Car Racing without Money-Chapter 330 - 146: The Most Powerful Race Car on Blue Star
Many teams couldn’t make it through, like the Super Aguri Team, let alone having the budget for winter testing by the end of the season.
Even a financially strong corporation like the Honda Group skipped the first round of winter testing to save money. Otherwise, if they had tested the speed of their self-developed RA109 "Mars Rover," they might have bankrupted themselves just to run another season!
Thus, everyone arrived at the storage area at the back of the pit stop, where two doors still bore the English sign "Honda" of the Honda Team. This is where last season’s RA108 cars were parked.
As the electric gate opened, a white and green colored F1 car came into Chen Xiangbei’s view.
This is Honda’s unique "Earth Dream" livery.
Looking at the car before him, never mind its performance, just the aerodynamic shape honed in a top-notch wind tunnel exuded an aesthetic of technological beauty that made Chen Xiangbei eager to give it a try.
No driver dislikes a powerful car, just like no man can resist a stunningly beautiful woman.
Especially when faced with the top-performing beast of this era, the dual impact on both mind and body is indeed hard to resist!
Compared to Chen Xiangbei’s excitement, Odetto and other members from the former Super Aguri Team felt more of a sigh and reflection.
You should know that the "Honda B-Team" title of the Super Aguri Team wasn’t just a saying.
Each generation of their cars was practically a minor modification of Honda’s cars.
The closeness of the technical paths between both parties might have even surpassed the modern relationship between Red Bull and Toro Rosso.
Super Aguri’s 2008 car SA08 was based on Honda’s 2007 car RA107.
The problem is, this RA108 in front of us was also a minor modification of last year’s Honda car. It and Super Aguri’s SA08 can be considered as siblings with the same father and mother, even the numerical codes are very similar.
Unfortunately, the Super Aguri Team regrettably exited after just three races in the 2008 season, and even sold off their cars to a German company, which remains a pain for Odetto and the team members.
Who would have thought that with the passage of time, the reorganized Super Dream Team would see this "old buddy" again, and it will be reignited by a newcomer from China. It seems fate can sometimes be unpredictable.
"Did Button drive this car, or was it Barrichello’s? Why doesn’t it have a car number?"
Logically, last season’s old cars should be those handed down by the current drivers, but the car before Chen Xiangbei has no identifier on the car nose.
"The official drivers’ cars were transported back to the Honda Tokyo Museum for preservation. This is an unadjusted spare car."
"Whether it can perform at one hundred percent depends on the skills of the technician team."
As Field finished speaking, Odetto directly commanded, "Liang, push this car to the pit for a full pre-race inspection and adjustment."
"Yes, Leader Odetto."
Liang Chi nodded, and immediately led the technician team to push the RA108 from the storage to the pit.
Naturally, Chen Xiangbei followed along, and as he passed by Renault’s P bay in the pit lane, he indeed saw the face of an ethnic Chinese driver in a racing suit. He felt a vague sense of familiarity in his mind, but couldn’t immediately recall who it was.
At the same time, the other party also focused their gaze on Chen Xiangbei, with a look of surprise and curiosity in their eyes.
After all, within the F1 paddock, seeing an East Asian face is rare, as the few Japanese drivers typically have secured official seats and wouldn’t be at the Catalonia test track at this moment.
So seeing two East Asian drivers appear simultaneously is quite unusual.
"Chen Xiangbei?"
The ethnic Chinese driver at Renault’s P bay unexpectedly called out Chen Xiangbei’s name, and using Chinese at that.
This left Chen Xiangbei shocked, wondering if this world had altered historically, and besides Cheng Congfu and Ma Qingye, was there a third Chinese driver abroad?
"Hello, may I ask who you are?"
Chen Xiangbei politely inquired, the other seemed older based on appearance, likely a senior.
In truth, Chen Xiangbei had great respect for Chinese motorsport pioneers of this era. Regardless of their skill levels, they served as pathfinders and motivators, paving the way for newer and stronger generations of Chinese drivers.
Just as Zhou Guanyu learned from Ma Qingye, another WEC champion driver Ye Yifei was a disciple of Cheng Congfu.
Without this generational legacy, there wouldn’t be China’s first F1 driver, nor the first WEC Endurance Race champion.
"I am Dong Hebin, a Dutch-Chinese driver."
Perhaps noticing Chen Xiangbei’s surprise, Dong Hebin replied with a smile.
[Dong Hebin?]
Hearing this name, Chen Xiangbei suddenly understood.
He previously focused more on Chinese drivers, but in fact, among the overseas Chinese community, there were also drivers participating in formula racing, and Dong Hebin was one of the outstanding ones.
Compared to Ma Qingye, Dong Hebin had excellent results in lower-tier formula races, sweeping through Dutch karting events and winning the European BMW Formula and German F3 championships.
Especially since the legendary Schumacher came out of German F3, the overall skill level of participating drivers surged, ranking just behind British F3 in Europe, and truly held considerable prestige.
With this achievement, Dong Hebin had early testing experience with the Williams F1 Team.
However, Dong Hebin’s career trajectory showed a high start and lower trend, with three years in GP2 yielding mediocre results, the best year only netting 7 points and placing 18th.
