F1: The Making of a Racing God

Chapter 260 C!Y!F!C!
"How did you get up here?"

Shu Long hugged Gasly with a look of surprise. He had been so poorly informed about the game that he knew almost nothing about what was happening on the field.

Moreover, unable to keep track of Verstappen's movements behind him, the dragon, driven by the fear of the unknown, remained fully focused on advancing for the last ten or so laps.

This was just one game without TR, but after getting off the train, I felt like I had been transported to another world. It was like Captain America being frozen for decades and then waking up to find himself surrounded by bizarre Supermen.

Gasly briefly described his experience in the race to Shulong, still out of breath as he spoke. The high temperature in Baku and the physical strain of driving at high intensity throughout the race were only part of the problem. Even now, he still couldn't believe that he had actually managed to get on the podium.

Actually, there's nothing particularly special about it; the key was Shu Long's crucial slipstream during yesterday's qualifying race.

Gasly started from P5, a very high position, and then Leclerc and Sainz retired in turn, so his actual position on the track was already P3.

Later on, there wasn't much to praise. It was simply that they made the right strategic choices at every crucial juncture, and managed to withstand the high-intensity attacks from the two Mercedes cars behind them for nearly 35 laps.

It is difficult, indeed.

After all, Toro Rosso's actual speed ceiling in this race was not as high as Mercedes', especially since Ferrari retired before Gasly had no one to provide slipstream for him. He had to manage his battery power very precisely every lap, while also ensuring almost zero mistakes under extremely high mental pressure.

But it is indeed quite simple.

Mercedes' dolphin jumps in this race were nothing short of a nightmare. The vertical G-forces experienced by the cars during the race even exceeded 0.75, far higher than the average of around 0.6 for other teams. Teams like Red Bull, which control dolphin jumps well, can generally maintain a vertical G-force of around 0.53.

The excessive undulations on the straights caused the car to bottom out severely, slowing them down by at least 0.2-0.3 laps. As long as Gasly did his job, it would be very difficult for him to find any truly threatening opportunities.

The old man was so shaken that he almost lost his mind. During the race, he groaned several times in the TR (Training Track) because the pain in his back was almost killing him. He barely made it to the end of the race, but he almost couldn't even get out of the car. He had to sit and rest for a while before he could barely walk again.

Looking at the little Red Bull beside him, which no longer had the familiar blue and red paint job he remembered, he couldn't help but feel a pang of sadness.

If it weren't for the fear of being fined for touching the opponent's car after the race, Shu Long would have liked to go over and touch it a couple of times to feel its spirit and see what kind of young lady she had grown into in the two years he had been away.

Although the car was relatively uncompetitive when it was with Toro Rosso, it performed quite reliably during the season and didn't cause any major problems for Shulong in terms of reliability, which is quite surprising.

As for Verstappen, he didn't have many thoughts on the matter.

From his perspective, it was just a normal run through the game. Apart from making one attacking attempt at the beginning of the game, there was almost nothing he could do or could do for the rest of the time.

Anyway, his position went from P3 to P2 in a daze, and he officially overtook Russell in the overall annual points standings, and was only 12 points behind Leclerc. If Ferrari continues to be so muddleheaded, it will only take one or two races to overtake him.

However, at this point, Shulong's lead over second place on the leaderboard had reached 61 points.
With 14 races remaining in the season, if Shulong can maintain this momentum, Verstappen might completely lose any theoretical chance of winning the title in just a few more races if he doesn't make a strong effort.

So when Verstappen gleaned that crucial information from the conversation between Shulong and Gasly, one can imagine the shock and frustration on his face.

"Wait, wait, wait! You mean you didn't use TR for almost the entire match just now?"

"Yeah, it's about the same as running a whole race with your ears plugged and your eyes covered."

Seeing Verstappen start pulling his hair with unusual force, Shu Long chuckled and bumped fists with Gasly. Everyone knew this was crucial information that could completely turn the tide of the battle.

If Verstappen knew during the race that Shulong was unable to receive the team's instructions in a timely manner, he might actually consider adopting a tactic of stopping less frequently and trying to outmaneuver Shulong's depleted engine with the old white car, which could very well be successful!

Indeed, a considerable number of teams took advantage of Magnussen's virtual safety car to decisively change their strategy from a one-stop tactic to a two-stop tactic, but there were also drivers on the track who took the risk of adopting a one-stop tactic.

For example, Gasly, who went up to the podium with them at that moment.

To avoid being undercut by Mercedes behind him, Gasly, who started on yellow tires, also pitted on lap 9 and then used a set of hard tires to hold out until the end.

On the one hand, the retirement of the two Ferrari players, coupled with the fact that Shu Long and Verstappen were pulling further and further ahead, directly gave Gasly a large stretch of clean air where he could safely maintain his position, which gave him the precondition to take an extreme stop.

Another point is that the yellow flag in the section caused by Magnussen's withdrawal allowed Gasly to escape very luckily, and the time difference between him and Mercedes instantly became more than 4 seconds.

This time difference is definitely not enough to make room for a pit stop. If Mercedes suddenly stops, Toro Rosso will suffer huge losses. Obviously, maintaining their position on the track is more important to them.

As a result, one Mercedes car chose to pit, while the other remained on the track to try and catch up, and in the end, they simply finished the race in their original positions.

The power struggle between Gasly and Mercedes also shows how dangerous Shulong's situation was at the time. If Shulong had made an extra pit stop due to a lack of TR communication, it could have very well given away a championship that was already in his grasp.

It would have been better if we hadn't talked about this, because it made Verstappen even more upset.

He didn't participate in the Red Bull family's "champagne" celebration at the awards ceremony. Even after being doused with white foam by Shu Long and Gasley, he just sat there by himself, chugging his sparkling juice from a large bottle.
It's not that I have any issues with Shulong or Gasley.

He felt that the team had a clear chance of winning, but failed to do anything at that crucial moment, which he considered a crime!

I think Horner might be in for another headache lately.

Not long ago, they finally managed to appease Shu Long, but now Verstappen may be preparing to tear up the team's peaceful development rules again. The strategy of favoring whoever is in a more forward position doesn't seem to be a foolproof solution.

Especially for drivers like Shu Long and Verstappen, would they be willing to settle for second place if they were temporarily behind on the track?

That's absolutely impossible!
Perhaps Marko's theories, which are sometimes easy to talk about from a position of privilege, are not without merit. The pursuit of stability and peace within the team is stifling the drivers' natural desire for speed and victory, and no amount of suppression can be a long-term solution.

What to do next and how to make specific improvements is a very complex issue that has existed since the birth of F1. Obviously, it is not a primary school math problem that can be solved in a short time.

After the race, the team held a special discussion on this topic, mainly focusing on Verstappen's dissatisfaction with the race strategy.

He believes there's nothing wrong with the team's strategy favoring the leading driver, since when he's in the lead, he'll naturally want to receive more strategic resources from the team.

Teams may not actively offer advice to drivers who are lagging behind, but you can't stop drivers from offering advice to themselves, right?
You can't unilaterally demand that drivers be honest with their teams and then stifle their chance to fight for themselves. If you do that, the so-called "free competition" rule will be meaningless from the start.
Shu Long didn't speak, but he felt that Verstappen's words today made a lot of sense. It would be very foolish to deliberately ignore the team's current management problems just because of his own vested interests.

After all, he can't guarantee that he can run ahead of his teammates in every game. There will always be times when he finds himself in a similar predicament as Verstappen did today. Anyway, he doesn't think he will consider sitting and waiting for his fate.

If his teammate suffered a loss in this match, then he should be given a platform to vent his emotions. Apart from nodding in agreement, Shu Long would just quietly hide under the table and browse information about Le Mans.

As for the others, it may require several more rounds of trial and error to gradually eliminate some unreasonable answers before a relatively clear management framework can be gradually developed.

As expected, Toyota's No. 8 car team successfully defended its championship title without any major incidents.

Saying
Known for his "genius team selection", Alonso didn't encounter so many problems during the two years that the No. 8 car team ran Le Mans. After Shu Long left, the No. 8 car team was able to run smoothly. It was just that the year he was there that the start was full of ups and downs.

So, the "protagonist" is indeed the root cause of the misfortune?

But upon closer inspection, Ye Yifei seems to have had some bad luck. Last year, his engine broke down on the last lap before he was supposed to win the championship, and this year he suffered several tire blowouts, ultimately finishing in P7.

Zhou Guanyu was also an unlucky guy.

Mechanical failures have been a constant companion since the lower-level formula racing series. Even after moving up to F1, the same fate has occurred countless times. Every time there's a glimmer of hope for scoring points, a mechanical failure in the race car comes along. My child is so anxious he's almost ready to speak Chinese!

You only realize how unlucky something is when it happens to you personally.

When Shu Long felt that it was already outrageous that his engine was short of power and his TR was disconnected in a single race, not to mention anything else, which of the four cars that withdrew from the race didn't feel that they were more unlucky than Shu Long?

Even those who didn't withdraw weren't without their share of misfortune. Although Kakuta became a strategic sacrifice for Toro Rosso in helping Shulong and Gasly make a deal in the qualifying round the day before, he still managed to make it into Q3, didn't he?

Not only did he make it into Q3, but with a bit of slipstream support, Kakuta also secured a starting position in P8. As long as he didn't make any major mistakes, consistently scoring points shouldn't be a problem. However, midway through the race, his adjustable tail wing flap broke off in the middle in a very bizarre way.

How unlucky does a person have to be to encounter something like this?

Kakuta, who saw this in the rearview mirror, was almost dumbfounded. He quickly opened the TR and asked the team how to solve the problem, but the only answer he got was "bring tape".

This isn't some local dialect with a cherry blossom flavor from Kakuta; it's something that Toro Rosso really intends to do, and that's exactly what they're doing.

We had no choice but to go to the station one more time, and hurriedly had the mechanics apply a few band-aids with super glue before we were off again.

After that, there was no DRS available, and even the train formation couldn't keep up, taking turns being swallowed up on the track and sliding all the way to the back of the pack.

Other races like Verstappen's weren't so smooth either. First, Leclerc's retirement broke the DRS range between him and Shulong, and his slightly higher resistance setup became one of the culprits that made him fall further and further behind Shulong in the later stages of the race.

As for the other unfortunate withdrawals that led to his current precarious points standings, let's leave that aside. Verstappen isn't the type to dwell on the past; otherwise, after achieving success, the first person he probably wouldn't have let off the hook would be his own father.
In comparison, Shulong is indeed very lucky.

For Horner, it was undoubtedly a good thing that the two fiercely competitive drivers could reach such a consensus, because he really didn't have the extra energy to deal with trivial matters lately.

Negotiations between Red Bull and Porsche have stalled, with both sides seemingly disagreeing with the current terms. Besides this major issue concerning his future career plans, he also has some troubling matters in the paddock that he needs to address while still in his role as team manager.

Speaking of this upsetting matter, Horner wants to first scoop the shit out of the FIA's brain.

They keep clamoring to promote environmental protection concepts, advocating for the use of environmentally friendly fuels, and trying to push for new regulations to increase the proportion of electric motors in engines.

As a result, they crammed a Canadian Grand Prix into a bunch of European race schedules, requiring the entire team to concentrate all their resources on an ultra-long-distance transport of over 9000 kilometers. What the hell is the point of scheduling it as a back-to-back race week with Azerbaijan?
Azerbaijan may not be considered part of Europe, but its location in the South Caucasus region of West Asia is closely connected to Europe, and its culture is even more closely linked to Europe. To some extent, it is not unreasonable to consider it a European country.

But Canada
Would it kill you guys to group it with other American events?
Miami, Canada, and the American COTA, plus the Mexican Grand Prix—on one hand, they're ruthlessly squeezing the budget caps of each team, and on the other hand, they're splitting the three Americas races into the early, mid, and late stages of the year, just to keep the teams busy!

They hadn't even finished dealing with things in Azerbaijan when they had to juggle matters in Canada. Shu Long and Vestapan were exhausted, and the conflicts that had already surfaced had to be temporarily put on hold.

They've gotten used to this kind of work rhythm, traveling all over the world all year round.

Gan Mengning, experiencing this jet lag intensity for the first time, also became quite haggard. Originally, she had just come out for a vacation after graduation to travel around with Shu Long, but she ended up going through such a big ordeal that it was even more tiring than going to school. She had never been this exhausted even when she was preparing for the postgraduate entrance exam.

For the first few days after arriving in Canada, the girl was listless and seemed to be in a daze from morning to night. Wearing a soft panda onesie, she would drowsily lean against Shulong whenever she had the chance.

Unable to resist his girlfriend's childlike whining, Shu Long had no choice but to log into Gan Mengning's million-follower Dou Ke account, donning a Q-version white fluffy character skin to help make up for two days of livestream time. He was also forcibly recruited to the studio's voice actor team to act as their carry for two days.

The problem is that those fans seem to love watching this, and it seems that Shu Long winning the championship has become commonplace in their eyes.

When asked about his reasons for commenting on the bullet screen, Shu Long was speechless at the answer he received.

Back when he was with Toro Rosso and Haas, Shu Long could monopolize more than 30% of the broadcast screen. Now, even if he leads the whole game, he doesn't get many shots. It's really better to watch the live broadcast from the sidelines to feel closer to your idol.

In the past two days since Shu Long started his live stream, many people have been encouraging him to broadcast more often. They said that if he's too lazy to manage his own live stream account, he could just join his girlfriend's live stream instead of randomly appearing in other people's live streams like in a lottery. Whether he can get fans is purely a matter of luck.

Look at Norris, he's built a huge following through his match management and live streams.

Even though his personal salary as a driver is incomparable to that of Shu Long, the commercial value brought by his live streaming has brought him a lot of sponsorships and endorsements. In addition, as a top-tier rich second-generation, he has the resources to rely on. Even if his performance is average, he is definitely one of the highest-paid drivers in the paddock.

Shu Long hadn't decided what to do about it for the time being, and just gave a perfunctory reply of "we'll talk about it later."

During the most difficult period, Shu Long did consider live streaming, but he always felt that deliberately promoting himself was not the work style he wanted, and car fans might not like watching it, so in the end, it just fizzled out.

Now, Leclerc and Shulung are both fighting for the annual championship, Russell urgently needs to prove that he has the ability to carry Hamilton's banner, and Albon needs to carve out a place for himself in Williams' brand new system.

The former livestreaming team members are now all busy struggling with life, except for Norris, who has continued to make it a part of his life.

Aside from Norris, Verstappen, who frequently appears in the online Redline team's live stream, has become the most active streamer. In fact, because the simulator equipment hasn't been delivered and set up in time, he has spent the last two days streaming COD with his online teammates instead of driving.

Horner, on the other side, wasn't having such a good time.

Although his wife accompanies him most of the year to support his work, Horner, as the actual manager of such a large team, simply doesn't have the time to indulge in romance like the two drivers in the team.

Following the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, the issue of dolphin jumping has once again become a hot topic.

According to information from the paddock intelligence network, a certain team, or more bluntly, some teams led by Mercedes, may attempt to intervene in the FIA's rule decisions by using dolphin jumps.

The report didn't specify who was behind it, but Horner was willing to vouch for it, saying that Toto, who was becoming increasingly frustrated, was definitely involved.

As a result, Horner had to appear in front of the media multiple times to publicly express his views on the dolphin jumping phenomenon and bolster his own reputation in advance.

The core argument is that there are many ways to solve the dolphin jump problem. If the problem is affecting the driver's health, then "some" teams could simply install a thicker template on the floor or raise the floor height more directly.

This is because "some!" teams themselves went astray, choosing unsafe ways to operate their cars, sacrificing driver health for speed.

This is a problem they need to deal with themselves, not something they should be making a fuss about and trying to force everyone to accommodate them.

As expected.

After two practice sessions on Friday, Mercedes once again suffered severe dolphin jumps on Villeneuve, a track known for its stop-and-go characteristics. When Domenicali gathered the team principals for a "coffee meeting" on Saturday as usual, Toto made no secret of his intention to try to hold all the teams hostage.

This time, Toto's behavior seemed to have truly gone mad. He not only repeatedly emphasized the dangers of dolphin jumping, but also directly issued substantial threats to the other team leaders present.

This indicates that if any driver is involved in an accident or even injured due to the dolphin jump, he will hold everyone present accountable.

There was even a DTS crew filming on site. Other team leaders, more or less, were hesitant to speak up because of the team's image or because they felt uncomfortable speaking up against the client's team.

Or like Steiner, who sees things clearly but feels no need to get involved and simply smiles and remains silent. This is similar to an honest man with a technical background like Noto, who is still trying to offer technical solutions to the current controversy. Steiner, sitting next to him, couldn't stop him no matter what.

The focus of this discussion was actually unrelated to technology from the very beginning.

Horner, a cunning old fox, knew from Toto's very first words that the latter was trying to manipulate paddock politics, aiming to drag other teams up and force the leading teams back to the same starting line as them.

Horner, shifting his legs from side to side, clearly showed his impatience. When he heard Toto was about to hold others accountable, he immediately retorted.

"If your car has a problem, then change it! (You've got a problem, change your fxcking car!)"

Seeing that his goal was not being achieved, and that Horner had so rudely torn him apart in front of everyone, Toto instantly turned red with anger.

"Then why don't you go and modify your car too? Long kept complaining about how rubbish your car was last weekend, why didn't you modify it any better?"

"No, no, no, Long never said our car was rubbish. In fact, you might have forgotten that he just won the championship in that car last weekend!"

The scene briefly resembled a primary school students arguing, as if by placing their hands in front of their chests, making an "X" sign, and shouting "Rebound!", the opponent's skills would never be able to hurt them.

Anyway, Horner has already achieved his goal.

Making a complete mess of things was something he was always good at. The most important thing was to dismantle Toto's moral high ground in front of everyone, so that Horner wouldn't have to be constrained by Toto's "correct" stance in front of the media in the future.

This is the most crucial point!
(End of this chapter)