F1: The Making of a Racing God

Chapter 95 This gap is beyond description (5K1)

"I believe that many fans of motorsports culture have a question when they first come into contact with a formal track race: why don't these drivers choose to drift like Takumi Fujiwara?"

"Of course, with the internet becoming more and more developed, many of the answers are probably already known to everyone, such as drifting wastes power, adjusting the car's posture takes a long time, and tire wear is high, etc."

"So in recent years, a very strange phenomenon has emerged. Ten years ago, everyone used whether a driver could drift to measure how good he was. Now, as soon as someone mentions racing and drifting, it's as if he has suddenly become the bottom of the discrimination chain."

"So today, we're taking advantage of this rare opportunity to divide our four guest UPs into two groups. They will each drive a Ford Mustang that is in similar condition and has been tuned to compete in a chase race on the Machong Circuit!"

Shu Long was holding the program schedule that Wang Jieke had given him beforehand, but he had no idea what he was responsible for in this segment. He raised his hand off-camera and asked, "What about me?"

"You're an expert, of course you should be used as a control group!"

That's alright, that's alright.
Shu Long accepted the filming invitation not only because it was a favor from his father, but also mainly because he had heard about a racetrack event where he could mess with other people's cars.

Since starting his official Toro Rosso race this year, Shu Long has been operating his own personal account at the request of Red Bull and the team.

However, WB made him very unhappy at one point. In order to deal with the publicity tasks assigned by the team, he usually only uploaded related updates in his personal space.

Because there is no verification, even the fans who occasionally come across the content can't tell whether it's the real person or a reposting account. And Shulong, who hasn't submitted a single video yet, doesn't consider himself a proper content creator.

So when Wang Jieke only mentioned a few content creator guests, Shu Long's first reaction was whether he had been excluded from the event.

After all, no matter how comprehensive the protective measures are, going off the track is inherently risky. And next week is the 1000th F1 Grand Prix in China. It's not entirely impossible that they might plan to use the dragon as a glass cannon for protection.

In fact, Wang Jieke did have similar concerns, but even the F1 team to which Shu Long belongs wouldn't have too many worries about this level of pre-race risk. Otherwise, they wouldn't have let the drivers participate in the Hotlaps event before the race.

They're among the world's top drivers; if they can't even handle this little thing, what's the point of playing?
However, on the side of the track that day, Shu Long did get a little confession from Wang Jieke, that is, this arrangement did indeed take into account the protection of Shu Long.

As China's first and only F1 driver, it's not entirely impossible for Shu Long to lose to these local champions on a completely unfamiliar track, which would certainly damage his reputation and commercial value.

So the original program schedule was that the group leader and others would take turns competing in groups to reach the established conclusion that drifting is not as good as gripping, and then Shu Long would go up and do a demonstration lap alone.

After all, they've already invited an F1 driver to the event and done so much pre-event hype and groundwork. Otherwise, it would be really unreasonable for Shulong to just drive around in the car, and it might even cause public outrage.

But how can we ensure that Shulong doesn't embarrass himself? So Wang Jieke had no choice but to play tricks on the rules.

The previous comparisons were all conducted simultaneously on the track in a chase-and-go manner. In any case, there will definitely be some competition between cars on the track at the beginning, which will inevitably affect lap times to some extent.

On the other hand, Shu Long only had to set lap times on a clean track throughout the race. If he still couldn't beat the local expert, even Wang Jack himself wouldn't believe it.

Shu Long's response was, "Are you kidding me? If I can't outrun someone today, I'll let them drive the calf next week!"

Unfamiliar tracks have never been a problem for Shulong. Even without a photographic memory, Shulong is confident that he can quickly and fundamentally understand the track within a warm-up lap.

Especially for ordinary street bikes like these, you don't need much prior familiarization or break-in to push their performance to the limit. A few corners, a few brakes, and a few throttles are enough for him to get a feel for more than 90% of it.

Even without any cheat codes, this is his most basic understanding and confidence in his own abilities as an F1 driver!

At Shu Long's insistence, the fastest lap time among the four UPs will ultimately compete directly against him on the track.

During the early stages of chasing these UP tracks, Shu Long's task was to act as the voice-over commentator along with Wang Jieke and Xiao Qiao, explaining the advantages and disadvantages of grip driving and drifting to the audience in a more accessible way through the performance of those two Mustangs.

"So, Shu Long, from the perspective of a professional race car driver, is drifting really useless on paved roads like this?"

"If we disregard the tire wear rhythm over long distances and only consider single laps, it's not entirely true, especially on a short track like Machong with only 1.8 kilometers of track. The impact of tire temperature is not as significant as one might imagine."

"But now we see that the leader's Mustang has left Sister Xuan far behind. You know, Sister Xuan is a professional drift racer. So what is the reason for this?"

Wang Jieke's example is very tricky, because it is currently the most compelling evidence to prove that paved roads offer superior grip compared to drifting.

The plan was to have them pair up and compare their lap times using drifting and gripping techniques, but in reality, only Nana and Gao Xuan could actually complete the entire course using drifting.

The hall master and the cult leader have decent basic skills in gripping the ground, and they can drift by doing a few turns, but not to mention that the car's posture is unstable and looks bad, it's really just a simple tail-swing, and the tire grip is completely lost.

One is just an amateur racing enthusiast, and the other is a professional drift driver. However, anyone who isn't blind can see the advantage of grip in drifting. Even Wang Jieke wanted to see what kind of answer Shu Long could come up with.

"Sister Xuan's racing style is clearly the kind of racing style that relies on maneuvers to score points. The overall posture of the car is beautiful but too exaggerated, which does not actually help with lap times."

The most direct evidence is that NANA's control of the car body during drifting is obviously not as good as Gao Xuan's, but she is more restrained in her input of the slip angle when the rear wheels oversteer, so her overall drift lap time is actually faster than Gao Xuan's.

However, this explanation is not quite suitable for a video aimed at a wider audience. Shu Long scratched his brow and pondered for a moment, then suddenly thought of a very fitting line.

"We all know that the reason why drifting, a racing technology, was created is not just because it looks cool."

"On most race cars with limited grip, this driving style can help us spin the car to the correct exit angle more quickly, while also maintaining engine speed to the maximum extent while allowing the car to brake fully."

"But those who have watched Dragon Ball should be familiar with a line that says, whenever Goku and his friends go to Master Roshi, Kami, or King Kai for advanced training, they always get the comment, 'You're making too many unnecessary little moves!'"

Shu Long hadn't rehearsed the lines with Wang Jieke beforehand, but there was a reason why Wang Jieke was a pillar of the channel's hosting team. He didn't let the conversation falter; he picked it up immediately with a quick glance.

"So you mean 'excellent' doesn't equal 'correct'? The Wolf Fang Wind Fist looks great, but its destructive power might not even be as good as a single elbow strike from the Kaioken?"

Wang Jieke's train of thought jumped too quickly, and more importantly, it was incredibly vivid. Shu Long couldn't think of a response for a moment.

"Pretty much. Before you reach a certain level of control over a race car, it's definitely more profitable to focus on grip driving and speeding up the track rather than trying to master fancy drifting techniques."

"Then what is that realm you're talking about?"

"Just think of it as the 'Ultra Instinct' of racing."

Just then, the comparison team parked their cars and got off the track. Wang Jieke, as if he didn't mind watching the excitement, gestured "please" to Shu Long directly at Xuan Jie's Mustang, which was specially used for drifting.

It's almost certain that this part won't be cut from the final cut; it's just that Shu Long exaggerated too much, and even Wang Jieke couldn't help but be curious to see what that legendary realm was like.

Although I didn't actually have high expectations.
After all, an F1 driver is definitely more specialized in grip driving, while when it comes to speed drifting, you probably have to look to a professional rally driver.

But judging from the content released so far, Shu Long's level of skill is clearly not just about being able to release something without being embarrassing; he can even use drifting techniques to keep up with the NANA car that is gripping the ground the whole time.

Based on the final lap times, there's no possibility that Nana deliberately held back, as she achieved a lap time of 1:03.57 in this almost stock Mustang with only minor track modifications. This lap time only ranks in the upper-middle range of the Machong circuit's lap time leaderboard, and importantly, it's only 0.22 seconds faster than the previous record set by another Mustang.

Shu Long could actually go even faster. Throughout the race, he restrained his body's instinct to use more efficient driving techniques and deliberately increased the car's tail-sliding force when entering corners to ensure that his driving style at least looked more in line with the general public's understanding of "drifting".

The biggest difference between him and others in lap times, besides things like braking point, braking force, engine speed control, and racing line selection that laymen can't understand and that even experts need to analyze the car's sensor data carefully to understand, is the most obvious and easily discernible difference in his handling of the car when exiting corners.

The car drifts almost instantly, and the car's posture is exactly the most comfortable angle needed to exit the corner.

Once the front of the car is aligned with the exit curb, there will be no more extra deviation. The rear wheels will not even spin in the slightest, wasting traction. The driving rear wheels will capture the full grip within the performance range almost instantly.

The entire process was smooth and efficient, leaving a feeling that can only be described as silky.

For the first time, Wang Jieke felt that he might still need some refinement, because within his current understanding, he could no longer find the right words to describe Shu Long's astonishing operation.

"How was it? Not bad, right?"

The person in real life and the person on the screen spoke almost simultaneously.

This time, Gan Mengning took the initiative to press pause and turned off the bullet comments with trembling hands.

She could ignore the mischievous claw for now; she simply couldn't stand Shu Long's current smugness, which was practically overflowing everywhere, just like the waterlogged sheets.

What's all that stuff in the comments?

"Holy crap, a living racing legend!"

"For the first time, I feel that Initial D is drawn too conservatively!"

"To be honest, Shu Long's resume is really better than that of the Akina Mountain racing legend, isn't it?"

"That's true. Takumi was over twenty years old when he was finally noticed by a professional racing team, while Shulong started as a tofu deliveryman and won championships in various professional races all the way up."

Look how much people are praising this shameless guy online; his grin looks like he could bite a baby in one bite!

She mustered her slightly weak and soft voice, and said in a forced calm tone, "It's just so-so, not as pretty as my master's."

The day Shu Long's father posted the photoshoot event in the family group chat, Gan Mengning immediately noticed Gao Xuan's name among the invited guests.

Because of the dragon's influence, Gan Mengning's interest in racing is now no less than her passion for anime girls.

From the moment she started paying attention to news in the racing world, she became particularly interested in the situation of well-known female drivers, whether by choice or by circumstance, and naturally developed a sense of longing and aspiration that she had never had before.

As it turns out, Gan Mengning's ability to drive smoothly on wet ground with slick tires when she first encountered go-karting as a child shows that she does indeed have some talent.

Taking advantage of this filming opportunity, Gan Mengning shamelessly asked Sister Xuan for a week of intensive drifting lessons. The girl in the bonus part of the video did drift quite well.

The outcome of the video was almost a foregone conclusion. Having already proven his invincibility with drifting, Shulong first performed a clean grip lap, directly improving the Mustang's record to 58.79.

Having witnessed firsthand the seemingly dimensional power gap between Shu Long and them, Wang Jieke stopped pretending and openly became a contrarian on the spot.

"But didn't you say drifting is better than grip driving? How come you're driving with better grip when you're actually driving?"

In the video, Shu Long had almost completely let loose, and his expression was one of smugness that was clearly visible to the naked eye.

To be honest, with someone as eloquent and emotionally intelligent as Wang Jieke in charge of managing the event, anyone who can't smile during an activity should really be checked for depression, right?

This time, Shulong went all out, using an advanced sliding maneuver that's somewhere between gripping and drifting, and achieved an incredible time of 56.63 seconds.

What kind of concept is this?
It's important to know that the Machong Circuit is a small track, so there aren't many straights where cars can fully utilize their horsepower for acceleration. Instead, it has a lot of technically complex corners.

Horsepower doesn't represent everything here. Instead, lighter and more agile race cars have an advantage. Muscle cars like the Ford Mustang not only don't have much of a role to play in terms of power, but their bulky bodies are also like a wet blanket that can't be shaken off, making them cumbersome and inconvenient.

Previously, the lap time leaderboard was dominated by a Lotus Elise with a lap time of 1:00.84, followed by Wang Jieke's heavily modified BRZ with a kitchen kit, with a lap time of 1:01.30.

But how much do these two cars weigh?

The Lotus Elise weighs less than 900 kilograms, and the BRZ weighs less than 1.3 tons. In contrast, the manual Ford Mustang driven by Shu Long, after being fitted with a roll cage, weighs nearly 1.8 tons, which is almost twice the weight of the Lotus Elise.

Unfortunately, the audience probably can't really feel the impact that this lap time represents; they only know that this speed is currently at the top of the leaderboard, and that's all that matters!

Next, Wang Jieke began to summarize the series of tests conducted today. However, the 36-minute video still had nearly three minutes remaining.

That's right, next up is the long-awaited and much-anticipated post-credits scene.

I don't know what exactly happened, but Shulong, who had been building up his high-class image for over thirty minutes, suddenly revealed that strange and grotesque appearance.

As Gan Mengning appeared, her face completely covered by a helmet, even though we couldn't see what she looked like underneath, the sight of her perfect manga-style legs peeking out from under her short skirt immediately drew a massive influx of comments saying, "Brothers, I really love this one."

To be fair, although Gan Mengning is not tall, she is not a typical petite woman. Her proportions are perfectly balanced, and from a distance, she has long, slender legs.

No wonder he was able to recreate Tornado so accurately back then.
The girl was waiting to admire her masterpiece, which she had worked on intensively for a week, but Shu Long didn't give her a chance at all, snatching the phone away and throwing it aside with the screen off.

She gently lifted the little bottom with one hand, like holding a kitten, and scooped it into her arms before getting up and heading straight for the bathroom.

"Hey, what are you doing?! I haven't even looked at the important part yet!"

"What's so interesting about it? You could have come to me if you wanted to learn drifting. You're wasting your boyfriend, who's a top racer, by going to someone else. Don't you know that?"

"Sister Xuan is amazing, she's beautiful and cool! But it's a promise, you'll teach me next time?"

"Sure, but I have one condition: do you have black stockings? I've always thought wearing black stockings and heel pads is especially sexy!"

"I'll check later. Where did you see this?! And don't do anything reckless for a while, you hear me? I can't stand up right now!"

"It's okay, it'll stay in place!"

(End of this chapter)