Why race if you don’t have money?

Chapter 55 The Legendary Self-Taught

"Don't worry, Uncle Liang, I'm fine."

Chen Xiangbei smiled and gave Liang Chi a thumbs-up in confirmation, then lowered the visor of his helmet. His entire face was hidden in the shadows, and no expression could be seen changing.

In the eyes of outsiders, he is a touring car genius and a complete newcomer who is experiencing formula one for the first time.

In fact, Chen Xiangbei has been driving Formula One cars for much longer than touring cars.

To be precise, equations are his forte!
Not to mention 150km/h, even if it is doubled, it is still an extremely common speed for a prospective F1 driver.

Any F300 car that cannot reach a top speed of 1km/h can be called a tractor, a mobile roadblock on the track!

Seeing Chen Xiangbei's expression of not "taking it seriously", Liang Chi became even more worried. He even suspected that he had trusted this kid too much and made an impulsive decision with Zhang Zhicong.

Everything was ready and the car was ignited. The violent sound of the Formula One racing engine sounded, giving Chen Xiangbei a familiar feeling.

You have to know that even if it is a performance car, if you don’t deliberately step on the accelerator, the idle speed will be around 2,000 rpm.

Formula One vehicles, which are born for racing, are completely different. Even at idle speed, they still have an extremely high speed of nearly 10,000 rpm. This is the real top speed of other vehicles, and it is just the idle speed of the Formula One!
"The track is short, so it's best to warm up your tires over two laps. Xiangbei-kun, are you ready?"

"Ah."

Chen Xiangbei nodded and indicated that the starting lights were not activated as it was just a practice.

"GO!"

Masaharu Ito made a starting gesture, and with the roar of CFR2000, Chen Xiangbei rushed out in an instant.

"Nakamura, the engine didn't turn off."

Technical Director Shio Miyamoto spoke to the electronic engineer Taki Nakamura beside him in a surprised tone.

You should know that Formula One cars use a sequential gearbox, and the clutch angle, force, and coupling point are completely different from those of touring cars.

It's like asking a novice to drive a manual transmission car. He may not even be able to start the vehicle, and the car will stall the moment he releases the clutch.

As the technical director dispatched by Honda Racing, Shio Miyamoto provided technical support to Chen Xiangbei in order to abide by the spirit of the contract, which does not mean that he really has high hopes for this young Chinese driver.

The reason is simple. Not every young person who starts racing in their teens can win by hard work.

In all these years of Formula One history, there is only one Takuma Sato!
"Director Miyamoto, there's something wrong with the data. Please take a look and see what's wrong."

Electronic engineer Nakamura Taki didn't care about the stalling at the start. He stared at the racing data coming from the computer screen.

Under normal circumstances, Formula One cars at the CFR2000 level are not equipped with various sensors for real-time monitoring like F1 cars. The data is usually recorded by the car computer and then connected to the computer to read it after the race.

However, the Huasai CFR2000 has not yet been officially put into mass production, which means that the car Chen Xiangbei is driving now is a prototype. It is equipped with more sensors than racing cars of the same level to assist in the research and development and tuning of the car.

Now that the Huasai Formula One project has completely collapsed, the collected racing data can be used as Chen Xiangbei's practice records, which can be regarded as an early enjoyment of GP2 or F1-level data analysis. "What's wrong with the car?"

Miyamoto Shio leaned over and asked, the CFR2000 had started in good condition just now and there was no unusual noise, so there shouldn't be any big problem.

"It's not a problem with the car, it's a problem with Xiangbei-kun's starting data."

"Look, Director Miyamoto, the starting torque curve and gear shift timing are so precise! This level of proficiency is simply not something a newcomer can achieve!"

The reason why Formula One cars are difficult to drive, in addition to the factors of operating techniques and driving habits, is that they are extremely competitive and have omitted many auxiliary driving devices on civilian cars.

The most basic point is that early Formula One cars did not have TC, commonly known as traction control system.

Even if it is a high-horsepower rear-wheel drive supercar, although it will burn tires and slip when you step on the accelerator, the on-board computer will still calculate the speed difference between the four wheels as much as possible to reduce the slip rate of the drive wheels and maintain the vehicle's driving stability.

Formula One cars have no such electronic assistance devices. When you step on the accelerator, don't even think about flooring it. If the force you press is not linear enough, or if the gear shift is not coordinated in time, it will spin you into a trance on the spot!
Moreover, the difficulty of this coordination is much greater than imagined. Even if one reaches the level of an F1 driver, starting errors can still be seen frequently in races.

Nakamura Taki could understand that Chen Xiangbei did not stall at the start since he was a newcomer, but he could not understand the linear torque curve and precise shifting timing at all.

How can a newcomer who has never driven a karting or Formula One car and doesn’t even understand the most basic speed and gear conversions achieve such skilled operation?
After Nakamura Taki's reminder, Miyamoto Shio realized that the situation was a bit exaggerated. So he called over the race engineer, Ito Masaharu. The three of them looked at each other in confusion at the data computer screen, and the same doubts arose in their hearts.

Are there really geniuses in this world who are self-taught?

Chen Xiangbei, who was warming up his tires on the track at this time, naturally had no idea what the Honda technicians were saying about him.

To be honest, he had deliberately tried to conceal his normal start to warm up the tires in a low-key manner, but some things had become an instinct deep in his bones, just like the strength of stepping on the accelerator and the subconscious coordination of shifting gears.

This is just like an experienced driver who has been driving a manual transmission car for more than ten years. You can't ask him to drive like a novice student in driving school, stepping on the clutch, shifting gears, releasing the clutch to start, and doing each step slowly and in order.

Under normal circumstances, after an experienced driver gets in the car, he or she will not think about the driving steps at all in his or her mind, and will rely entirely on muscle memory to do it.

This is what Chen Xiangbei did. He was just repeating the driving action that he had done thousands of times!

As the CFR2000 drove on the track, Chen Xiangbei began to put aside the distracting thoughts in his mind and fully felt the mechanical performance of the car.

In later generations, when a tool is used to the extreme on the Internet, it will be given the name of "man-X integration", such as the most common "man-sword integration".

When placed in a racing car, it is naturally called "the unity of man and car".

To achieve this, the driver must rely on his absolute sense of the car and years of experience in the mechanical performance of racing cars to discover the flaws and deficiencies in his driving of the car.

If the deficiency is only in the software or adjustable hardware, the driver will collect enough information and feed it back to the team or race engineer. This process is called car adjustment in F1.

If the hardware performance is too poor, the kind that is a design flaw, there is no way to save it...

After driving only a few hundred meters, Chen Xiangbei already began to understand why the CFR2000 was difficult to develop, and after several years it was still in the prototype stage, unable to enter mass production and give investors confidence.

Because this car has so many problems that it is really a bit exaggerated. It does not meet the standards of a real formula racing car at all!
(End of this chapter)