F1: The Making of a Racing God

Chapter 186 A Single-Minded Person Blocks Both Ends

Since everyone was using semi-wet tires in Q2 of qualifying, and dry tires were clearly required for Sunday's race, the organizers naturally couldn't insist that everyone continue to start on semi-wet tires.

Starting on yellow tires and then using the first stint until around lap 26-28 before pitting for white tires has undoubtedly become the best strategy according to statistics and calculations by the vast majority of teams.

The cloudy skies all day mean that track conditions will not be very good, and the 37% probability of precipitation cannot completely rule out the possibility of precipitation during the race.

Of course, these off-track factors will affect every driver and every team, but relatively speaking, Shu Long, who starts from pole position, will be less affected.

Compared to Mercedes, who are struggling to keep up with the old man's situation, the atmosphere within Red Bull's team is much more relaxed, with everyone speculating about how many positions Max will be able to play today.

But it won't be so easy for Zhou Guanyu, who will be participating in the F2 Sunday race.

He will start in P2 today, and there will definitely be a fierce battle between him and Piastelli in P1. Otherwise, even if he manages to finish in the same position, he will conservatively be chased down by 7 points.

Although both are Renault junior academy drivers, there is a clear difference in the resources that Zhou Guanyu and Piastri can obtain.

The most obvious point is that if Zhou Guanyu wants to get enough racing resources, he has to bring his own money to join the team. On the other hand, Piastri hardly needs to pay any money and was directly sent by Alpine to the prestigious Prema team in F2.

The reason why a wealthy family is a wealthy family is that, even under the same car manufacturing standards, some resources cannot be bought with money.

The level of engineers, the team's technical reserves, management model, and many other unseen, implicit resources often influence the outcome of a race.

The UNI team itself wasn't bad; before Zhou Guanyu joined, it was considered a mid-to-upper-level team in the paddock. However, for a driver who wants to compete for the championship and get a ticket to F1, this foundation is a bit insufficient.

Trying to outrun the Prema, which is clearly more suited to dry conditions, with a setup geared towards rain in dry racing conditions is indeed a bit of a challenge for the current UNI team. The scenes of Zhou Guanyu trying to overtake on the straight with the rear wing during the season are still fresh in everyone's memory.

Not to mention that today's start was on the dirty side.
Starting the car has always been one of the most troublesome topics for Chinese car enthusiasts regarding Zhou Guanyu.

He is quick to react and his driving skills are not a problem. His frequent fainting spells are not only due to persistent mechanical failures and bad luck, but also have a lot to do with the engine throttle response that his team prefers.

It's not entirely the team's fault; this thing is mainly adapted to Guanyu's own driving habits.

Shu Long's tuning suggestions for the UNI this time included engine and throttle mapping. After yesterday's sprint race, Zhou Guanyu complained to him that he wasn't used to driving it, but the overall handling of the car was actually quite good.
It's good that they can adapt. Hopefully, this setup can wake up runners who are feeling dizzy at the start of a race in low-temperature, dirty track conditions.

Shu Long didn't have time to follow the race. His schedule was quite tight before the race today. In addition to attending a lot of events with the team's sponsors, the Emperor also came to the paddock to watch the race.

It's estimated that they came mainly for Ma Zeping, whose father, Dmitry Ma Zeping, held a very special position with the Russians.

Originally, he had no connection with Shu Long and his team, but Kvyat is still officially a reserve driver under Red Bull, so he naturally came to the pit lane with the team this week to be ready to perform.

Since they were already there, they couldn't show favoritism. The Emperor also made a stop at the Paddock Club set up by Red Bull. Such a high-level VIP is rare in F1. Every well-known member of the team was brought in to show off.

This is really bad! Seriously, don't you have anything else to do?
After all the messy things had settled down, Shu Long started changing clothes to prepare for the racers' parade, and only then did he have time to take out his phone.

Before I could even check F2's results, I saw Zhou Guanyu send me a "I'm the best in the world" emoji in the chat box.

"Won?"

"I've fulfilled my mission. I'll bring you my favorite red leather gloves later!"

What is this? It's boring!
After a few brief, rambling remarks, the topic finally returned to today's match.

Thanks to Shu Long's advice before the race, the cars that started on the dirty side today generally had a major lapse due to severe lack of grip. Although Zhou Guanyu didn't perform exceptionally well, he at least managed to maintain his P2 position at the start.

Although the throttle mapping settings provided by Shulong are a bit difficult to operate, the overall power response is very smooth, especially during acceleration, where it can exhibit very good traction.

This was actually a solution that Shulong had specially adjusted for a long time during the F2 era to adapt to the 3.4L V6 turbocharged engine.

After entering F1, the turbo lag phenomenon was greatly alleviated due to the intervention of the MGU-H system in the power unit. The throttle mapping of the Shulong became simpler and more direct, with a very straightforward linear relationship, relying purely on the user's foot control.

The non-hybrid power unit has a more obvious turbo lag phenomenon, and corresponding adjustments have to be made to improve efficiency. The only drawback is that the driver needs to have a very precise grasp of the throttle opening, as even a little too much can easily lead to loss of control.

However, for Zhou Guanyu, who is already a third-year F2 driver, this ability to adapt to driving experience is his advantage over Piastrie.

In the first half of the race, Zhou Guanyu had difficulty overtaking due to the high downforce setting. However, the advantage was that the high downforce setting allowed Zhou Guanyu to easily control tire wear during the race.

Thanks to the relentless pressure tactics shared by Shu Long, Pi Yazi, who was leading the race, was forced to experience unexpectedly high tire wear in the later stages of the race. When both of them experienced insufficient tire grip, the race seemed to enter a special "rain battle" state.

Ultimately, thanks to the low grip and high performance characteristics of the "Shulong Special Tuned" race car, Zhou Guanyu managed to overtake his opponent and win the championship.

Great job! I'm so proud of my son. Here's a reward for you: bring me lunch next time!

When it came to the main competition that belonged to Shulong in the afternoon, they couldn't afford to be outdone.

The layout of the Sochi circuit is quite interesting. The distance between the starting position and Turn 1 is actually very short. Moreover, Turn 1 is one of the few high-speed, large-radius corners on any circuit that can be taken at full throttle.

Strictly speaking, this layout is actually a good thing for even-numbered cars starting from the inside dirty side. The lack of need for drastic deceleration means that the disadvantage of the inside line in cornering speed is not very obvious. On the contrary, there is a chance to use the shorter line to overtake the car before turn 2.

There is a fairly long straight between Turn 1 and Turn 2, and the track is very wide, making it easy for the leader to choose a dominant entry line for the turn on this straight.

However, Turn 1 and Turn 2 are two extremes: one is an incredibly smooth, large curve, while the other is a cramped, low-speed 90-degree turn.

Once someone surpasses you here, it means it will be difficult to find a chance to fight back in the short term.

Of course, all of the above situations require a prerequisite: that the driver starting at P2 can indeed establish a sufficient advantage at the start.

It might be possible with someone else, but the problem is that today's P1 is Shulong.
The five red lights went out.

Someone's devastating start from pole position was as lethal as a nuclear weapon. He had only shifted into second gear when he had already pulled ahead of the McLaren by more than two car lengths. It seemed like the race had entered the most boring leading phase right from the start.

Instead, Norris from P2 to Stroll from P8 were locked in a fierce battle. Alonso, who started at P7, once again made a rocket start, but went off the track at Turn 2. On his return, he went straight to P4 and fought with Norris and the others again.

While it might be a bit impolite to describe one's own agent like that, Alonso's shortcut overtaking undoubtedly became a disruptive force on the track, throwing the entire rear of the race into chaos.

Engaging in close combat at the Sochi circuit significantly slows down lap times, which brings us to another interesting aspect of the Sochi circuit. Don't let the first impression of Turn 1 fool you into thinking it's an easy track; in fact, the Russian Grand Prix boasts some of the most challenging laps on the calendar.

Sochi boasts high-standard paving and a wide track surface, even wider than many conventional paved tracks. However, it is actually a street race track converted from the internal roads of the Olympic Sports Center, which hosted the Winter Olympics.

While it doesn't require navigating between buildings like in Monaco and Baku, this area features numerous sharp-angled corners and even acute-angled corners characteristic of street racing. This means that the choice of racing line is crucial for cornering speed.

The most affected aspect of the entanglement is the choice of route, which makes both the attacker and defender feel very uncomfortable.

Conversely, the driver's skills and the car's overtaking ability will be highlighted particularly clearly here.

Soon, two extraordinary sights appeared on the track.

One was that Shulong took a 2.3-second lead over Sainz after the first lap, and by the tenth lap, he had quickly extended his lead to more than 7 seconds.

They were ahead of the pack, but not only did they fail to break through, they also lost two Hamiltons who were stuck in P7 and unable to move for nearly 30 seconds.

The other was Verstappen, who started from the back on white tires and rose from P20 to P13 by the tenth lap, an efficiency that far exceeded the Red Bull team's predictions in the pre-race tactical meeting.

This seems to give the team more room for strategic flexibility.

So just as Shulong was preparing to further extend his absolute lead, the team suddenly informed him to control his speed slightly, not to let the people behind him catch up, and to maintain the current gap.

"For what?!"

"For the team."

Shu Long didn't reply at first, but when he passed the starting straight on the next lap, he quickly glanced at the rankings and time differences of each person on the large screen broadcasting the race.
"This is a huge sacrifice on my part!"

"Yes, but I think this should fall under the category of 'any help other than yielding to the car,' right?"

"Ha, I guess so?"

Although no explicit confirmation was given, the team took it as agreement when they saw that Shulong's lap time remained consistently around 1:41.7.

However, Sainz's gap with Shulong continued to widen. His overtaking of Norris at the start of the race did not come without a price. A big lock-up before Turn 2 gave his left front wheel a large flat spot, and on lap 11, Norris took advantage of the DRS to successfully overtake him.

The additional tire damage made it difficult for Sainz to pose an effective threat to Norris, and he even struggled to keep up with the car in front of him.

Finally, on lap 13, the first car to pit for a single stop appeared, followed by a large wave of cars pitting ahead of schedule.

This is good news for Shulong, Hamilton, and Verstappen.

Hamilton, who had been stuck at P7 and unable to break through, moved up to P4 for free. Suddenly, he had a 14-second stretch of clean air ahead, which immediately improved his lap time.

At the same time, Hamilton's liberation also meant Shu Long's liberation, because in this game, the person he needed to mark was no longer Norris, who posed no threat to him from behind, but rather Hamilton, who was just outside a window.

With repeated checks from the team's TR, Shulong maintained a level of improvement in lap time that was almost in sync with Hamilton's, and by the way, on lap 20 he extended his lead over Norris, whose lap time had dropped to 1:42, to 12.7 seconds.

Soon even Ricardo opted to pit, and Hamilton officially rose to P3.

However, in a corner where no one was paying attention, Verstappen, on white tires, had quietly risen to P6 in the rankings.
Does nobody really care?

Mercedes' strategy team is already sweating bullets.

Verstappen's improved ranking was not solely due to overtaking; the large number of cars ahead of him pitting also contributed to the improvement. However, this also created ample clean windows for him to push forward at full speed.

As for Bottas, on whom Mercedes had placed high hopes, he was almost powerless to fight back as Verstappen stole his position right from the start.

The three-place gap between him and Hamilton isn't as close as the numbers suggest; there's still a 43-second time difference between them.

The problem is that the cable ahead is always positioned about one window of Hamilton Station!

Each team's lap times are publicly available on the channel, and Mercedes naturally received Red Bull's message that they had Shu Long control the lap times. Anyone with a brain knows what Red Bull was up to.

So Mercedes is also in a hurry. They want Hamilton to work harder to improve his lap time and see if he can escape the possibility of being surrounded by the pit team.

But Red Bull's cars are already fast in Sochi, not to mention that Shulong has the advantage of clean air. Mercedes can only push hard with their heads down, and whether Red Bull is fast or slow depends entirely on their own control.

In fact, whether or not it is necessary to cordon off the area to block Red Bull, Red Bull has already achieved its goal.

The price of speeding at full speed in dirty air is extra tire wear, and Mercedes may have noticed that Hamilton's lap times seem to be declining rather than increasing.

On lap 23, Red Bull finally gave the order for Shu Long to pit ahead of schedule, causing chaos on the Mercedes side.

"Lewis scored! Can we go any faster?"

"I've been working really hard to push things forward, God! What's the time difference?"

No one could calculate in such a short time how many seconds Hamilton would need to go faster. Mercedes turned around and could only get the result that it seemed like the dragon had just changed tires in about 3 seconds.

Fxck!

They definitely did it on purpose!

It's true, but not entirely. Even Red Bull, which has been scheming against Hamilton, would find it difficult to calculate every single second precisely.

However, due to the wear and tear on the old man's tires, their lead was indeed slightly larger than expected, and it was true that they weren't in a rush to change the tires.

The exit lane from the pit lane led all the way to the super long straight after Turn 1. When Hamilton hopefully took the kerb, he only saw a Red Bull slowly accelerating ahead of him in despair.

(End of this chapter)