F1: In Ferrari, Schumacher at the start.

Chapter 104 Drunken Fist Defense

Five red lights went out!

With a deafening roar of engines, the two beasts on the starting grid simultaneously released their clutches.

But in the very front of the line, the world before Lin Feng's eyes was distorted.

The extinguished red light left a large, blurry afterimage in his eyes.

Those weren't five lamps; on his retina, they transformed directly into a long string of bright red candied hawthorns.

Although his heat resistance skill shielded him from the high temperature inside the cockpit, he still felt dizzy, and the engine roar in his ears gradually weakened, replaced by a strange auditory hallucination.

"Lin Feng! Slowly release the clutch! Find the half-clutch point! If you stall, you'll be practicing starting from the spot all day!" Coach Wang's roar exploded in his mind.

The scene then shifts to Zhao Peng holding a wine glass: "Lin Feng, go drive a forklift in Tongzhou. Room and board included."

"Screw your forklift! I drive an F1 car!"

Lin Feng bit his tongue hard, the sharp pain finally pulling him back from his hallucination.

But it was too late.

This brief lapse in concentration slowed his reaction time slightly.

"Five red lights are off! The competition begins!"

David Croft exclaimed, "Oh my God! Lin, who started from pole position, has messed up! His Williams is struggling to get going, and the rear wheels are spinning badly!"

Martin Brundl shouted, "He's definitely affected by the high fever! The cars behind him are all pressing up!"

On the Williams team's leaderboard, team principal James Walls covered his face with his hands, peeking at the screen through his fingers. He had only one thought in his mind: "Damn it, this guy's definitely going to knock everyone behind him flying like bowling balls."

Los Angeles, USA, across the ocean.

Gu Ailing, wearing pajamas and barefoot, stood on the living room carpet, staring intently at the large television on the wall.

"Step on the gas, you idiot!"

On the track, the situation had reached a critical point.

Leclerc and Norris, who were in third and fourth place respectively, had a perfect start. They immediately pulled away, one on the left and one on the right, ready to directly overtake the slow blue car in front of them on the starting straight.

Leclerc looked at the Williams in front of him, which was swaying from side to side and seemed unable to even drive straight, and sighed silently.

"He's not really delirious from the fever, is he?" Leclerc slammed on the gas. "Sorry, brother, but this is Monza."

The red Ferrari used its slipstream to quickly close in on Lin Feng's rear, preparing to cut inside.

At this moment, Lin Feng's vision was filled with double images.

He glanced at the rearview mirror.

What the heck? There are four red Ferraris in the rearview mirror! Which one is the real Leclerc?

Lin Feng shook his head vigorously. With less than a hundred meters to the braking point of Turn 1, his brain was simply incapable of making complex line calculations.

"Never mind, block it all up!"

Lin Feng simply gave up thinking and, relying entirely on his physical instincts and muscle memory, suddenly turned the steering wheel to the right.

The race car screeched as its tires rubbed together at high speed, coming to a stop right in the middle of the track, blocking Leclerc and Norris's overtaking route with a bizarre "dragon tail" maneuver.

Holy crap!

Leclerc broke out in a cold sweat and quickly slammed on the brakes to swerve to the left to avoid the obstacle.

We've reached the first turn, which requires slowing down.

Under normal circumstances, the driver should brake at the 150-meter mark.

However, Lin Feng's fever made him slow to react, and he didn't slam on the brake pedal until the 100-meter marker flashed by.

"Sizzle—!"

Two thick plumes of white smoke rose from the front wheels of the Williams. The carbon ceramic brake discs instantly erupted in blinding flashes of light, and the tires locked up completely.

A huge gasp erupted from the 100,000 spectators in the stands, all thinking that the blue race car was about to crash off the track.

Norris yelled in terror over the radio, "He can't stop!"

Just when the race car was about to go out of control and crash off the track.

Lin Feng quickly pressed the pedal with his left foot while using his right hand to shift downshift.

The race car struggled wildly on the verge of losing traction, its rear end swaying violently twice before miraculously regaining its balance!

Lin Feng smoothly shifted the steering wheel, and the two wheels of the race car rolled high over the red and white speed bumps. The car jumped into the air and crashed heavily to the ground, getting stuck at the exit of Turn 1.

He held onto first place!

Leclerc and Norris, who were behind, were forced to slow down and give way in the corners in order to avoid this car with its strange trajectory, which inadvertently blocked each other's positions.

"Incredible!" Croft exclaimed in the broadcast booth. "Lin Feng defended his lead at Turn 1 in a brutal, even ugly, way! It's like drunken boxing!"

Williams' command wall.

James Walls lowered his hands from his face, let out a long breath, and felt like he was about to have a heart attack.

He turned and glared fiercely at the game engineer, Paul.

"Immediately ask him on the radio how he's feeling! If he's not feeling well, call him back for the next lap and have him withdraw from the race!"

Paul quickly pressed the call button: "Lin, report on your condition. What happened at Turn 1? You locked your tires."

Lin Feng's heavy breathing came through the headphones, with wind noise and engine roar in the background.

Two seconds later, Lin Feng's hoarse and weak voice came back.

"Paul—I think I just saw my middle school homeroom teacher standing on the shoulder of Turn 1 as punishment. Could you contact the race organizers and have them remove unauthorized personnel from the track?"

Paul stared blankly, unable to utter a word for a long time, while James looked up at the sky in despair.

"He's even hallucinating," James gritted his teeth. "Get a substitution ready! No, get the ambulance ready!"

However, the race on the track will not stop because of anyone's high fever.

Having weathered the crisis at Turn 1, the race entered a high-speed back-and-forth battle on the first lap.

Lin Feng discovered that as long as he didn't actively think about the racing line and left everything to muscle memory and instinct, he could barely keep the car on the track.

The temperature inside the cockpit was rising, and his fireproof underwear was already soaked with sweat. He fumbled for the water dispenser on the steering wheel, and a stream of warm liquid sprayed out from the straw in his helmet.

He gulped down warm water, trying to replenish the fluids he had lost.

Just then, he suddenly remembered the "Iron Bladder" talent he had won in the system lottery yesterday.

"System, at least your lousy talent is finally somewhat useful," Lin Feng thought to himself with a bittersweet smile. "At least I don't have to worry about peeing in my expensive racing suit no matter how much water I drink today. This is a kind of dignity defense, I guess."

By the fourth lap, the tire temperature had fully risen, and DRS access was activated.

Leclerc's Ferrari was tailing Lin Feng less than a second behind. The red race car displayed terrifying speed on the Monza straight, ready to launch a fatal attack at any moment.

"Charles, overtake him on the straights. His line is very unstable, don't try to fight him head-on in the corners, it's easy to collide," the Ferrari engineer instructed over the radio.

"Roger that. This guy's defense today is completely unreasonable; he doesn't even look in the rearview mirror!" Leclerc complained.

Entering the starting straight, Leclerc decisively pressed DRS, the Ferrari's rear wing opened, and the speed instantly soared, quickly closing in on Williams from the right.

The entire Iron Buddha Temple team in the stands stood up, waving red flags, ready to welcome their home heroes' triumph.

Just as the two race cars were about to run side by side.

Lin Feng felt another wave of intense dizziness, his vision went black, and his hands instinctively steered slightly to the left.

The Williams race car drew a small "S" shaped serpentine path on the straight.

This movement may seem small, but on a straight road where speeds exceed 330 kilometers per hour, even the slightest lateral movement can cause significant changes in airflow.

Leclerc, who was accelerating at full speed on the right side, suddenly felt a disruption in the downforce at the front of the car, and the Ferrari swayed slightly in the crosswind.

For safety reasons, Leclerc had to ease off the accelerator, giving up this excellent overtaking opportunity and retreating back into Lin Feng's slipstream.

"What the hell?!" Leclerc roared into the radio. "He's playing a dragon defense on the straight! That's too dangerous! FIA..."

"Aren't we going to do anything about it?"

The tournament officials quickly launched an investigation. However, after reviewing the video, they found that Lin Feng's change of direction was very small, barely touching the edge of the rule-permitted "one-time change of direction defense," and did not constitute a violation.

"He's not playing defensively." Paul stared at the telemetry data and reported to James in a heavy tone, "Boss, Lin's turning input on the straight was unconscious. His energy is rapidly depleting; he's just pushing himself to the limit."

James slammed his fist on the table and picked up the walkie-talkie.

"Lin! Listen up! Get in the station immediately! This isn't a request, it's an order! Your health is far more important than these points!"

"Sizzle—"

All that came through the headphones was Lin Feng's deliberately distorted, static-filled voice. This stubborn mule had no intention of following orders.

The race has reached the fifteenth lap.

Lin Feng's lead remains unchanged, but the gap behind him is widening. Leclerc, Norris,

Piastrelli, and even Sainz in fifth place, caught up.

Circle after circle.

The fear of being pressured and engaged in close combat with several top-class race cars would have broken the mental defenses of any normal driver.

But Lin Feng did not.

The drowsiness brought on by the fever actually masked his sense of fear. He had no energy to care how many cars were chasing him in the rearview mirror; all his attention was focused on how to keep himself from passing out and how to hit the next brake.

On the famous Parapolica long right turn.

Due to exhaustion, Lin Feng took an unusually wide turn, almost completely opening up the inner lane.

Leclerc seized the opportunity and shoved his car into the inside, preparing to overtake at the apex of the corner.

As the red Ferrari was about to exceed half its length, the cheers from the main grandstand were already reaching their throats.

Sudden.

Lin Feng, positioned on the outside, slammed his right foot down, ignoring the tires' grip limit, and floored the accelerator in the middle of the corner!

Williams' rear wheels instantly lost traction, and the rear of the race car slid sharply outwards.

Normally, Lin Feng would have eased off the accelerator to save the car. But now, his bloodshot eyes were filled with madness. Instead of easing off the accelerator, he counter-steered, using the car's sliding motion to force the front of the car to the exit of the corner!

"boom!"

The blue race car, trailing a cloud of blackened tire smoke, aggressively pushed Leclerc off the inside line from the outside in an extremely wild, almost rally-drift style, and with a higher exit speed, it once again left Leclerc in the dust.

The cheers of Ferrari fans were abruptly cut off, turning into incredulous gasps.

Leclerc looked at the Williams ahead, its tires belching blue smoke, and was completely exasperated.

"This guy—" Leclerc shook his head, "He's got a death wish."

When Gu Ailing saw this scene on television, she covered her mouth with both hands and tears streamed down her face.

She understood that feeling, that obsession with winning by giving it your last ounce of strength.

"You're crazy, you're a complete lunatic!" Gu Ailing cried and laughed as she cursed at the blue race car on the screen. "You absolutely have to bring the car back!"

The sunlight above Monza was blinding.