Car Racing without Money

Chapter 791 - 322: You Must Make a Choice

"The first practice session is about to end, and most of the drivers have returned to the pit stop. Only the driver Bei from HRT Team remains on the track. According to my understanding of him, he should be trying to push for one more lap."Red focused on Chen Xiangbei on the track. After nearly a season of commentary, he considered that he had initially grasped the personality of this young Chinese driver. Rosberg’s astonishing practice lap time undoubtedly provoked Driver Bei’s competitive desire.

He wants to push for another lap to be faster than his opponent!

In fact, Red only guessed half correctly. Chen Xiangbei indeed needed to push for another lap, but the reason was not his competitive desire; rather, it was an instruction from the team.

Of course, objectively speaking, Chen Xiangbei also needed a smooth track to verify if he could use his skills to reverse the track characteristics.

The HRT Team’s number 13 racing car sped along, with members of the strategy team intently watching the monitor screen. Only Odetto unknowingly furrowed his brows.

For Chen Xiangbei’s flying lap, each timed segment showed improvement, but the issue was that the improvement wasn’t as large as expected, seeming more like normal acceleration due to a clear track environment.

"Leader, Bei’s pathing isn’t too problematic, only the car’s adjustment clashing significantly with track characteristics, making his steering corrections apparent in the corners.

"The faster the speed, the more the rear of the car swings, increasing the frequency and magnitude of corrections, which is deadly to lap time."

Sawano Hiroyuki keenly identified the problem—the steering corrections in the corners were too frequent, indicating imprecise control.

F1 is arguably the sporting event in the world demanding the highest standards for pathing and handling smoothness, with no comparison!

Every tiny correction slows the speed by 0.001 seconds, accumulating to a difference of 0.01 to 0.1 seconds across dozens of corners along the track.

A thousandth of a second is enough to decisively beat an opponent, not to mention a hundredth or a tenth of a second.

"You’re right, Bei is quite unaccustomed to this track."

Odetto nodded.

He had instructed Chen Xiangbei to push for another lap, hoping to squeeze out some potential under pressure.

Looking at the current situation, it’s not that Chen Xiangbei doesn’t dare push to the limit, but rather that he can’t control this track despite trying his best.

The fundamental reason is still the difficulty and unfamiliarity of Monaco.

Historically, no driver has ever claimed pole position or victory at Monaco in their debut season.

Moreover, compared to those who have steadily risen through the ranks with lower-grade formula experiences at Monaco, or the European drivers familiar with the track environment, Chen Xiangbei is truly in the dark.

What he can do is drive countless laps in a racing simulator.

Not to mention the realism of racing simulators in this era is at most sixty to seventy percent, compared to modern standard F1 tracks, traditional old circuits face two fatal simulation difficulties—road conditions and gradient.

Road conditions are easy to understand, as bumps and unevenness aren’t represented in the racing simulator setup.

Many don’t understand the gradient; theoretically, according to computer simulation capability, is it difficult to simulate an uphill or downhill?

In truth, it really is challenging!

On modern, newly-made standard F1 tracks, the degree and length of each gradient are already present in the designer plans. With this data, computers can relatively easily simulate them.

However, traditional street circuits, influenced by various environmental factors, traffic flow, and even road repair each year, lack any uniform standard for gradient, requiring drivers to personally experience and remember them first-hand.

Even regular drivers know to brake earlier when going downhill and add a bit of throttle when going uphill on the same road section.

If this were put in the context of the Monaco Grand Prix, requiring precision like brushing past the walls at 1 centimeter during cornering, even slight gradient fluctuations leading to changes in braking speed can cause severe errors in turn-in.

To ensure safety and avoid crashing, one must either distance from the wall or constantly correct.

Chen Xiangbei is currently facing such a situation; he wants to push to the limit but can’t achieve a seamless and precise path.

Not correcting means crashing into the wall, correcting means slowing down, with no third option.

In fact, later on, Chinese driver Zhou Guanyu also faced a similar scenario at the Monaco Circuit; naturally slow-paced, he chose the first option when tackling this high-difficulty track with insufficient familiarity.

That is, to take a conservative path and distance from the wall to avoid crashing.

The result was predictably slow speed, with three consecutive years of exiting in Q1, including two years at the bottom and one as second-to-last.

Drivers often struggle to master every track; some tracks are inherently difficult to drive well, while others clash with car characteristics.

For example, the muscular cars of later Williams Team emphasized dominance on straights but struggled in turns.

Excelling on high-speed tracks, yet trailing in low-speed circuits.

In a certain sense, HRT Racing Car also belongs to the muscular car type, where various aerodynamic kits are developed for high-speed track characteristics, though not as extreme as Williams Team later on.

A short lap time quickly passed, and the track broadcast’s big screen displayed Chen Xiangbei’s final lap time for his practice session.

minute 13.885 seconds.

Once this number appeared, controversy arose immediately in the stands.

"Did Bei really push in the last lap? Why is he 1 second slower than Rosberg, that’s so exaggerated?"