F1: The Making of a Racing God

Chapter 70 Winter Testing Begins (4K5)

Getting through the most awkward situations together might be the simplest and most direct way to break down someone's psychological defenses.

The failed confession did not become an obstacle to their relationship; instead, it became a tacit lubricant for their bond.

From cautiously maintaining a tentative distance, to gradually walking shoulder to shoulder, their fingers somehow learned to find their own companions, and the slightly damp hickeys on their cheeks slowly moved closer to their lips.

Perhaps out of guilt for failing at the crucial moment that day, the girl tried extra hard to make amends to the boy, except for not crossing the final line.

He Xuanyi was deeply shocked by their way of getting along, which was so open yet still somewhat restrained.

It all started that night when Gan Mengning came home on time.

After all, racing, champagne, and beautiful women seem to have been deeply intertwined since the sport was born, each of which challenges the limits of human restraint.

She couldn't understand why race car drivers, a profession that seemed inseparable from romance, would have such abnormally normal values.

Shu Xiong advised his son not to go back before the end of his leave, but now someone else doesn't want to leave anymore.

Thanks to Gan Mengning, Shu Long, who dropped out of high school, had a rare opportunity to experience the life of a contemporary college student.

He would wander around Xiamen University whenever he had nothing to do, using Gan Mengning's student card to live off her in the cafeteria, and occasionally pretending to be a student in her class to sit in on a few classes from the back row.

University professors rarely take attendance and don't seem to care much about having a few unfamiliar faces in their classrooms. Even if there's only one student in the classroom, some elective course professors can still talk non-stop with ease.

Gan Mengning's major has a small number of students, and usually the classroom is not full, which naturally gives Shu Long a great opportunity to take advantage of the situation.

The girl didn't even notice at first, until one day when Shu Long, who was playing on his phone in the back row, was mercilessly caught up in a class question. In the end, he could only stand up with a stiff upper lip and rely on his "language proficiency" to get away with it.

"What are you doing here?! Aren't you afraid of being recognized?"

"Recognized"

Shu Long walked around the corridor with his face raised, then shrugged at Gan Mengning.

Judging from the current trends in universities, compared to racing, which has nothing to do with daily life, the games that students play together in their dorm rooms are probably what they are more interested in.

If it were the players from IG who just won the League of Legends World Championship, they might have been recognized on the street the moment they stepped into the school gate.

Moreover, since it's a Japanese major, over 70% of the students here are girls. Expecting to meet a girl who is interested in racing is probably more difficult than expecting them to play League of Legends.

That being said, even if you don't know him, Shulong's appearance is already quite eye-catching.

Fortunately, because she didn't choose to live on campus, Gan Mengning's relationships with most of her classmates were limited to those whose faces were somewhat familiar and whose names she knew. No one specifically surrounded her to question her about her suddenly appearing boyfriend.

Rather than revealing their relationship in front of their classmates, what really made Gan Mengning hesitate was how to be honest with her fans.

She didn't hesitate for long before tentatively revealing some information during a live stream.

Long-time fans who have followed her for a while quickly guessed that she was the protagonist of the driving school handbrake incident. The barrage of comments suddenly turned into a large-scale "Who is the undercover agent?" program, with everyone looking like the thief who had quietly stolen their home.

The bizarre rhythm completely drowned out the heartbroken cries of the male fans. No one noticed that Shu Long, who was wearing a Level 17 badge, was also secretly laughing and posting a heartbroken comment in the corner.

The next day, Gan Mengning's account, which had painstakingly accumulated 350,000 followers over four or five years, lost 30,000 followers in the blink of an eye.

Although I felt a little heartbroken, I also felt as if I had completely let go of a burden, and I felt much more relaxed.

However, for various reasons, she did not reveal Shu Long's specific identity information.

F1 drivers have extremely high exposure in front of the camera, and if someone is determined to dig, they could probably find all of Gan Mengning's personal information in no time.

The girl didn't want to be in the limelight, and Shu Long naturally didn't want his own affairs to affect her normal life.

The peace and tranquility lasted only until the end of December.

Gan Mengning has officially entered exam month and stays in the study room until late every day before going home, while Shu Long also wants to make the most of the last days of the holiday to spend time with his family.

The drivers' winter break can last until the end of January, but the team's factory can actually officially start operations after the first week of January.

Anyway, since it wouldn't be in time for Chinese New Year's Eve, Shulong's plan was to return to Faenza a few days earlier to see if he could get some useful data for the team before the winter test.

Clearly, Shu Long wasn't the only one with the same idea. When he arrived at the factory on January 18th, another young driver was already sitting on the simulator.

"Hey, Alex?"

"Oh, sorry! I didn't see you just now."

Alben, who hurriedly stood up from the simulator, seemed a little flustered. He quickly took off his gloves and shook hands with Shulong, looking as embarrassed as a top student in class who had been caught secretly competing against each other.

This is also a tall driver, about the same height as Shu Long.

When Shu Long was doing F3 testing, he was very fortunate to have the seat data left by the other party. It is conceivable that next year's Lamborghini will have a lineup of drivers with the tallest average height in the entire paddock.

In 17, Shu Long also competed against Alben on the same stage, but that year the main protagonists on the field were Leclerc of Prema and Shu Long himself. Alben, who was unlucky, was almost invisible except for a few outstanding performances.

As a driver who was once personally kicked out by Marko, Albon originally had an understandable rift with Red Bull's new favorite, Shullon.

As for Shu Long, because of Alben's deep-set brow bone and dark skin, he always gave Shu Long a feeling that he was not easy to mess with, so the two did not have much interaction at the beginning.

However, because of her past and present teammate relationship with Leclerc, after a few exchanges, she found that Leclerc actually had a pretty good personality, and they got along quite well, putting aside the Red Bull label.

How happy were they?

There was even a period in between when Shu Long felt like he was being treated like a little brother by Gasly, Alben, and Leclerc, these guys born in '96 and '97, and he didn't even know how many meals they treated him to.
Albon, of British and Thai descent, looks somewhat older than Shu Long, though perhaps not entirely. After all, born in March 1996, he is not only Shu Long's senior in racing, but also Max's senior.

However, most of his friends who competed with him back then have already become official F1 drivers. Even the youngest one, Shu Long, participated in an F1 race last year and achieved a remarkable result that most drivers might not be able to achieve in their entire career. He, who started the earliest among his peers, has now become a junior in F1.

Albon, who continued to compete in F2 last year, performed very well throughout the year, finishing second in the standings behind Russell and Norris.

This was because, after a few years of poor performance, the DAMS team he was racing for in 18 was not particularly competitive, but they still managed to fight hard against the top teams with their own strength.

It was precisely because of this that Thai Bulls saw the potential in him to establish himself in F1 and decided to start investing a lot of resources in him.

Meanwhile, Marko was forced to revert to his old ways in Red Bull's youth academy due to the constraints imposed by various powers.

Alben is under immense pressure this year. Red Bull Thailand has high hopes for him and has repeatedly pressured Alben directly, almost breaking the original agreement for independent operation. However, there's nothing they can do. In the overall Red Bull Group's shareholding structure, Red Bull Thailand holds a slight advantage over Alben, and now they want to express their opinions, which even Matthias cannot completely ignore.

Albon also came to this season with a mission: he had to find a way to outperform Shu Long in the race so that the Thai Bull Group could legitimately gain more say in the Red Bull team.

But is that even possible?
Putting aside the miraculous record of the opponent being able to take the stage on their first appearance, Alben alone felt that despairing gap with Shulong in 17. This is not something you can fool yourself with by patting your chest and making some promises.

At the time, Alben was also frank with Tai Niu, but the other party didn't care much and just told him to do what he was supposed to do.

Shu Long did not notice much unusual.

From now until the start of preseason testing, all their testing work is mainly to confirm that the new car's design does not have any obvious balance defects. Only after the preseason testing exposes its shortcomings compared to other teams will they begin targeted development.

Now, Shulong only occasionally feels that Alben doesn't seem as humorous as before, and always looks gloomy.

Having also come through Red Bull's youth academy, Shu Long thought he understood Alben's troubles all too well.

He couldn't think of any good way to comfort her. Within the Red Bull system, you can only rely on your own strength. If you have strength, you will have privileges everywhere. If you don't have strength, you will only feel like you are hitting a wall wherever you go.

Moreover, his current status makes him unsuitable to offer comfort.

If Alben wants to make a name for himself, his most direct competitor is his teammate Shulong. What good person would give up their future?

He just didn't expect that this time, Alben's pressure wouldn't come from Marco.

Marco, who stands on the same side as Mateschitz of the Oklahoma City team, is naturally on the opposite side of the Taurean Bulls, both in terms of his position and interests.

If Taurean Bulls gain more influence, Marco's influence here will be reduced accordingly. Therefore, he may now be one of the people in the Red Bull Group who least wants Albon to make a name for himself.

His old friend Mateschitz's health is not optimistic lately. He currently has a Max and a Shulong, which can almost be seen as his capital to continue to lord it over the team.

Besides the work on the simulator, Shu Long also had to take some time to take some official photos for the new season and record some entrance videos for the season car launch on February 11, including his outlook on the team and his goals for the new season.

The time comes on June 2th.

Shu Long got up early as usual that day, but he gave himself a rare day off and didn't plan to go to the car factory.

Today is Lunar New Year's Eve.

Even if you're spending Chinese New Year alone, you still have to make it look decent. Shu Long's plan for today is to go to the supermarket to buy some ingredients and then cook himself a New Year's Eve dinner.

Before I even left the house, my phone suddenly rang with a video call invitation from my mom.

Hmm? Did they miscalculate the time difference over there?
The original plan was to connect with them in Shulong at 12:00 noon, which would be around 19:00 in China, so that his lunch here could be combined with their dinner there remotely.

What should we do now that we haven't prepared anything?
"Hello, Mom?"

"What do you mean, 'Mom'? Look carefully before you call me that!"

On the screen appeared Gan Mengning's rosy face, her nose tip glowing like a freshly washed cherry, and she was occasionally sniffling.

"Why are you using my mom's phone? Are you all spending Chinese New Year together this year?"

"Yeah, guess where we are?"

"Which way?"

"That's right, there's a reward for guessing correctly!"

Is this not easy?
If the two families are celebrating the New Year together, they will definitely have to accommodate at least one side of the elderly. Since Grandpa Shu is alone, it is most likely that they will accommodate Grandpa Gan, whose parents are still alive.

Furthermore, given Gan Mengning's current rather aloof appearance, it's even less likely she's from Yunnan. Therefore, it can only be...
Wait a minute, at this time of year, neither Guangdong nor Fujian seems to have weather suitable for wearing down jackets.

"Where are my mom and the others?"

Gan Mengning slightly tilted the camera, revealing Zhang Xin and Shu Xiong, both looking radiant and dressed similarly.

As if suddenly remembering something, Shu Long turned his head and glanced at the sky outside the window.

The sky was overcast and the weather forecast told him that it would rain intermittently for the next couple of days, and the temperature would remain below eight degrees Celsius throughout the day.

"Wait, you guys wouldn't happen to be..."

He ran all the way to the door, and as soon as he opened it and peeked out, he was enthusiastically ushered back inside by the whole family.

This was probably the liveliest time in the history of this little house in Shulong, and also the most decent Spring Festival he had in 16 years.

Since entering Formula racing, the word "Spring Festival" seems to have been separated from "reunion" in Shu Long's mind. He seems to have just casually brushed it off every time.

Actually, they didn't just come to celebrate the holiday.

The last time he made his debut in the main event, such a big deal, he ended up fighting alone because of a series of questionable actions by Red Bull.

If nothing too urgent happens this time, they might stay until the end of the opening ceremony.
There were many empty rooms on the two floors, but no one chose to bother them. They simply asked Shu Long to clean out a room for Gan Mengning.

The girl initially scoffed at the idea, insisting on staying in a hotel in the small town with her parents. But after some unknown experience, she simply stayed.

All I remember is that on the first day, I had to help Shulong clean up the mess, and by the time it was over, it was already past 1 a.m., so I reluctantly stayed for the night.

As for why they didn't leave later... oh well, who cares!

Time flies, and before Shu Long could savor the feeling, Barcelona's preseason tests were fast approaching.

Shu Long had just gotten off the plane with the team when someone suddenly pinched his butt. He was wondering when Gan Mengning had become so bold when he turned around and saw a familiar grinning face.

"Lando! You son of a bitch!"

Gan Mengning, who was traveling at a distance and deliberately avoided going out with Shu Long, was shocked. This was probably the first time she had seen Shu Long so emotionally volatile since she got to know him again.

He looked down at his small hands, clenched them twice, and seemed to have received some great inspiration.

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(End of this chapter)