F1: Starting with a Simulator Master

Chapter 122 Cyber ​​Devotion

Friday evening, local time: 20:00 PM

Night officially fell on the Jeddah coastal street race.

Inside a VIP box at the Weichang Club.

As Sainz's sudden appearance of a real-life "bloodshed" curse continues to spread across the internet, Xu Zihang's live stream is now filled not only with hardcore car enthusiasts, but also with millions of people who don't even know what F1 tires look like, and Luo Xiu's fans who simply want to cheer for the "Chinese racing god".

Just a few days ago, this group was sending anonymous takeout orders to all the major racing teams around the world, except for Sauber, in an attempt to physically cripple several official drivers with raw marinated seafood platters.

Who would have thought that the mysterious power of the East didn't go through the digestive tract, but instead precisely targeted the Spaniard's appendix?

With the countdown to the start of the ranked matches underway, the live stream chat has transformed from simply watching the game into an extremely absurd "massive cyber-themed event."

The screen was filled with gift effects that almost crashed the broadcast, and bizarre IDs such as "May Sainz stay healthy forever," "Thank you for nature's bounty," and "Appendix Hero Sainz" flooded the screen.

[Hahahaha, holy crap! Our plan actually worked!!! Call me Cyber ​​Fairy!]

[Hey guys, I heard that right after Sainz had his appendix removed, the hospital was flooded with fruit baskets from Chinese car enthusiasts. Is this a hospital visit or an offering?!]

[Sainz (squeezing the IV tubing): Thank you so much, your whole family!!!]

[Who says otherwise! I heard Leclerc went into the P room today clutching his crucifix the whole time, afraid he'd be the next one to be haunted!]

[Hilarious! Norris from McLaren next door not only brought three thermos flasks today, but he even had to have his saliva tested by a poison expert before swallowing!]

Don't even mention it! A friend of mine took out a loan from an online lending platform to bet on a Sauber driver change, and it turned out that Rodgers went to Ferrari. He just came down from the rooftop and is now delivering takeout all night to pay off his debts!

[Go, Luo Shen! Sainz's appendix removal shouldn't have been in vain!]

Faced with this massive and extremely complex flow of data, Xu Zihang showed no signs of intimidation.

Looking at the screen full of hellish jokes like "Thanks to my old friend Sainz for sending me an appendix," he forced back his abs from laughing so hard they were cramping, then casually opened a can of Red Bull and chugged it down as a tranquilizer.

He propped his phone up on the table in front of him, cleared his throat, and temporarily took on the role of "King of Traditional Chinese Medicine."

"Fellow Daoists—no, esteemed viewers! It's 1:30 AM here in China!"

"Today we won't teach you how to draw talismans or how to cast spells. Thank you all for your collective efforts the past few days. Let's start with a little TV appearance—"

"But hold on a minute, don't spam the chat! We have a lot of new friends in the live stream today, so I'll explain the upcoming match rules, or ranked matches, to those of you who want to see Luo Shen dominate, in the simplest terms!"

Xu Zihang spoke very quickly, afraid that these fanatical believers in metaphysics would report and shut down the live stream, and quickly got to the point.

"F1 qualifying, to put it simply, is a battle royale where the laps keep getting smaller. It consists of three sessions: Q1 (18 minutes) and Q2 (15 minutes)."

Q2 lasts for 1 minute. At the end of each quarter's countdown, the five slowest cars on the field are eliminated.

The final ten drivers will enter the 12-minute Q3, a battle of the titans, and whoever is the fastest will start in first place in tomorrow's main race.

By the way, the lap times for each qualifying session are calculated separately and repeated; the time from one session cannot be carried over to the next.

As he spoke, he pointed to the three tire arrangement diagrams on the broadcast screen behind him.

"The most crucial thing in qualifying is this kind of red tire."

Throughout the weekend, Pirelli offered three dry tire options: red soft tires, yellow medium tires, and white hard tires.

The fastest lap time achieved on the same race car using soft tires can be several seconds faster than on white tires.

However, the softer the tire, the faster it wears out. You can think of it like a disposable item in an online game; its peak grip can only support one flight lap.

While interacting with the live chat, Xu Zihang also posted a huge betting odds in the live stream.

[Let's bet! Can Luo Shen make it into the Q3 finals tonight? And good luck to Zhou Guanyu!]

Due to the massive influx of betting data, the live stream's servers even experienced a slight lag, causing the "can" progress bar to fill up instantly.

With almost no suspense, the comments section erupted in unanimous celebration.

Meanwhile, live streams like Xu Zihang's are taking place all over the world. The hype surrounding the show on foreign websites, combined with the protective instincts of domestic viewers, has pushed the excitement of the audience to its peak before the show even started.

Soon, the Q1 started up, and the roar of its engine tore through the night sky.

In the commentary room of Five Star Sports, Fei Ge, Bing Ge, and Ran Ge were present.

"Let me see—how many sets of new red tires does Luo Xiu have now?"

There are three sets.

"Hmm—Right now, Luo Xiu's No. 55 race car has 3 sets of new red tires, and if he enters Q3, he will get an extra set of red tires."

"Yes, if you want to take full advantage of the tires in Q3, then you can only use one set of red tires in Q1 and Q2."

"What's wrong with Ferrari? Didn't they know to give Luo Xiu an extra set of soft tires?!"

Bingge was in charge of complaining, while Feige was in charge of quickly analyzing tire strategies.

Inside the Ferrari pit garage, preparations were in full swing.

Even though Luo Xiu demonstrated extremely strong long-distance stability and very competitive flight lap data in the second and third training sessions.

It still didn't have much impact on the decisions of the arrogant Ferrari engineering team.

To ensure that the expensive SF24 wouldn't be destroyed on this zero-buffer street circuit, the strategy team completely ignored Luo Xiu's concerns about excessive downforce leading to a loss of top speed.

The team made a conservative decision, giving Luo Xiu a setup that favored high downforce and low top speed for survival among new recruits.

This will ensure Luo Xiu's stability when cornering to the greatest extent possible, even if it means sacrificing some top speed.

The best mode for Ferrari qualifying is to adjust the engine mode knob on the steering wheel to "Engine Mode".

PUSH mode of "1".

However, F1 cars are not mass-produced cars; they are fast-moving consumer goods pushed to their physical limits.

For a 1.6T V6 internal combustion engine to produce over a thousand horsepower, its performance degradation is precisely calculated based on kilometers and RPM.

Unlike GT cars, which can easily last for tens of thousands of kilometers, GP cars like F1 cars have a peak lifespan of only about 4000 kilometers for their power units.

The more you push an engine to its limits, the more likely it is to wear out prematurely.

In a long season spanning 24 matches and over 15,000 kilometers, the FIA ​​only awarded a paltry "4".

"Set" power unit exemption quota.

A single power unit must withstand at least six Grand Prix weekends; exceeding this limit will result in a catastrophic penalty of being relegated 10 grid positions from the starting grid for the race.

Because the absolute performance difference between the ten F1 teams' cars is very large, the fastest and slowest cars can usually have a lap time difference of more than 2 seconds.

Therefore, in order to save engine life, leading teams generally choose to limit the power output to a lower engine mode during Q1.

Ferrari's tuning style prioritizes stability.

Therefore, the engineering team ignored Luo Xiu's suggestion about tail speed loss without any psychological burden.

They believed that with the car's absolute strength, it would be enough for Luo Xiu, a newcomer, to achieve a good result safely.

On the control tower beside the track, Vassell listened to the engineer's final report, cut off the microphone, and looked back at the direction of the garage with a deep gaze.