F1: In Ferrari, Schumacher at the start.

Night falls.

Lights illuminated the paddock as mechanics from various racing teams began their long nights of repairing vehicles and verifying data.

In Williams' engineering conference room, Lin Feng had just finished a technical presentation that lasted an hour and a half.

He tossed several pages of densely packed telemetry data onto the table and rubbed his slightly sore neck.

"Alright, Paul, that's enough for today. The chassis setup is on the right track. Let's optimize that patch a bit more, and then we'll run a few more laps during practice tomorrow and see how it goes." Lin Feng stood up and picked up his team jacket draped over the back of his chair.

"No problem, Lin. You did a fantastic job today. Go home and get some rest." Paul nodded.

Lin Feng pushed open the meeting room door and walked into the corridor of the reception area. He saw his teammate Alben leaning against the bar, holding a bottle of sparkling water, seemingly waiting for him.

"Hey, kid, the technical meeting's over?" Alben walked over with a smile, handing Lin Feng a bottle of water.

"Finished. Paul and the others will probably be up until the early hours again tonight." Lin Feng unscrewed the cap and took a sip. "What's up? Did you need something?"

"Nothing serious. I just saw you giving those Ferrari guys a real beating on the track this afternoon, and I figured you must be hungry." Albon's tone was relaxed. "Any plans for tonight? If not, how about we grab some dinner? Muni just flew to Melbourne today. She watched your first and second practice sessions and insists on meeting you, her fellow Chinese who brought Lao Gan Ma (a popular chili sauce brand) into the F1 paddock."

Lin Feng was stunned for a moment, then smiled.

He Muni, Alben's current girlfriend, is a Chinese professional golfer.

In the F1 paddock, this cross-industry couple had always had a good relationship, and He Muni was often seen in Williams' pit lane cheering for Albon. Lin Feng had certainly heard of this cheerful Chinese girl.

"Sure," Lin Feng readily agreed. "As long as I don't eat fish and chips, I'm fine with anything. I feel like my stomach acid has turned into engine oil from eating that stuff at the base these past few days."

"Don't worry, I guarantee you'll get top-quality Wagyu beef tonight." Alben laughed heartily, patted Lin Feng on the shoulder, and said, "Let's go, the car is waiting for us outside."

Half an hour later.

A high-end, modern Australian barbecue restaurant located in the heart of Melbourne, on the banks of the Yarra River.

This restaurant offers excellent privacy, with dim lighting and a relaxed atmosphere, making it a popular spot for F1 drivers and celebrities during the Melbourne Grand Prix.

Lin Feng followed Alben to a private room by the window. A girl wearing a casual jumpsuit, with long, flowing hair and a sunny disposition, was sitting on the sofa, looking down at her phone.

Hearing footsteps, she looked up, her eyes lit up, and she immediately stood up.

"Lin Feng! Finally, I see you in person!" He Muni greeted him in fluent and natural Chinese, very familiar with him. "Your save of the car in the second practice session this afternoon was so cool! My heart was pounding in the P-room!"

"Hello, Muni, nice to meet you." Lin Feng smiled and extended his hand to shake her lightly. "The main problem is that the convoy has tuned the suspension too lively; we have no choice but to fix it."

"Don't be modest. When Alex saw your lap time in the car, his jaw almost dropped to the steering wheel." He Muni smiled and pulled out a chair for Lin Feng to sit down.

Alben sat down next to He Muni, watching the two communicate rapidly in a language he couldn't understand at all, and helplessly shrugged: "Hey guys, I know you've found your group, but could you at least consider the only disadvantaged person here who doesn't speak Chinese?"

"Sorry, Alex." He Muni turned her head and winked at her boyfriend in English, "I was just expressing my admiration for Lin as a Chinese car fan. You have no idea how popular he is in China right now; he practically dominated the trending topics today."

"Of course I know." Albon poured Lin Feng a glass of water. "The Williams team's official social media account has gained hundreds of thousands of followers in the past few days, all of them leaving comments in Chinese. Even Chloe is considering whether to take a Chinese language course."

Lin Feng leaned back on the sofa, enjoying the long-lost relaxed atmosphere.

When you're with Ferrari, even a meal is full of calculations and factionalism, and drivers are constantly fighting over seats.

But in Williams, at least in Alben, Lin Feng sensed pure goodwill.

Alben is a really nice guy. He may not be the most talented player in the paddock, but he is definitely the easiest teammate to get along with.

The waiter served several top-quality Australian M9 Wagyu beef steaks, along with some exquisite seafood appetizers.

"Try this, it's a hundred times better than what you ate in Grove." Alben cut a piece of steak. "Seriously, Lin, how did you manage to make the rear of the car slide without losing control at Turn 11 today? I've seen your telemetry data, and your differential lock-up ratio was set almost 10% lower than mine. Logically, the rear should have struggled a lot when cornering."

Lin Feng became very interested as soon as the topic turned to cars.

He put down his knife and fork, picked up a French fry, and gestured with it on the edge of the plate.

"The FW46's chassis has a fatal weakness: its aerodynamic center shifts rearward in high-speed corners. If you force a high lock-up ratio to grip the road, the front wheels' grip will be lost due to the rear wheels' inertia the moment you enter the corner, resulting in severe understeer," Lin Feng explained very bluntly. "So I release the differential, allowing the rear wheels to maintain a slight slip when entering the corner, using this tiny slip to assist the car's steering. As long as you control the throttle delicately enough, the traction when exiting the corner is actually sufficient."

Albon seemed to be deep in thought, as if simulating the driving experience in his mind.

"It sounds like you're driving a rally car," Albon chuckled wryly. "Your driving style is too reliant on talent. If I used that setup, the tires would probably be worn out after just one lap."

"Everyone has different driving habits. Your refined driving style makes you much better than me at tire management. In tomorrow's qualifying, we'll go one in front of the other and try to keep the Ferrari and Aston Martin behind us." Lin Feng raised his water glass.

"Cheers." Alben smiled and clinked glasses.

Seeing the two chatting so enthusiastically, He Muni couldn't help but nudge Alben with her elbow: "Alright, alright, you two start talking about cars as soon as you meet. Haven't you had enough of driving on the track? It's after work, can't you talk about something more relaxing?"

He Muni turned to look at Lin Feng, her eyes sparkling with gossip.

"Lin Feng, have you checked your social media accounts these past few days?"

"I didn't watch much, what's wrong?" Lin Feng cut a piece of meat and stuffed it into his mouth. "My agent told me that the traffic is good and asked me to post more of my daily life. So I posted a video of Lao Gan Ma today. And you know what, I checked it before eating just now, and Lao Gan Ma's official account actually said in my comments that they would send me another box."

Upon hearing the name "Lao Gan Ma," He Muni couldn't help but laugh out loud.

"You're quite the business genius. You won a championship but didn't give a speech, and now you're online every day begging for pickled vegetables and chili sauce. Now netizens in China call you the F1 freeloader." He Muni picked up her wine glass and took a sip of red wine. "But that's not what I meant. I meant, didn't you check your private messages?"

"Private messages? I haven't seen them." Lin Feng looked blank. "There are tens of thousands of private messages in the backend. My phone would explode if I opened them all."

"You..." He Muni looked at her with a disappointed expression, "Seriously, you've completely broken into the domestic sports circle now. It's not just the racing world, athletes from other sports are all paying attention to you, even my best friend has become your racing fan."

"Your best friend?" Lin Feng casually asked. "The one who plays golf?"

"Not golf, skiing," He Muni deliberately kept everyone in suspense.

"Skiing? Who is that?" Lin Feng didn't know much about winter sports, and after racking his brains, he couldn't think of many names.

"Gu Ailing," He Muni said, giving the name.

Lin Feng paused for a moment while cutting the steak.

Gu Ailing?

That skiing prodigy who won two gold and one silver medals at the Winter Olympics and became incredibly popular in China?

"Her? Watching F1?" Lin Feng was a little surprised.

"She usually likes extreme sports, so of course she watches F1 too," He Muni said with a smile. "This afternoon, after the second practice session, Ailing messaged me on WeChat, asking if I was having dinner with you. She said that after watching your race at the Jeddah Grand Prix a couple of days ago, she thought your driving was so wild, it was totally her style."

Alben, who was standing nearby, heard the name "Eileen Gu" and came over as well.

"Eileen? That amazing skiing girl? I met her once at a Red Bull event; she's a really cool person." Alben looked at Lin Feng. "She's a fan of yours too?"

"Yeah!" He Muni turned to Alben and said, "The main thing is, Ailing complained to me that she sent you private messages on Instagram and Douyin a couple of days ago, but you were so aloof and just 'read but didn't reply'—no, you didn't even read them!"

"What?" Lin Feng almost choked on the beef in his mouth.

Alben paused for two seconds, then burst into laughter.

"Hahaha! My God! Lin, you actually ignored Eileen Gu's private message?!" Alben slammed his fist on the table. "Buddy, if the media finds out about this, your headlines will go from 'Beating Ferrari' to 'Arrogant Lin Feng Rejects Olympic Champion'! Your manager will definitely kill you!"

Lin Feng put down his knife and fork with a dark expression and took out his phone from his pocket.

"I really don't know. My account was only opened two days ago, and it's full of red dots. I can't even be bothered to look at it."

He opened Instagram and checked his private messages.

Sure enough, in the sea of ​​thousands of unread messages, he swiped several times and finally found an official blue V verified profile picture in an inconspicuous corner.

Name: Eileen_Gu_.

Open the dialog box.

The timeline shows two days ago, the night Lin Feng announced his joining Williams.

[Hi Lin Feng! Congratulations on joining Williams! Your race in Jeddah was absolutely insane, I watched the replay three times! Welcome to the extreme sports family, your driving style is so cool! Next time you come back to China, or to North America for a competition, let's go skiing together! ️]

Lin Feng looked at the energetic text on the screen and was at a loss for words.

One F1 Grand Prix champion, one Winter Olympics champion.

In this era of mutual flattery in business, everyone else is eager to tag each other on social media to ride the wave of popularity, but he deliberately left them hanging for two whole days.

The key point is that he also took the time to reply to messages from Lao Gan Ma and the pickled mustard tuber factory during this period.

"Found it?" He Muni leaned over, glanced at Lin Feng's phone screen, and said, suppressing a laugh, "So, Lin, the great racer, now you know what you missed, right?"

"Did I get myself into trouble?" Lin Feng sighed. "If I don't reply, I'll probably be criticized by netizens for being arrogant tomorrow."

"Hurry up and get back!" Alben urged from the side. "I'll take a picture and tweet it right now, with the title 'Shocking! Williams' new king conducts emergency PR at the dinner table.'"

Lin Feng looked at the chat box, thought for a few seconds, and instead of sending any polite words, he typed a line of text and clicked send.

Sorry, I've been working on that tractor in the workshop these past few days and haven't had time to check my phone. Thanks for your support. Skiing is out of the question; I'm afraid I might break my leg and it'll affect my ability to press the accelerator. Next time you come to Weichang, I'll treat you to some English tea.

After sending the message, Lin Feng locked his phone and tossed it back onto the table.

He Muni's eyes widened as she watched his actions.

"That's all you said?!" He Muni could hardly believe her eyes. "They invited you skiing, and you said you were afraid of breaking your leg? Do you have even a shred of romance?!"

"I'm a race car driver, my legs are more important than my life." Lin Feng cut a piece of steak in an extremely straightforward manner. "Besides, we're all athletes, there's no need for all that beating around the bush. It's good to be honest."

Alben was already laughing so hard he leaned back in his chair, and he gave Lin Feng a thumbs up.

"Lin, I'm now convinced that you're not only a monster on the track, but also a freak when it comes to dealing with girls. But I like your style, cheers!"

"Cheers."

A burst of cheerful laughter erupted from the private room.

The dinner lasted until after 10 p.m.

As the three of them walked out of the restaurant, the Melbourne night breeze carried a hint of coolness.

"See you tomorrow, Lin. Good luck in qualifying." Alben and Lin Feng said goodbye by the roadside.

"See you tomorrow, Alex. Thank you for dinner, Monica." Lin Feng waved.

Watching Alben and He Muni get into the car and leave, Lin Feng strolled alone towards the hotel.

He had just opened the car door when his phone suddenly vibrated in his pocket.

Lin Feng took out his phone, and a new message notification popped up on the screen.

From Eileen_Gu_: [Hahaha! It's a deal! Go tractor mechanic! I want to see you in the top three in tomorrow's qualifying! Let Ferrari eat your exhaust fumes!]

Seeing the message that was replied to instantly, Lin Feng couldn't help but laugh.

This girl's personality is quite similar to my own.

"Top three?"

Lin Feng looked up and glanced in the direction of the racetrack.

"Then, as you wish."