Car Racing without Money-Chapter 553 - 215: Hidden Nemesis on the Track (Part 2)
After getting confirmation from Chen Xiangbei again, Odetto didn’t say much more and instead turned his gaze towards another garage of the team.
Trulli’s No. 14 car has started, and he will be the first to leave the pit and make a flying lap.
The advantage of old equipment lies in the familiarity of the team and driver with its characteristics and tuning direction, making it easier for Trulli to find his "balance point".
At the same time, the high downforce feature is also more suited to the complex weather conditions of the Albert Park Circuit, eliminating worries about the influence of slight turbulence.
Accompanied by the roar of the Toyota engine, Trulli left the pit lane and headed towards the repair channel, with the crew members instinctively focusing their attention on the onboard camera footage and data monitors.
The internal competition within the team is mostly limited to the two drivers and their respective engineering teams. For most members of the HRT Team, the importance between Chen Xiangbei and Trulli does not differ.
The results they run are the victories belonging to the HRT Team.
The black-orange colored TF110 car is flying, possibly stimulated by internal competition or Trulli’s condition is indeed very good, as he ran a very impressive first flying lap.
Directly surging to first place with a time of 1 minute 24.995 seconds!
This is also the first driver so far to break into the 1 minute 24 second domain.
"OH MY GOD, HRT driver Trulli has unexpectedly surpassed Ferrari and Mercedes drivers, directly coming to the third position in this qualifying session."
"Is the HRT Team really going to challenge the position of the top four teams in the paddock?"
Commentator Red was very amazed, although there have already been instances of small teams reversing last year, with Toyota, Williams, and even Indian Force challenging the authority of the "Big Three" giant teams.
As a result, by season’s end, all ten teams in the paddock scored points!
It’s worth noting that this is the achievement before the points system reform, where only those who finished in the top six could score points, which is quite difficult to imagine.
But HRT did the double-Q3 in the opening race and ran a provisional third position in qualifying in the second round, which was somewhat beyond Red’s expectations.
This already has the shadow of last year’s Brawn GP Team!
"Many people have underestimated the strength of the HRT Team and the speed of their cars."
"Don’t forget, HRT inherited Toyota’s legacy and has the capital to challenge the top four teams in the paddock!"
Prost gave an affirmative reply to this; after his retirement, he had created a namesake F1 team and felt deeply about the words "foundation" and "legacy".
The Prost Team at that time showed a huge difference in results due to the choice between the Peugeot engine and the Renault engine.
If at that time, the established factory team Renault was chosen instead of the "newcomer" Peugeot.
The Prost Team might have had a completely different fate.
F1 is ultimately a game depending three parts on the person and seven parts on the car, with HRT having the addition of Toyota technology, it can’t be regarded with purely "new military" paddock vision.
"HRT’s second car has left the pits, wondering if driver Xiangbei can continue to impress like his teammate."
To verify the strength of Toyota’s legacy, we still have to look at the results of the two drivers in the same team.
If Chen Xiangbei can also run the fastest lap, then HRT Team’s rise will truly become unstoppable.
On the track, Chen Xiangbei is conducting a warm-up lap; he saw Trulli’s lap time before leaving the pits, which has already surpassed his own fastest lap time during extreme attempts in practice three.
Chen Xiangbei is not too surprised about this.
Trulli is very similar to Finland’s future driver Bottas; both have top qualifying abilities given a good car, otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to achieve enemy victory over Alonso.
After the opening race’s running-in, coupled with the familiarity of the Albert Park Circuit, Trulli running an impressive lap time is not surprising.
Keeping a calm mindset and viewing the opponent properly is what Chen Xiangbei needs to do.
"Xiangbei-kun, there are fifteen cars on the track, watch out for the timing of the flying lap."
During the warm-up process, Sawano Hiroyuki informed the track information.
As the road surface grip increased, many teams have released cars, causing traffic congestion.
Chen Xiangbei needs to keep a sufficient distance from the car in front to avoid being blocked during the flying lap.
The problem is that others are thinking the same; the fifteen cars are evenly distributed throughout the track, and the number is trending upward, making it not easy to find the perfect timing for the flying lap.
"COPY."
Simply responded, Chen Xiangbei slowed down his pace.
Watching as the car in front drives further away, he pressed the gas pedal to the floor, and instantly the deafening roar of the engine echoed beside his ears, with the TF110 car like a black lightning bolt charging over the start line!
Compared to the difficult control in practice sessions, after several rounds of tuning, Chen Xiangbei felt that he had found a resonance with the car, gradually regaining that comfortable feeling.
Heavy braking into turn T1; during qualifying, there’s no need to consider tire wear and brake cooling, Chen Xiangbei only needs to exploit the limits of the car’s performance and improve his speed as much as possible.
Massive G-force sweeps in at the end of the straight, and now Chen Xiangbei has gradually adapted to such impact, firmly controlling the steering wheel and downshifting to enter the turn, accurately hitting the apex to cut the line through the corner.
Any slightly early or late steering will cause the car to fly off the track or miss the best route through the corner.
Chen Xiangbei did not make such mistakes; his cornering path was extremely precise and smooth, achieving linear acceleration out of the corner, maintaining the car’s strongest mechanical grip and traction out of the corner.
It can be said that Chen Xiangbei did the perfect T1 corner with his current driving skills!
"Odetto team leader, Xiangbei-kun’s cornering speed in T1 compared to practice three has increased by a full 0.1 seconds!"
Staring at the real-time data on the monitoring screen, Mizutani Sho widened his eyes in shock.
Theoretically, if the driver didn’t make a mistake in the previous lap, it’s hard to achieve such a tenth-second-level improvement; hundredths or even thousandths are considered good.
After all, on the entire track of over a dozen corners, if each can improve by 0.1 seconds, then the lap can be enhanced by over a second, which is quite exaggerated.
But the reality is right in front of you; even though Chen Xiangbei pushed to the limits during practice three, many places had flaws that can’t be described as mistakes.
With such improvement in qualifying now, Mizutani Sho feels that Chen Xiangbei should have run the fastest T1 cornering speed of the whole field!
But Mizutani Sho did not receive a response from Odetto; the onboard monitoring screen showed a slow car appearing in front of Chen Xiangbei.
This is the "front car" that Chen Xiangbei intentionally kept a distance from, not expecting it would catch up just after one corner; the opponent had completed a warm-up lap, so do they still not plan to fly on the second lap?
No one understood what the front car was thinking; such an instance is common in the crowded first qualifying session.
The only point worth staying sober is that the front car does not block the racing line through the corner, and Chen Xiangbei only needs to overtake on the short straight.
Although changing lanes will lose some speed, it won’t significantly affect the final lap time.
But this scene appears not just once; soon at T5 corner, another slow car shows up ahead of Chen Xiangbei, occupying the racing line without any intention to yield.
Chen Xiangbei, who is speeding, obviously can’t tailgate and can only actively yield.
This corner overtaking has already caused a noticeable loss in speed.
But similar situations haven’t stopped; when Chen Xiangbei meets a slow car for the third time during the flying lap, although the opponent did not block, they similarly showed no initiative to yield the racing line.
The appearance of this scene made even the track commentator notice something amiss.
Red said with a surprised tone: "It seems there’s something wrong on the track today; Xiangbei encountered multiple slow cars on this flying lap, and all of them have chosen to occupy the racing line without exception."
"Is this a collective response to driver Xiangbei?"
