F1: In Ferrari, Schumacher at the start.

Chapter 97 Car Tuning and Hot Sauce

The sky was overcast as usual, and a light drizzle pattered against the glass curtain wall of the Williams Racing headquarters, giving off a damp chill typical of Britain.

Tomorrow, the team will set off across the North Sea to the Zanderford circuit in the Netherlands for their first Grand Prix after the summer break.

Meanwhile, the atmosphere in the simulator hall and engineering debugging area at the team headquarters was bustling with activity.

"Lin, Turn 3 at Zanderford has a lean angle of nearly 19 degrees. We need to stiffen the car's suspension, otherwise the chassis will hit the pavement directly at the apex. What do you think?"

The competition engineer, Paul, stared at the dense telemetry data on the screen and asked without looking up.

"My subjective feeling is that my brain feels like a tattered sack that's been tossed into a washing machine and churned for half an hour."

Lin Feng slumped in his chair like a lump of mud, sporting huge dark circles under his eyes, holding his fourth double espresso of the day.

He let out a huge, unseemly yawn, and even managed to squeeze out two drops of natural tears from the corners of his eyes.

The eight-hour time difference, coupled with a long flight of more than ten hours, has put his biological clock in an extremely chaotic Schrödinger state.

It could be said that his body is currently at 2 PM in the UK, but his soul is still fast asleep in the early hours of the morning back home.

"I have no objection to stiffening the suspension." Lin Feng took a big gulp of coffee, forcibly pulling Naoki back to his senses. "But the downforce of the front wing must be sufficient. Zanderford is all sand, and when the wind blows, the track surface becomes as slippery as an ice rink. I don't want to spin around like a top in high-speed corners."

"Understood. The aerodynamic kit has already been simulated in the wind tunnel. We will include the tail fin with the highest downforce."

""

Before Paul could finish speaking, a familiar voice suddenly interrupted from the side.

"Actually, I think you could try taking the high line at Turn 3. Use the outside of the camber to build up speed, and then cut the inside line when exiting the corner. I tried it on the simulator last year, and it made me 0.1 seconds faster."

Lin Feng rolled his eyes and turned his head away with difficulty.

His good teammate Alexander Alben was sitting on the edge of the data console, leisurely pointing out the situation, holding a steaming cup of black tea, like a leader inspecting the workshop.

Alben returned to the UK two days earlier and had long since adjusted to the time difference. He looked radiant and even had his hair styled with hair wax.

"Alex," Lin Feng said, looking at him irritably, "Are you bored out of your mind? Have you finished tuning your own car? Why are you coming here to give me these random instructions?"

"My car is basically finished, the mechanics are doing the final tightening." Albon shrugged, looking innocent. "I just came to offer some advice because I saw you were jet-lagged. After all, overtaking is extremely difficult on the Zanderford track, qualifying is everything."

"Thanks for your experience." Lin Feng sneered, mercilessly exposing his weakness. "If I remember correctly, this veteran didn't even make it into Q3 in qualifying at Zanderford last year, right? Is your high-line driving strategy just a way to get you stuck in the sand?"

"Cough cough!" Alben's face turned green. "Hey! Don't hit someone in the face! Last year it was because the tires didn't warm up properly, is that my fault?"

"Alright, alright, it's easy for you to talk when you're not the one doing the work. Go back to where you came from and stop getting in my way, slowing me down." Lin Feng waved his hand like he was shooing away a fly.

Paul and several mechanics standing nearby were trying their best to suppress their laughter as they watched the two clowns bickering.

The two exchanged a few more words, but Lin Feng forced himself to cheer up and, together with the engineers, plunged into the specific parameter tuning of the race car's suspension and differential.

4:30 PM.

All the tuning data was finally finalized and sent to the garage for actual vehicle modification.

"Phew—done and all done."

Lin Feng let out a long breath, stood up from the chair, and stretched his stiff neck and shoulders.

"You've worked hard, Lin. Go back to the hotel and get some sleep. The charter flight to Amsterdam is at eight o'clock tomorrow morning, so don't oversleep again." Paul closed his laptop and breathed a sigh of relief.

"Wait a minute, don't go yet."

Lin Feng suddenly remembered something and his spirits lifted.

He walked to the corner, grabbed his backpack, unzipped it, and started rummaging through it.

"Guys, to thank you all for your hard work over the past six months, I brought back some authentic Eastern specialties from my summer break trip back to China!"

Lin Feng turned around, a malicious smile on his face.

In his hands, he was holding two transparent glass bottles.

Inside the bottle was a bright red, viscous paste floating with chili seeds and minced meat—the very same Lin's mother's secret beef chili sauce that he had almost had confiscated by customs at Heathrow Airport, mistaken for a biological weapon!

"What is this? Jam? The color looks very vibrant."

Chief mechanic Dave was a typical chubby British lad who loved sweets. Upon seeing the bright red glass bottle, he immediately came closer out of curiosity.

"Bingo! You can call it 'Chinese Spicy Jam'," Lin Feng said with a straight face, making it sound like nonsense. "It's homemade by my mother, with top-quality beef and special spices. In China, it's as common as butter is to you. It's a perfect dipping sauce for bread or noodles!"

Paul pushed up his glasses and leaned closer to look: "It does smell like a very peculiar fragrance."

"Come on, everyone, there's a share! Let's all have a taste."

Lin Feng eagerly unscrewed the bottle cap. A rich, intensely spicy aroma that seemed to hit right at the top of one's head instantly filled the air.

Dave swallowed hard and grabbed a packet of soda crackers from the adjacent break room.

"I'll give it a try!" Dave volunteered.

He used a butter knife to scoop out a dollop of chili sauce, about half the size of a golf ball, from the jar and spread it generously on a soda cracker. Then he opened his mouth wide and took a big bite.

Lin Feng's eyelids twitched as he watched from the side.

This is the ultimate enhanced version, with double the amount of chili, specially made by his mother to cure his bird-like taste that had faded after half a year in Europe!

The amount of spiciness in Dave's bite was probably equivalent to the total amount of black pepper he had eaten in the past twenty years.

One second.

Dave was still chewing, even nodding approvingly: "Hmm, the beef flavor is very rich, and the texture is very—"

Two seconds.

Dave's voice abruptly stopped.

Three seconds.

Visibly, Dave's chubby white face, like a chameleon, swelled up from the base of his neck to a purplish-red color like a pig's liver.

His eyes widened suddenly, and tears streamed down his face without warning.

"Cough! Cough cough cough cough—!!"

Dave clutched his neck and coughed violently, like a broken bellows being stepped on. He then jumped up as if he were doing a tap dance.

"Water! Water! My God! My tongue is on fire!"

Dave, mouth agape and hands flailing wildly in the air, rushed to the break room like a headless fly, turned on the tap, and shoved his head under the sink to drink furiously.

Paul and the other mechanics standing nearby were stunned by this sudden turn of events.

"This—is this poison?!" Paul stared in horror at the glass bottle on the table, instinctively taking two steps back.

Hahahaha—!

""

Lin Feng leaned against the data table, laughing so hard he almost fell over, tears streaming down his face.

"Paul, don't be nervous, it's just regular chili sauce." Lin Feng laughed so hard he could barely breathe. "Dave's just eaten too much. You British people usually think even black pepper is spicy, but this is authentic Chinese chili sauce! But trust me, once you get past the first wave of spiciness, you'll definitely get more and more addicted!"

Paul swallowed hard and shook his head firmly. "No, thank you, Lin. I think I'd better just eat my oatmeal. I need to keep my tongue to direct tomorrow's practice match."

The entire construction area was in chaos. Some people handed Dave milk, while others took pictures of the bottle of hot sauce and posted them on Instagram.

Just as Lin Feng was distributing the remaining two bottles of hot sauce to the other daring mechanics who wanted to challenge themselves, Alben somehow wandered back like a ghost.

He glanced at the half-empty bottle of chili oil sauce on the table, then at the gifts Lin Feng handed to the other technicians, and his previously leisurely expression instantly crumbled.

"Hello!"

Alben stood with his hands on his hips, looking pitifully at Lin Feng like a wronged wife.

"Lin! Are you kidding me? We're teammates who fought side by side! We're brothers! You brought back all the local specialties from China, and you shared them with Paul and Dave, why didn't you give me any?"

Albon pointed at Lin Feng's nose: "This is workplace bullying! I'm going to complain to James about you disrupting team unity!"

Lin Feng slowly zipped up his backpack, then turned around and looked at Alben, whose face seemed to say, "If you don't give it to me, you don't love me."

Lin Feng raised his right hand with great elegance and gave Alben a straight middle finger.

"F**koff, Alex."

Lin Feng rolled his eyes.

"What right do you have to play the victim with me? Do you think I don't know? Lily is from Sichuan, right?"

Upon hearing his girlfriend's name, Alben paused for a moment: "Yes, she's from Sichuan. Why?"

"What's wrong?!" Lin Feng sneered, looking him up and down. "Don't you have any idea how spicy Sichuan people can handle? You've been dating her for so long, and you've been going to Chengdu for vacations all the time. Haven't you eaten your fill of hot pot, skewers, and boiled beef? Your stomach's tolerance for spice is probably high enough to enter a chili-eating contest!"

Lin Feng slammed his hand on the chili sauce bottle on the table, speaking with righteous indignation.

"I brought these bottles of hot sauce back to give these uncultured British bumpkins in our team a taste sensation and a cultural export! This is a valuable strategic resource! Giving it to you? That would be a waste of resources and a betrayal of our friendship!"

Dave and the others, who had just been so overwhelmed by the spiciness that they questioned their existence, all cast resentful glances at him when they heard him called a "country bumpkin from England."

Alben was rendered speechless by Lin Feng's barrage of words. He smacked his lips, recalling his last trip to Chengdu, where he was confronted by Lily.

After being dragged around to eat an insanely spicy nine-compartment hot pot, I spent two days and two nights on the toilet feeling like I was dying, and I couldn't help but shudder.

"That seems to make sense." Alben awkwardly touched his nose, decisively giving up the idea of ​​asking for local specialties. "Forget it, I'll just drink my black tea."

"You're smart to know what's good for you."

Lin Feng threw the empty coffee cup into the trash can and slung his backpack over his shoulder.

"Alright, that's a real wrap now. Dave, drink some milk to cool down the spiciness. See you tomorrow, guys."

Lin Feng waved and walked out of the hall with a flourish.

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