F1: Starting with a Simulator Master

Chapter 125 Saudi Arabian Flight Circle (Part 1)

The Q3 countdown on the large screen directly opposite the main grandstand reached zero in front of more than 40,000 spectators.

On the starting grid, the Rolex clock, representing the official F1 timekeeping, read 00:00. Under the cover of night at the Jeddah coastal circuit, all the electronic flag signal panels instantly switched to checkered flags.

The order to stop the clock during qualifying has been officially issued!

Apart from the red Prancing Horse that had just barely crossed the starting grid at the last second, four or five cars that were still on their return laps all slowed down and quietly retreated to the edge of the track, giving Luo Xiu the cleanest driving line.

At this moment, the focus of broadcast cameras worldwide and the eyes of more than 40,000 people in the stadium is on the only car still roaring wildly, number 55.

In the final moments of qualifying, a time that should have been a full-throttle sprint, this car was burdened with a desperate disadvantage.

In order to enter the flight circle before the clock stopped, it was forced to perform a series of overtaking and evasive maneuvers in the exit circle.

The MGU-K battery storage (SoC), which represents additional hybrid power, is not on the 100% charge scale.

To compensate for Ferrari's weak straight-line top speeds this weekend, the aerodynamic angle of its front wing was forcibly adjusted to almost a horizontal position. Without front downforce, the front of the car became even more reluctant to enter corners and understeer.

This is not the driving style that Luo Xiu prefers.

Even more fatal was the second foam seat in the cockpit, hastily made overnight, which had already deformed and collapsed after being ravaged by Q1 and Q2.

But the driver in this race car didn't care about these physical difficulties at all.

The deep blue virtual racetrack constructed by Luo Xiu's mental palace has perfectly overlapped with the real world.

He now only has one goal: to grab pole position and take P1.

The Jeddah Coastal Circuit, stretching 6.174 kilometers and boasting the most corners of any of the 24 races throughout the year (27 deadly corners), welcomed its final challenger of the night.

On the main straight, the DRS rear wing popped open with a snap.

The leveled canard performed as intended, significantly reducing drag on the straightaways and making the tail speed nearly 5 kilometers per hour faster than any of its previous laps.

The numbers on the speedometer climbed wildly: 320, 325, 330!

The 100-meter braking sign for the left turn on T1 was blurred into a white line at the edge of the field of vision.

From a top speed of over 330 kilometers per hour to a heavy braking zone of around 100 kilometers per hour, Luo Xiu's left foot acted like a heavy hydraulic pump, directly applying over 100 kilograms of braking force to the brake pedal.

The longitudinal deceleration load of up to 5G was like an invisible hammer, slamming Luo Xiu forward in an instant, only to be firmly pulled back into the deformed seat with no sense of enclosure by the six-point seat belt.

Through the thin fireproof suit, the pressure points that had lost their support due to the deformation of the seat were constantly pressing against Luo Xiu's back and muscles.

A sharp, piercing pain shot from my back straight to my head.

For other rookies, this level of intense pain would be enough to distort their subsequent actions.

But Luo Xiu's breathing rate remained perfectly normal. His powerful A-level physical strength kept the helmet's center of gravity firmly in place, and he only cared about whether the angle of entry into the turn was perfect.

Downshift, release the brakes, and engage T1.

The consequences of reduced downforce on the front wing fully manifested the moment it entered the corner.

Without enough downforce to hold the front of the car firmly, the front wheels experienced a sharp decrease in grip.

At extremely high speeds, the front of car number 55 refused to obediently point towards the apex of the corner, instead exhibiting severe understeer. The entire car was like an uncontrollable slippery rock, desperately pushing its head towards the outside of the corner's crash barrier.

It wanted to rush out; it wanted to throw the rider onto the barrier.

Luo Xiu's response was both brutal and precise.

Relying on his top-notch lap time and reaction speed, within a fraction of a second of noticing that the front wheels had no traction and the front of the car was sliding outwards, he adjusted the direction and slammed on the brakes, forcibly pushing the car's massive kinetic energy towards the front axle.

By shifting the center of gravity sharply forward, the front wheels, which had lost traction, were forced to press back against the road surface, squeezing out the last bit of steering grip.

At the same time, the hands displayed extremely precise and detailed control, and the car body began to obediently rotate to the left, forcefully pulling this beast that refused to enter the corner into the apex of the T2 right turn.

With the engine roaring, the race car accelerated wildly at full throttle before the exit of the T3's slight left turn. The Pirelli red tire on the left side grazed the cold concrete crash barrier on the outside of T3, passing by less than a centimeter away.

The most thrilling and exciting part of the first time slot has begun!

T4 to T12 is the most terrifying combination of consecutive high-speed blind spot serpentine curves on the Jeddah Coastal Circuit.

The rapid, alternating left and right turns, with metal and concrete walls on both sides offering no buffer zones, make it arguably the most extreme high-speed, narrow corridor.

With an average speed exceeding 250 kilometers per hour and continuous alternating lateral overloads of up to 4.5G, in this region, an ordinary person's neck simply cannot support the weight of their head, let alone maintain clear vision.

Extreme cornering at high speeds means even more terrifying air imbalance. With every turn of the steering wheel, the rear of the race car teeters on the edge of losing control. This requires such strict control over the driving line and steering angle that even a 1% deviation in angle can lead to loss of control.

In the third practice session, which ended a few hours earlier, Zhou Guanyu lost control of his car and crashed into the wall as he was going through the T7 corner here, due to a very slight loss of grip at the rear of the car.

Fortunately, the person is unharmed.

However, the serious crash caused him to miss the entire qualifying race due to the time limit for repairs.

But Luo Xiu never even considered loosening his right leg.

The most insane scene occurred in the blind spot between T7 and T9.

Faced with this deadly section of track that severely tests both air pressure and driver courage, several telemetry engineers in Ferrari's pit garage were already clutching their heads in terror.

On the screen, the throttle of car number 55 was firmly locked at 100%.

Instead of controlling the gears in the conventional way, Luo Xiu opted for the riskiest but most precise approach of shifting up early within the extremely narrow grip window.

During continuous high-speed lane changes, he shifted up gears in advance, deliberately keeping the engine in a lower RPM range.

This sacrifices a tiny bit of acceleration power, but greatly reduces the risk of rear wheel slippage caused by sudden power intervention during normal gear shifts.

He made the V6 hybrid engine roar with a deep, tight rumble, like a lurking beast suppressing a roar in its throat.

With extremely smooth yet perfectly controlled throttle, this red vehicle weaves through the narrow, blind-spot water pipe like a dragon.

Every time he takes a corner at the limit, the tires run over the red and white curbs, and the airflow under the chassis can cause fatal instability. Luo Xiu's hands input on the steering wheel is extremely small, but the frequency of adjustments is so high that it is beyond the limit of human vision.

With almost instinctive micro-management, he precisely pulled the race car back to a safe trajectory every millisecond before it went out of control.

As the race car exited T8 in 7th gear, on the short blind spot straight leading to T9, the LED indicator light on the edge of the steering wheel, which indicated the gear shift, finally flashed a blinding red light.

When the race car was thrown out of T9 in a terrifying extreme posture and crashed head-on into the continuous turning zone that required an instantaneous counter-steering to re-enter T10, facing the engine speed that was about to hit the redline and cut off the fuel, Luo Xiu made a completely different choice than before.

He deliberately gripped his right hand tightly, refusing to shift up, letting the engine roar all the way up to the 14000 RPM fuel cutoff red line.

This is not only a shift in weight from the right turn of T9 to the left turn of T10, but also an extremely demanding choice of route.

In order to extract the perfect exit speed from this blind spot combination bend, he had to sacrifice the speed of T9 in order to forcibly widen the entry angle of T10.

In this life-or-death struggle with a lateral load of up to 4G, even the slightest bit of torque removed by shifting the paddle shifters is enough to cause the rear wheel, which is on the verge of slipping, to instantly lose control.

This is a trade-off at the limit; even with an extra kilometer of top speed, the race car would not be able to enter T10 normally.

0.5 seconds later, the race car flashed past T9 like a red lightning bolt and aimed at the center line of T10.

The extreme tangent line resulted in a perfect cornering posture for the subsequent T10.

When the car was thrown out of the T10 corner with a terrifying sideslip, the centrifugal force naturally carried the car to the outermost edge of the track.

If the tire shifts just one centimeter to the right, the left tire will completely cut off the guide line, invalidating the lap time and resulting in failure.

Fortunately, the extremely low drag brought about by the leveling of the front wing was transformed into the unparalleled acceleration and penetrating power of car #55 the moment it exited the corner.

The race car stabilized itself just as the tires touched the edge of the white line, and then plunged headlong into the suddenly open T11 and T12 like a wild horse.

From beginning to end, Luo Xiu never released the accelerator for even a second.

On the large broadcast screen, the time for the first timing segment was frozen.

Unsurprisingly, it's purple!