F1: Starting with a Simulator Master

Chapter 120 Is this a newcomer?

Local time: Thursday, 16:30.

The first free practice session (FP1) has officially begun.

Oliver Biermann drove his Ferrari, temporarily painted with the number 55 livery, onto the track, which is known as the world's fastest street circuit.

On the control panel screen in room P, the telemetry signal representing Biermann began to fluctuate violently.

[TR: Oliver, the tire temperature hasn't reached the operating window yet. Pay attention to the braking point at T1. Please respond if you hear this.]

[TR: Hoo——————Hoo————Coythat (received).]

On the vehicle's radio frequency, Biermann's breathing was very distinct and extremely heavy.

Even through the noise-canceling microphone, the engineer could hear that he was enduring the stinging pain from the foam seat that wasn't fitting him properly.

However, in terms of driving skills, this Ferrari substitute driver demonstrated extremely high professionalism.

His every gear shift and every pedal movement was perfectly executed.

Everyone knew the challenges Biermann faced, but he carried out all the engineers' instructions for maintaining the pregnancy and conducting system tests without complaint, in a textbook manner.

The broadcast camera switched to the in-vehicle feed, and Biermann's movements were clean and efficient.

While navigating a series of high-speed corners with lateral pull of up to 5G, he endured the excruciating pain, his neck withstanding the G-force, and his line was as precise as if drawn with a ruler, without any swaying caused by the pain.

One hour later, FP1 ended.

Biermann gritted his teeth and delivered an extremely impressive performance in the final stages of the qualifying simulation.

6th overall.

The race car was safely brought back to the garage. Biermann unbuckled his six-point harness and, with the help of the mechanic, somewhat stiffly climbed out of the cockpit.

A genuine round of applause erupted from room number 55, which originally belonged to Sainz.

Thousands of kilometers away, in the conference room of Ferrari's headquarters in Maranello, there was no noise from the racetrack, only lap times displayed on a large screen and a few Ferrari executives in suits talking in hushed tones.

The executives, who were initially tempted by the €10 million betting agreement, began to waver as they watched the steady and steadily rising telemetry data from Biermann on the tablet.

"Gentlemen."

A gray-haired Italian executive broke the silence, tapping his fingers heavily on the conference table. "Although Biermann looks distressed, he's steady and obedient."

"With Red Bull's two Martian rovers so dominant, what Ferrari needs most right now is not the occasional flash of a miracle, but rather for both cars to consistently bring back team points."

He glanced around at the others in the conference room. "Clearly, Bierman can do it. And that Chinese kid who probably can't even understand system commands might just bring in traffic—"

He paused.

"—Or perhaps it was a disaster that caused the race car to crash into the Jeddah protective wall."

These words, filled with stereotypes of old European aristocrats and risk aversion, quickly reached a consensus in the meeting room.

On the political scales regarding who would secure the second seat, the higher-ups, who had initially favored the €1000 million investment, have once again tilted their own reserve driver in favor of the second-best driver.

The immense political pressure was placed on the Chinese drivers who had not yet taken the stage and were still jet-lagged.

Local time, 20:10.

The second free practice session (FP2) is about to begin.

In the friends and family lounge of the Ferrari No. 55 race car's pit garage, Chen Pengfei looked through the glass at the busy engineering team inside, his brow furrowed.

"The temperature is dropping too fast. The working window for C3 compound neutral tires is too small at the current road surface temperature."

"7

Chen Pengfei crossed his arms, his face full of worry.

"Luo Xiu just flew in from Monaco yesterday and hasn't even recovered from jet lag yet. With this level of fatigue and these track conditions—the probability of his tires locking up and crashing into the wall is—"

He turned to look at Xu Zihao. Ever since he made his promise to Luo Xiu's parents, Chen Pengfei's protectiveness towards his son had grown stronger.

"What is Ferrari doing?!"

Xu Zihao stood to the side, replying to the message while his eyes revealed pure calculation.

"No need to get so worked up, Lao Chen."

Xu Zihao spoke calmly, "Look at the live broadcast over there."

Chen Pengfei glanced at it and saw it was Sky Sports' viewership curve.

"It's 4 p.m. in London and 1 p.m. in New York, both of which are prime time in Europe and America."

Unlike Chen Pengfei's overprotective attitude, Xu Zihao had a clear understanding of the current situation.

He was also concerned about Luo Xiu, but he hid his anxiety very well.

"Ferrari's management now wants both."

With a hint of mockery and disdain for Ferrari, Xu Zihao knew that Chen Pengfei was just confused because he was concerned.

"They wanted the ten million in sponsorship, but they also wanted to ensure their own Bierman's rise to power. So Vassil played a balancing act—"

Give this peak traffic time slot to Luo Xiu.

Xu Zihao didn't stop replying to the message, "Although the grip is poor now, think about the qualifying time, it's not without its advantages. After all, people are looking at the rankings, not just the absolute single lap time."

Chen Pengfei slapped his forehead, instantly realizing what was happening.

The qualifying rounds and the main race tomorrow night will all take place during this time slot!

"Vassell knows best the results of our closed-door test during the offseason. That old fox appears to be fair on the surface, but I feel that he actually favored Roche during that period."

Before Xu Zihao could finish speaking, a mechanic shoved the long, external starter motor into the rear drive shaft of the Ferrari No. 55 race car.

"I could watch the F1 engine startup process a hundred times and never get tired of it, it's just too outrageous —"

A deafening explosion erupted, instantly rousing the previously silent race car as its 1,000-horsepower V6 engine roared fiercely, tearing through the night.

Luo Xiu drove his race car away from the pit lane, and his second practice session officially began!

The starting circle.

"Luo, switch the current engine mode to mode 4, increase the brake ratio by 2 notches, and switch to ERS after turn 1."

Kinetic energy recovery mode —

—The asphalt temperature on the track is currently only 22 degrees Celsius, it's very slippery, please be careful to increase brake temperature—

The track engineer's voice came through the TR, speaking very quickly and without any emotional fluctuation.

This is a standard, nanny-style instruction; he's using the most basic racing driving mode switching and energy management information to test the newcomer's execution ability.

"Copy." (Received)

Luo Xiu's voice was calmer than his, without even a pause in breathing, as he executed all the track engineer's instructions in one go.

The lights were very strong at night, but the edge of the track was still not visible to the naked eye. After a slip followed by a brilliant recovery, Luo Xiu activated TR before the track engineers.

"The car slipped just now, but it's fine. There's fine sand on the right edge of the lane line in the continuous high-speed section from turn 19 to turn 21."

""

Luo Xiu's report continued.

"There was a crosswind on the highway between curves 25 and 26, and the rear of the car was not stable enough after turning on DRS."

Over the next hour, these brief radio communications occurred at almost every bend.

In his first stint, Luo Xiu didn't rush to set a new lap time. Instead, he actively communicated with the track engineers, executing every instruction from the team 100% while continuously providing real-time data on the car and the track.

Behind the control tower, team leader Vaselle quietly listened to the TR (Traffic Transmission System) through his headphones while watching various telemetry data on the screen.

Not long ago, Oliver Biermann achieved a good result in the first practice session.

Biermann was very obedient and a model executor; he drove exactly as the team set up and gave him instructions.

But Luo Xiu is different.

Looking at the screen filled with adjustment plans that were being updated in real time based on Luo Xiu's feedback, Vasel couldn't help but exclaim: This Chinese kid isn't just adapting to the race car in one direction; he can actually feed back a lot of information to help the engineers with tuning and planning!

Is this really a newcomer?