F1: The Making of a Racing God

Chapter 187 The Pursuit in Progress

"Why couldn't we have entered the station earlier to avoid him?!"

To be honest, Hamilton was a little disoriented when he saw Shu Long appear before him.

Mercedes' pace at the Sochi circuit this week wasn't slow; in fact, if we only consider lap times, thanks to the performance of their rocket engines on several long straights, they might even be slightly faster than Red Bull.

Of course, due to the rain, none of the teams actually demonstrated their maximum speed, so it's pointless to discuss who was faster or slower now.

However, judging solely from overtaking ability, Red Bull should be significantly better than Mercedes.

The person most affected by Alonso's disruptive behavior at the start of the season was Hamilton, who not only failed to improve his ranking but also had his position stolen by Stroll.

That's not so bad, the problem is he can't even get past it?!
It's worth noting that Aston Martin's competitiveness in this race was absolutely bottom-tier! If it weren't for the complicated qualifying situation and the large number of cars that were penalized and didn't perform well, Q2 should have been their limit.

If a young master's green tractor is so troublesome, how would you deal with Shu Long's Red Bull?

Perhaps no one knows the answer, and Hamilton's race engineer, Bono, could only try to calm the driver down for the time being.

"We don't have a good pit window, changing tires early will still leave us stuck in the dirty air, and our opponent in this race isn't Shu."

To be honest, Mercedes doesn't believe that simply changing a tire will solve Hamilton's current predicament; it will only ruin the second Stint's white tire as well.

The key point is that how well Shu Long runs is not the focus in this game. Hamilton's main concern is actually the valiant Verstappen behind him.

Starting on yellow tires against starting on white tires means that every lap earlier he pits is undoubtedly a loss for Hamilton.

Verstappen can now either confidently squander his tires in the clean air cleared by the pit stops, or switch to a more conservative driving style depending on Hamilton's choices.

If Hamilton scores early, it means Mercedes' white tires will be under a lot of pressure in the second half of the game. Verstappen will just need to extend the life of the white tires as much as possible, because the old white tires simply won't be able to withstand the attack of the yellow tires in the later stages.

If Hamilton chooses to pit late as planned and try to hold out, Verstappen could take advantage of these laps to quickly close the gap between them.

Either way, it's a passive choice, and Mercedes has its reasons for wanting to try a direct confrontation.

"The air temperature and track surface temperature are both very low today. Shu's white tires may not warm up in a short time. This should be our opportunity. Don't get entangled with him for too long."

"Yeah—I'll try, and...sorry guys, I've made too many mistakes I shouldn't have made since yesterday."

"It's okay, we're all trying to do our part perfectly. Keep it up, buddy!"

So exciting!
From the initial complaints amidst the chaos to the eventual understanding between them, the atmosphere in the Mercedes-Benz Arena's pit room was exceptionally cohesive. If this were the ending of a movie, the script might have led to everyone working together to defeat their opponents, and then embracing and weeping in the joy of victory.

However, reality doesn't have a fixed script, and Shu Long, as a "villain," doesn't have any guilty moments where he's persuaded to surrender by the "protagonist group."

On the contrary, Red Bull's internal communication channels were filled with a sense of schadenfreude.

"Hamilton is 1.1 seconds behind you, let's give him a piece of our minds!"

"This time we've really offended him badly. Do you know how many fans he has?"

Horner exchanged a knowing glance with Reni, the engineer from Shulong, then rubbed his temples and pressed the call button in front of him to connect to the channel.

"My friend, you have quite a few fans now."

"Really? Then I estimate you might cause me to lose 40% of my health today!"

Now you know you care about this?
If Vettel, who still uses a button phone, is the most isolated person in the entire paddock, then this lazy dog ​​is definitely the second most passive driver Red Bull has ever produced when it comes to business.

In contrast, Verstappen, who gives the impression of being ruthless and taciturn, is practically a chatterbox on Twitter, once treating social media as an online diary platform to share his feelings every day.

At least the others occasionally share glimpses of their lives, but this guy, aside from cooperating with the team and its sponsors to forward advertorials, seems to have no private life at all. If it weren't for the team's request, they even doubt that Shu Long would have created this account.

This is probably also related to Shu Long's consistently negligent attitude. His number of followers on Twitter has always been lukewarm, only around 400,000 to 500,000 before 2019, a large portion of whom are Simplified Chinese users who specifically bypassed the Great Firewall.

However, after the accident in Bahrain last year, Shulong's fans suddenly increased dramatically, and after winning Le Mans this year, he experienced a surge of new fans, which has gradually risen to around two million.

While it's still a bit short compared to Hamilton's seven championships and over eight million fans, he's still considered one of the top five active drivers in the paddock.

However, Shu Long's attitude towards his account remains the same as always. He's too lazy to even bother with his fans. What's he trying to do by bringing it up now?
"So—what additional conditions would you like to add?"

"You have to pay more!"

"No way! Money is out of the question! But after today, I can grant you one small request."

stingy person.
While muttering bad things about his boss, Shu Long's hands were not idle. He continuously blocked the cars behind him in the middle of the line, completely eliminating any possibility of them overtaking.

While chatting and laughing, they had blocked Hamilton all the way from Turn 2 to Turn 9, showing that if they couldn't get through, neither could they!

Red Bull made special adjustments for this race, targeting numerous sharp corners, while the new aerodynamic design at the rear of the car ensured high speeds on the straightaways.

This ensures that even though Shu Long's line is relatively less comfortable, he can still maintain his advantage for a short period when accelerating out of corners. The pressure of blocking Hamilton does not seem as great as the pressure when defending Ricciardo in the previous race.

Overtaking on a series of curves is extremely difficult. The distance left for the car behind to accelerate before each curve is too short, and the places where you can accelerate fully are all high-speed curves, which is extremely unfriendly to race cars in polluted air.

You can see a thing or two from Shu Long's performance. He actually had time to chat with the team in TR while defending.
However, the DRS area after turn 10 was the real test, and Shu Long put away his playful attitude, his expression under his helmet becoming serious again.

The DRS area after Turn 10 is located in the high-speed S-shaped curve. Turn 12, which connects to Turn 13, is another high-difficulty braking area that requires braking in the curve and also involves a change of direction. Compared to the simpler and more aggressive starting straight, few people choose to overtake here.

However, Hamilton insisted on choosing this spot as his attacking position because he couldn't afford to continue the tug-of-war with Red Bull. Every second the tire temperature on the slack tires would rise, and if the battle dragged on any longer, his yellow tires, which had lasted for over twenty laps, would have no advantage over the white tires.

However, the placement of DRS in corners is a rather abstract concept, and without sufficient rear downforce, the car's acceleration will be greatly affected.

Hamilton then made a very smart move here. When the indicator light on the steering wheel that indicated the use of DRS lit up, he did not rush to do so. Instead, he waited until the curve of the road gradually became gentler after Turn 11 before pressing the button to open the rear wing.

The curve of the track is a test for Mercedes, which lacks downforce from the drive wheels, and it is no different for Shulong, whose tire temperature has not yet reached its optimal operating window. So Shulong has his own way of dealing with it. When going through turn 11, he did not hug the apex of the corner, but instead pulled away from the outside of the track at a relatively large angle, which allowed him to find an acceleration line that was close to a straight line.

Hamilton ignored it, sucked in the tailrace and went full throttle until the rightward arc completely closed before turning outwards.

We've arrived at the most crucial and detail-oriented part.

Turn 12 is a left turn, and judging from its curvature, it is a high-speed turn that can be taken at full throttle. However, it is very closely connected to a sharp right turn, Turn 13, with an angle of less than 90 degrees.

The two cars that just finished DRS are now at extremely high speeds, which means they need to start braking early in Turn 12. Otherwise, the extremely short straight braking distance will not be enough to reduce their speed to a speed sufficient to throw the car into Turn 13.

Shu Long knew what Hamilton was up to, and watched helplessly as Mercedes cut inside at Turn 12, successfully making a climb with a shorter line.

However, he was not in a hurry to compete with the old man for this small piece of land. The white tires on his car were not enough to support him to make such a sharp change of direction in the corner to block the line, nor did he have the conditions to compete with the yellow tires in braking.

The problem is that you need to enter a high-speed left turn before entering the braking zone.

Fortunately, before entering the braking zone, you need to go through a high-speed left turn.

Shu Long didn't compete with Hamilton for the best braking line on the inside of Turn 12, which is the outside of Turn 13, because he needed to make full use of the longer and smoother curve on the outside of Turn 12.

While white tires can't compete with yellow tires in terms of late braking, they can compete in terms of early braking.
By gently applying the brakes to slow down in advance, Shu Long entered Turn 12 with a higher cornering speed than Hamilton, and then aligned his front wheels with Hamilton's rear wheels again in the corner.

At the same time, the early deceleration also reduces the pressure on subsequent braking. With a precise heavy braking and tracking, Shulong cleverly achieved the late braking countermeasures in another way.

Of course, it's good enough that such unconventional on-the-spot judgment didn't result in a lock-up; it's clearly insufficient to get the car into a comfortable cornering state.

However, Shu Long's goal was clearly not to corner, but to force Hamilton into Hamilton's line before Hamilton entered the corner, forcing him to switch to a cross-line duel and postpone the outcome until later.

Hamilton cooperated, slowing down his search as he noticed the Red Bull beside him out of the corner of his eye.

After Shulong charged past like a bull, he used an outside-inside-inside line to accelerate out of the corner and continued to occupy the outside line for the next corner.

Turn 14 is another sharp turn that is close to 90 degrees. Normally, Hamilton would be in the most comfortable position to enter the turn at this point, but the problem is that the inside line is now blocked by a large clump of wires.

Hamilton quickly reviewed the layout of the upcoming curves in his mind. Based on his previous research on Shulong's driving style, he seemed to have guessed what this brat was up to.

But there was no time to think about who would benefit more from the subsequent developments. Hamilton only knew that if things continued to develop according to the current script, at least Turn 15 would be his advantage. Without much hesitation, he chose to join the Shulong stage.

As expected, Shu Long on the inside line did not choose to give way to the speed lane. He crept around the apex of the corner in a very awkward manner, and only managed to push the front of the car onto the outer shoulder of the exit of Turn 14.

In the second crossover, Hamilton, as he wished, switched positions and got back into the paint.

After the apex of the right-angle turn at Turn 14, there is still a considerable arc to the left, and at this moment, the outside line is indeed the best acceleration line.

However, Shu Long seems to have overlooked one problem: the next right-angle turn, number 15, has a significant outward camber angle. The outside line has neither line advantage nor grip. Given the current condition of the white tires, if they can't reach the apex of the corner, wouldn't they be in trouble?

Just as Hamilton had anticipated, despite Shulong maintaining a lead of about a car length in the first few corners, he gave up all his previous advantage in just one corner, Turn 15.

Even though Shu Long forced Hamilton to cross the line again by using a late-braking "inside-outside" line at the right turn of Turn 16, which was right behind him, he still managed to give up a lead of half a car length.

The next two turns, 17 and 18, were two consecutive right-angle turns. Hamilton, who had already taken control of the inside and had the advantage in position, didn't know how Shu Long could possibly compete with him!
There was still a long straight after Turn 16, and Hamilton, who had taken the lead, suddenly calmed down during this brief rest period.

and many more!

Where is the DRS detection line again?

like
Hamilton had been frantically trying to recall the track layout, and he only remembered that there were two more corners after Turn 16. He almost forgot that the damn DRS detection line was located in the braking area of ​​Turn 17!
Now how to do?
What was initially a lead in the paint suddenly turned into an extremely awkward position. Should they stop early and let Shu Long pass, only to suffer DRS themselves? Or should they bite the bullet and take the lead first?
Was this something he intentionally planned?
The questionable maneuvers that Shu Long had pulled off in the past made Hamilton suspicious, but the Red Bull beside him, accelerating at full speed as if it were on fire, didn't seem quite right.

With the Empty City Stratagem already in place, the initiative was completely in Hamilton's hands.

Whether it was a misperception or not, Hamilton, who was constantly checking his rearview mirror, suddenly noticed that his lead seemed to have increased by just a tiny bit.

He did it on purpose!
The old man, who was under extreme tension, was like a frightened bird. Shu Long simply released the accelerator and tricked him into slamming on the brakes just before the braking zone.

So what if you take DRS?

The intense battle seemed to have made the entire Mercedes team forget one thing: Hamilton's opponent in this match was not Shu Long.

It may seem like a multiple-choice question, but in reality, they don't have a choice at all.

The outside line is crucial for right-angle corners. Even if Hamilton takes a temporary lead, with a better rhythm for consecutive cornering and the support of the DRS on the subsequent starting straight, it's only a matter of time before he overtakes from behind.

If Hamilton realizes this is a deliberate scheme, it doesn't matter. To trick Shu Long into crossing the DRS line, he would have to sacrifice his braking point. But in that case, even if Mercedes has DRS, there would be no room for overtaking.

Both outcomes would only plunge Mercedes into another round of fierce competition with Red Bull, at which point the outcome would be irrelevant.

A protracted battle would be entirely worthwhile for Shulong, as long as they could maintain their advantage over Norris. However, for Mercedes, who were hesitant and cautious, they couldn't afford to gamble.

Shu Long, who had regained the lead, was overtaken by Hamilton in just two laps, right in the DRS area after Turn 10.

It wasn't that he failed to defend, but he still had 26 laps left in the race, and having done his part, there was no need to ruin his tires too early.

After this lap, feeling utterly cheated, Mercedes finally managed to call the old man into the station.

The yellow tires had been completely ruined by the dragon, and with the repeated entanglements in the previous laps, Hamilton was caught up by Verstappen by a full 7 seconds.

Like Shu Long, Hamilton, who started on white tires, had insufficient tire temperature in the first few laps and was overtaken by Verstappen by four seconds.

With most of the cars having come to a stop and the order restored, the two drivers, though still more than 20 seconds apart, were now neck and neck in the rankings.

One P4, one P5.

(End of this chapter)