F1: The Making of a Racing God

Chapter 35 Pierre Gasly's Frenzied Hairline Crisis

"What if we don't know each other?"

"What do I care if I don't know them! Go wherever you want!"

"And if you know each other?"

"Even if I know them, I wouldn't dare to say anything carelessly. What if I give some bad advice and ruin their good thing? Would we end up becoming enemies?"

Zhou Guanyu clutched his forehead in anguish: "So what you said is the same as not saying anything at all? I'm begging you, just think of it as what choice you would make if you were in that position?"

Shu Long pondered for a long time before finally letting out a heavy sigh.

What's the situation on your end?

"That's right. I did well in Prema this year, and the team hopes that I can stay with the team and represent Prema after I move up to F3."

"Isn't that great?"

“I think it’s great. I’m familiar with these engineers and the team’s integration is good. But my mom has other concerns. She wants me to go to Motopark.”

After listening for a long time, Shu Long finally understood the ins and outs of the matter.

Actually, it's hard to say who's right and who's wrong between Zhou Guanyu and his mother; both sides have their own valid points.

In short, if Zhou Guanyu chooses to move up to Prema's F3 team tomorrow, it's almost certain that he won't receive any preferential treatment from the team.

Lance Stroll, also a Ferrari youth academy graduate, will stay with the team next year to compete for the championship. His wealthy father essentially bought the team outright and even put several engineers from Mercedes F1 into his son's car crew.

In such a situation, it would be almost impossible to outrun one's teammates.

The thing a driver should avoid most is comparing himself to his teammates. No one cares whether you have been treated unfairly. People will just think that if you are slower than others while driving the same car, you are just a noob.
This is also what Zhou Guanyu's mother was worried about. In many cases, staying in one place is not a good choice. Only by seeking change can one survive.

At the same time, the Motopark team was willing to offer Zhou Guanyu a very generous offer, basically giving him the resources of a main rider in the first year. It would be hard for anyone not to be tempted by this.

In other fields, Zhou Guanyu's mother's decision might be considered a stroke of genius, but in the Formula One racing world where the capital structure is basically solidified, it's hard to say.

Many people think that resources don't have that much of an impact, but that's just an excuse that losers make for themselves.

But is that really the case? If resources really don't matter in F3, a race for standard cars, then why are teams like Prema so dominant and difficult to challenge?
In addition to close collaborations with many youth training programs, the mechanics' exceptional car tuning skills, the ever-advanced component resources, and the substantial financial resources to "rug up" Formula One cars like they would go-karts.
An average racing team is lucky if they have one car with all its parts in perfect condition, while big teams can even ensure that all three cars in each race are almost brand new.

Even if both teams just put a brick on the accelerator, Prema's car will still be faster than other teams' cars.

If it were Shu Long himself, he would rather spend a year in Prema than waste his confidence in a small, uncompetitive team. He doesn't expect them to give him a piece of the pie, but he certainly doesn't want to be held back by a terrible race car.

"I don't know what decision is best for you, I'll just tell you about my situation."

The Carlin team is considered a top-tier team in F3, but even so, Dr. Marko doesn't trust their engineers and is planning to bring in a few well-trained mechanics for me.

"Wait a minute! So you're one of those people who gets on the team through connections? Red Bull is treating you this well?!"

"Yes, but that's not the point. The point is that Red Bull will invest a certain amount of technology in Carlin next year. So not only me, but my two teammates whom I don't know yet will also benefit next year."

"You mean the Stroll family's investments would also be subject to this situation?"

"I don't know that! I'm just telling you about my situation; you have to weigh the specifics yourself. Besides, don't be fooled by my current resources and privileges. What if I can't keep up with my two teammates next year? Well, that'll be a different story."

Shu Long didn't know how Zhou Guanyu ultimately weighed his options, and he didn't dare to interfere in other people's lives.

However, when Shu Long returned to Salzburg, Austria after the New Year and received the official driver registration list for each team for the following year from Marko, Zhou Guanyu's name was prominently displayed below the Prema team.

A rookie who has only been driving F4 for a year can be directly selected as a regular driver without even having to be a reserve driver, which shows that Zhou Guanyu's own level and market potential have indeed earned him a lot of preferential treatment in Ferrari's youth training program.

This time, Shu Xiong and Zhang Xin did not stay to accompany their son. At this stage, there was not much they could do to help Shu Long anymore, and staying here might only become a burden that distracted their son.

Actually, the past two years have been a short break in Red Bull's youth training program. They just sent a large number of drivers into F1, and so far they have only managed to find one new talent, Shu Long.

When Shu Long returned to the base, he only met a Frenchman named Pierre Gasly, who was four years older than him, equivalent to the generational difference between a high school freshman and a college student.

The person was quite friendly, unlike the prickly people that Red Bull associates often give off. Instead, they were very curious about this rare Eastern face and kept asking him questions.

In just one lunch, the two had become quite familiar with each other.

Gasly has been racing primarily in F2 and GP2 this year, and it's fair to say he's just one step away from securing a permanent F1 seat.

But Gasly is under immense pressure, as most of Red Bull's resources have fallen on him since Albon left.

He thought his journey would be smooth sailing from then on, but then Verstappen suddenly appeared and took away almost all of Marco's favoritism.

If Gasly's performance this year doesn't satisfy Dr. Marko, then his chances of ever entering F1 again will depend on fate.

From a key focus to a mediocre youth training program, it could very well be a matter of a single decision by Marco.

Enduring Marco's daily manipulation, Gasly felt a deep sense of bitterness with no one to confide in. He neglected his messy beard and even his hairline seemed to be bearing the weight of his French genes.

Although he had rather handsome features, when Shu Long first met him that morning, he almost politely called him "uncle" according to the custom of addressing someone after the Chinese New Year.
According to Gasly's explanation, before officially reporting to the team for preseason testing, the two of them would probably be training together as a pair of "tough buddies" and practicing on simulators.

Once the season officially begins, in addition to their regular training with the team, they will occasionally visit Red Bull's factory in the UK to learn and exchange ideas with F1 engineers, and will also have the opportunity to train with several current F1 drivers and share some resources.

The fact that the two of them received such treatment is due to Marco's favoritism. As for those who didn't perform well and were just kept around in the hopes of getting some lucky draws, Marco sent them back to their respective teams a few days ago.

In short, just do what you're supposed to do, and don't let it show in front of your eyes. If you see it too much, it will annoy you, and you might get fired on some pretext.

The Red Bull youth training program is meticulously planned every day, and Shulong, who just finished junior high school, adapted very easily. The most comfortable thing is that he doesn't have to get up at 6:30 am like in schools in China. Training runs from 9 am to 6 pm, leaving the rest of the time for the drivers to have free time.

The daily training plan includes a fixed amount of physical training and reaction and concentration exercises in the morning, and a long time in the afternoon for simulator training to familiarize them with the track and the different driving feel of various race cars.

There will be a real car training session every two days. After all, there is a difference between driving a simulator and driving a real car. No matter how realistic the simulator is, the feedback it can transmit to the driver is ultimately incomplete.

As a newbie to Formula racing, Shu Long originally had a lot to learn about racing techniques and basic knowledge. However, when Marco discovered that the kid could remember most of what he learned just by flipping through the book, he decisively removed this task from Shu Long's schedule.

Life was going quite well. Shu Long's strength ensured that he wouldn't feel too much pressure or negative emotions under Marco's sarcastic remarks. In fact, it was much easier than when he was in the third year of junior high school.

It's not that I'm dissatisfied with the food, but lately Shulong has been craving Chongqing hot pot in the middle of the night, it's driving him crazy.

The culprit was Elena, the physical trainer at Shulong, but to be honest, you can't really blame her for this.

The incident started when Elena noticed that Shulong's weight was not quite right. At first, she thought that Shulong was secretly eating snacks in his dormitory at night, but when she recorded his body data later, she found that it was due to excessive muscle growth.

Shu Long is currently 182 cm tall, and judging from his age, he may grow a little taller in the next few years. His body fat percentage is well maintained, at only about 12%.

Normally, such body measurements would place a healthy 16-year-old boy weighing around 68 to 75 kg, but Shu Long's weight was already well over 80 kg.

Aside from the fact that the "strong and healthy" attribute focuses more on strengthening the body's muscles and bones after Shu Long's body reaches a relatively mature stage, Elena would probably feel somewhat relieved if she had seen the physiques of Shu Xiong and Grandpa Shu.

This made it a daily struggle for Elena to figure out how to control Shulong's weight without compromising his current strength.

Most of the lower-class Formula cars do not have power steering. At high speeds, the steering wheel is basically as heavy as a gym machine. Given Shulong's strength and endurance, it is completely beyond the data of all the drivers Elena had seen before.

One of the key reasons why Shulong was able to adapt to F3 and even F2 driving so quickly on his first encounter was his ability to reliably subdue the powerful arm strength of any rebellious race car.

Even with such heavy steering, Shu Long still only grips the steering wheel with his fingers, not with his entire palm tightly on it.

When you have full control over the steering wheel, the biggest advantage of this grip method is that it makes you more sensitive to the feedback from the steering wheel.

In general, muscle has many benefits, but weight is still an issue that cannot be ignored. After all, no matter how much tuning and modification is done, it can't beat the most basic three words - lightweight.

Countless engineers rack their brains to gain even a fraction of a second of lap time advantage, trying to distribute even a few hundred grams of weight off the race car, because they don't want the weight to hold them back for no reason.

There are quite a few tall riders like Shu Long in Europe, but most of them try to keep their physique as thin as possible.

Elena's initial idea was to increase the proportion of aerobic exercise, and it was not entirely ineffective; in fact, Shulong became even stronger than before.

Then the only option is to tamper with the recipe.

The daily menu is quite varied, but without exception, they are all low-calorie recipes. The only condiment that Shulong can accept is black pepper sauce.

Actually, it wasn't that bad. After a long day of training, Shu Long sometimes gets lazy and even thinks, "This is too much trouble, maybe I shouldn't eat it?" when the food is too complicated. Elena managed to keep a good balance.

Race car drivers don't usually need to be so strict with their calorie control; for example, Gasly often enjoys dessert after meals. Unfortunately, Shulong doesn't have that privilege.

Everything that's free comes with a price tag; if you enjoy the talents the panel brings, you naturally have to bear the corresponding cost.

But overall, the results were minimal.

Later, Elena had no other choice but to increase Shulong's sleep time every day to improve oxygen consumption, and she could only try to reduce any exercise that involved "exertion".

This gave Shulong a lot of free time. What to do with that free time? Of course, he went to open an emulator!

To be honest, this thing is actually quite fun, similar to playing a racing game on a computer, and the key is that you don't have to spend money on it.

Besides being able to simulate changes in G-force to some extent, what Shulong likes most is that the feedback transmitted back to the steering wheel from the friction of the tires on the road surface is quite realistic.

Moreover, because the tactile feedback is weakened, Shulong can focus more on feeling the feedback of the friction on the steering wheel to his fingers.

Even if you don't deliberately pursue lap times, it's actually quite fun to come here and mess around with the virtual tires when you have nothing to do. It greatly satisfies your [friction control] needs.

For him, it was just a form of entertainment, but Marco saw this as a model of diligence. He was talented and incredibly hardworking, which was exactly what Marco admired.

Gasly felt that he was under more pressure lately.
Having finally found a junior he could talk to, Gasly, who was somewhat stifled under Marco's oppressive rule, poured out all his grievances to Shulong.

Like, there used to be a very good friend, the two families grew up almost across from each other, but later, in order to compete for rare sponsorship resources, the two families had an extremely unpleasant falling out on and off the track, and eventually went their separate ways, and so on.

They brought up and talked about things that most people wouldn't normally share.

Perhaps because he himself was a victim of this unhealthy competitive environment in the past, even though he was in a toxic environment like Red Bull, Gasly actually disliked that kind of vicious competition from the bottom of his heart.

Even though Marco started putting pressure on him by using the name of Shulong, Gasly still took good care of this younger brother from Asia.

One day, when he got sleepy while playing the simulator and got up to get Red Bull, Gasly stood behind Shu Long and watched for a while, thinking of getting one for him too. From then on, the young Frenchman, who was deeply shocked, felt a greater sense of urgency.

Another one? When will this end?
　Thank you to the 107 people as awesome as me, who only spent a billion points to read books, Baeksang Arts Awards Best Actor, who went too far, and the ordinary priest for their monthly ticket donations.
　　Thanks to book friend 20200506200559808 for the reward.

　　After watching DTS season seven, I feel that Horner's scandal is really intriguing. Red Bull is a real monster, tsk tsk tsk...

　　Netflix is ​​truly inhumane; they don't cut anything viewers want to see. The Chinese episode of the comeback had no scenes at all, Ricardo's final ripples were missing, and scenes like "Damn it" and "what exactly happened in the dark room that day" were also omitted.

　　The racing portion was the same as before, but it felt a bit too fragmented in an attempt to create suspense. Because it emphasized the main character of this season's storyline, Lando, many exciting racing scenes were cut. Ironically, the fact that they kept creating non-existent tension in the races where everyone knew McLaren had a significant advantage was a bit ridiculous.

　　As far as "Lando's Growth Story" is concerned, it's not badly made, and the part in the middle filmed by the drivers themselves is quite interesting.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)