If Ross Brown abandoned the "neutral" perspective, Odetto instead took a "neutral" stance to praise Schumacher.

Scenes from Schumacher’s past performances on the track flashed through Odetto’s mind like slides; this was the invincible King of Cars with the rightful prowess and aura.

"Boss, defending with two cars like this might cause a collision."

Sawano Hiroyuki reminded, worriedly, clearly sensing Chen Xiangbei’s racing rhythm being disrupted, leading to possible operational errors.

"Crashing is possible, but fear is absolutely not; you must remain tough to the end."

"Once Xiangbei shows any sign of fear or hesitation, he won’t be able to hold his position."

Odetto coldly replied.

Even from the team’s perspective, a collision involving Chen Xiangbei would result in tremendous loss, yet he still couldn’t issue reminders or warnings.

Head-to-head confrontation is Chen Xiangbei’s sole hope for victory.

Paradoxically, the most dissatisfied person was Perez, attacking from behind.

The greatest contempt isn’t words or actions, but being ignored!

Throughout, Schumacher didn’t even regard Perez’s attacks from behind; his only target was attacking the front Chen Xiangbei. This disregard was a blatant insult to Perez!

I must prove myself.

At this moment, Perez’s mind held only this thought, frantically using the slipstream "slingshot effect" to launch an overtaking assault on Schumacher’s car ahead.

Forget tire conservation, long-distance strategies, and stability; Perez tossed all aside.

At twenty years old, Perez, after all, was just a young lad; it’s normal for him not to have the calm composure of his future Red Bull era.

Even with Chen Xiangbei’s two lifetimes of memories, he too was somewhat impulsive at this moment.

Lap thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven...

The three cars continued to fiercely tangle for three laps, each and every driver went all out.

And Chen Xiangbei had to admit, at this moment he truly felt the terror of legendary drivers; if not for Perez’s desperate attacks from behind, Schumacher might have already overtaken him.

Even with edge-riding double blocking and zigzag maneuvers, it still couldn’t stop the King’s assault!

However, in such intense attack-defense battles, Chen Xiangbei’s tire life rapidly decreased, crossing the critical threshold for safe tire conservation completion.

At that moment of inescapable deadlock, a predictable-yet-unexpected scene occurred; Perez made a mistake in attack, directly hitting Schumacher’s rear, the two cars rear-ended and rushed off the track.

Extreme attacks and defenses inherently act like tightrope walking, not to mention dancing on knife edges for several consecutive laps.

"WHAT? HRT Team plays the collision game again?"

"Ban Chen Xiangbei and Perez, and thoroughly investigate Briatore, people without sportsmanship don’t deserve a place on the field!"

"Chinese are consistently despicable, is this how you win races?"

"FUCK, can the FIA still tolerate such scum?"

"Revoke the Super Driver’s License, and get out of the field!"

Schumacher’s influence became evident at this moment, now not only South Korean spectators on the stands cursed Chen Xiangbei, but even third-party viewers from America, Europe, etc., displayed indignant responses.

If it were just a single track incident, it would be bearable; mainly because HRT Team had previous misconduct.

Not to mention Briatore’s "Crashgate," but in the last race at the East Sea Circuit, Chen Xiangbei and Trulli caused several incidents.

Who would believe it wasn’t intentional?

Chen Xiangbei couldn’t hear the spectators’ curses, yet internally, his surprise and astonishment were not much smaller than the audience’s.

He also never expected Perez would be so reckless and impulsive, directly rear-ending Schumacher!

Honestly, if he switched places with the audience, he too would doubt whether this was a secret directive from HRT Team; after all, a temporary replacement rookie isn’t valuable.

Swapping for King of Cars Schumacher, that’s well worth the trade.

But Chen Xiangbei knew very well, from beginning to end, the team never issued any directives, even to the extent of ignoring the two drivers’ internal rivalry!

But this fact is practically inexplicable, leaving one to suffer in silence.

Likewise feeling aggrieved were the strategy group members such as Odetto, who, sitting in the outdoor command post, could hear sounds from the stands, and felt wronged without a chance for explanation.

The only person possibly maintaining a good mindset here might be Briatore.

He’d been through similar situations, long accustomed to the field "Big Villain" identity.

However, after today, perhaps HRT will become the field’s "Big Villain Team."

The cars rushed into the buffer zone, a single yellow flag signaling speed limits emerged on the field, Perez sat dumbly in the cockpit, not even reacting when track staff arrived before him.

He hadn’t expected to crash into Schumacher, simultaneously ruining his potential scoring debut.

Keep in mind that scoring on debut is crucial for a rookie driver’s signing bonus and directly affects team and outside evaluations.

Perez bore the hopes of millions of Mexican citizens, longing intensely for another formal F1 driver to emerge; originally, everything was headed smoothly towards signing, this crash brought him back to the same predicament as Trulli. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

He ultimately failed to control his emotions, unable to remain absolutely calm.

In contrast to Perez’s remorse and regret, Schumacher remained far more composed.

If years ago a rookie crashed into him, he’d angrily run in front to question them, possibly even becoming impulsively confrontational.

But now Schumacher merely came beside the HRT Racing Car, lightly patted Perez’s shoulder as comfort.

People change, different ages and circumstances bring different insights.

A rookie coming off the bench who attacked him for several continuous laps had actually performed outstandingly.

Feeling Schumacher’s comfort, Perez’s heart instantly became conflicted; considering most American drivers’ idols are Senna, they often bear opinions about this German driver.

Of course, Masa is an exception.

"Team, how’s Perez doing?"

Taking advantage of the deceleration gap, Chen Xiangbei inquired.

Trulli was still recovering; he didn’t want Perez to follow in his footsteps, even though this incident had nothing to do with him.

"Minor rear-end collision, not serious."

Odetto already spotted Perez and Schumacher exiting the cars through the barrier, both vehicles remained structurally intact, with merely the front wing damaged, theoretically causing no harm to the drivers.

"Roger."

Chen Xiangbei breathed a sigh of relief, then immediately asked next: "What’s the remaining tire life?"

"Thirty-one percent."

Mizutani Sho’s voice came through the headset, noting the excessive tire wear due to Chen Xiangbei’s intense multi-lap battling and reckless maneuvers.

"How many laps can I maintain peak grip normally?"

"Around five laps, then your single-lap speed will drop significantly."

"What’s my distance to the car ahead?"

Chen Xiangbei inquired further.

"Currently indistinguishable directly, for ahead are two Red Bull Racing Team cars executing a two-stop strategy; further ahead are Masa, Rosberg, Hamilton, and Alonso on a three-stop strategy, needing another pit stop for new tires."

"Indirect comparison calculating pit window time, the gap to Alonso, leading the three-stop strategy, is 31.47 seconds, while 39.39 seconds behind Vettel leading the two-stop strategy."

Lingyan Circuit’s pit window takes roughly twenty-plus seconds, meaning under Chen Xiangbei’s one-stop strategy, subtracting the pit window period from the distance to the front car equates the actual gap to being 7 to 8 seconds slower than the third-ranked Alonso, and about ten seconds slower than the leading Vettel.

"What if I go for an additional pit stop?"

The remaining eighteen laps, theoretically relying solely on the remaining five laps of peak grip hard white tires could complete the course, but speed drastically falls afterwards, ranking slightly better than the current seventh, around fifth place.

Fifth is a satisfactory result for ordinary rookie drivers, even acceptable for the team.

But not for Chen Xiangbei, whose goals extended beyond that.

Targeting the championship is the achievement he aims to prove!

"Then in the upcoming five laps, you must be nearly two seconds quicker per lap to achieve a strategic overtaking."

As Chen Xiangbei listened to Mizutani Sho’s response, evaluating whether he could accomplish this.

Odetto’s voice then came through the headset.

"Chen, Alonso’s tire life is even worse than yours; he and Hamilton have fiercely tangled for over ten laps."

"Being two seconds faster per lap than him isn’t impossible!"