich was the unlucky guy who maintained the original shunting plan.

Because the sprint race started in reverse order, Piastri actually started behind Zhou Guanyu.

However, with dry tires being used and the track being neither dry nor wet, Piastri's setup, which was clearly more geared towards dry conditions, struggled in the first few laps, ultimately finishing with a P9 and no points.

In contrast, Zhou Guanyu transformed into Zhou Guanyu, climbing all the way to P4 in the first ten laps and further extending his points lead.

(End of this chapter)