Car Racing without Money

Chapter 711 - 285: Terrifying Adaptability (2)

...After one night, Saturday’s FP3 and qualifying arrived as scheduled, and the attendance at Lingyan Circuit surged again, rocketing from just over a hundred thousand on Friday to a scale of a hundred and fifty thousand.

On one hand, Saturday qualifying naturally attracts more people.

On the other hand, this is after all the inaugural South Korea F1 Grand Prix, which also stirs up national pride, so more people want to be there in person.

The number of spectators had already reached the paddock’s upper limit, many were forced to stand on the central grass area, but just as Chen Xiangbei entered, in that sea of white Taegukgi flags, he caught a slash of red.

And it wasn’t Ferrari red, it was China red!

In fact, there are quite a few Chinese living in South Korea, it’s just that most of them aren’t interested in motorsport.

Plus this is the first South Korea F1 Grand Prix, and the headcount on track is capped dead at 150,000, getting a ticket isn’t easy at all; it’s very similar to the 24-season East Sea Circuit with a Chinese driver, also a "hard-to-get ticket" situation.

This led to the whole of Friday having only a pitiful handful of Chinese and overseas Chinese spectators on site.

But the root of the change lay in Hank from Sky Sports and his report.

Originally, Chen Xiangbei contacted Hank to put pressure on the Korea Auto Federation and the organizing committee, but by a twist of fate, many Chinese viewers watching the live broadcast saw everything; they never imagined that Chen Xiangbei would be subjected to the entire crowd’s abuse and attacks!

You have to know that in the past, when he was racing far away in Europe, Chen Xiangbei had run into that kind of thing too, but in terms of volume and severity, this time was on a completely different level.

Besides, back then Chen Xiangbei was just a nobody, and his influence was mostly confined to the racing circle and Europe itself.

By the time Chen Xiangbei truly became known to Chinese fans, he was already on the podium and even taking wins; countless European and American spectators who had mocked him before were unknowingly conquered by his strength!

But this time was completely different: a race winner from China with enough fame and influence was being attacked by the South Korean crowd on site — that was simply intolerable!

So plenty of overseas Chinese and Chinese fans rushed to grab tickets overnight or bought scalpers to get to Lingyan Circuit; even if their numbers were still far lower than the local South Korean fans, at least they could make Chen Xiangbei understand he wasn’t alone.

The red flags and banners in the stands were the best proof.

"Chen Xiangbei, jiayou~~!"

"We’ll always have your back, Car God Bei!"

"A bunch of jumping clowns, they think they’re worthy of mocking an F1 champion from China?"

"Chen Xiangbei, show these South Korean punks how strong you are!"

These shouts and cheers actually weren’t obvious amid the overall noise and booing, Chen Xiangbei couldn’t even make out what they were yelling.

But he understood one thing: behind him, there would never be a lack of supporters!

Waving his arm, he headed into the garage; car No.13 had been fully reassembled, and instrument checks showed the engine’s power delivery issue was fixed, but the output was still locked in low-power mode.

Converted, Chen Xiangbei’s car was roughly 15 horsepower down on Perez’s; compared to the overpowered "exploding" mode at East Sea Station, he was a full 30 horsepower down!

Bear in mind, when Alonso furiously roasted Honda’s engine as a "GP2 engine" in later years, that was only about 50 horsepower down on the fastest car in the paddock, and that alone was enough to break a legendary driver and leave him uncompetitive all season.

A 30-horsepower gap meant that Chen Xiangbei’s car had dropped straight from "fighting for P2 and targeting P1" down to mid-to-lower tier; on Lingyan Circuit’s long straight, he would be easily eaten alive by Red Bull, McLaren, and even Ferrari!

"Can’t we turn it up a bit? A 30-horsepower deficit is ridiculous."

Chen Xiangbei asked Bob Bell; this kind of power gap was already beyond what a driver could compensate for.

The so-called "0.5 second buff" a top driver brings is only relative to mid-to-lower tier drivers in the paddock; between elites, you can’t have that big a gap.

Even someone as strong as Verstappen can’t be 0.5 seconds faster than an aging Hamilton or Alonso in the same machinery.

And stepping down a tier to Leclerc, Russell, Norris, Piastri and the rest of that core group, they also can’t be 0.5 seconds slower than Verstappen; at most they’d be 0.1 or 0.2 off.

If their form is good, they can even trade blows on pure pace.

"No."

Bob Bell decisively rejected Chen Xiangbei’s suggestion.

In fact, they’d had similar thoughts already in FP1, and back then they only turned the power down by 5 to 10 horsepower.

The reality proved that what goes around comes around; that small adjustment couldn’t offset how hard Chen Xiangbei had squeezed the engine in the last race, and non-linear power delivery appeared — in a sense, that was the power unit issuing a warning.

Remember, practice sessions in both intensity and duration don’t come close to qualifying and the race; if they turned it up more, they could just wait for the engine to blow and retire.

"Got it."

Chen Xiangbei also realized how tough this was, nodded, and didn’t say more.

FP3 at ten in the morning started on time; given the engine’s current performance, Chen Xiangbei realized he couldn’t be greedy anymore and try to have both qualifying and race pace. He had to make a choice in setup direction.

Without question, the answer had to be the race.

The entire FP3, all of Chen Xiangbei’s testing focused on heavy-fuel long runs; he completely gave up chasing ultimate one-lap speed.

However, thanks to long hours of simulator training and the "rehab" of his driving habits from his previous life, his FP3 time was still massively improved over FP1, bringing his lap into the 1:36 range.

Although there was still a big gap compared to the simulator best of 1:35 and the theoretical optimum of 1:34 calculated by the computer.

But considering the heavy fuel and tire-saving driving style, that lap time was still stunning.

At the very least, everyone in the HRT Team garage had excitement written across their faces.

They hadn’t expected Chen Xiangbei to adapt to Perez’s setup and driving style in just one night — this was genius among geniuses!

Of course, the HRT Team knew that Chen Xiangbei was running long-distance tire-saving laps, but the outside world didn’t.

Especially when Vettel, Hamilton, Alonso, Weber and others all dipped into the 1:35s, directly pushing both HRT cars of Chen Xiangbei and Perez out of the top ten.

A gap of over one second in lap time is enough to create a ten-place spread in the F1 Paddock.

More importantly, Chen Xiangbei’s best FP3 lap was slower than Perez’s!

The moment this result came out, the South Korean crowd on site went absolutely wild.

"He can’t even beat a stand-in driver, this is the so-called Chinese champion?"

"Told you the Chinaman must have cheated at East Sea Circuit, now he’s showing his true face at Lingyan!"

"He bagged the last win thanks to Trulli’s crash, this time is he planning to shove Perez out to crash people?"

"Perez is faster than Chen Xiangbei, I don’t think the Mexican will be content playing second fiddle!"

"I’m waiting to watch the HRT Team’s civil war!"

This carnival in the stands didn’t affect Chen Xiangbei’s mood this time; he was working with the team’s mechanics to check over his car carefully, making sure no faults or hidden dangers would crop up in qualifying.

As for Perez, he was staring at Chen Xiangbei with a very complicated expression; through his race engineer Bard, he had already learned about Chen Xiangbei’s simulator times last night, and he knew that the other was using his setup and driving style.

One night, just one night!

The gap between Chen Xiangbei’s lap and his own was only 0.137 seconds!

And that was with a 15-horsepower deficit between the two cars!

Perez might be a rookie in F1, but that didn’t mean he lacked single-seater experience.

From karts to BMW Formula, from becoming the youngest F3 champion in the United Kingdom to racing GP2 in Asia and Europe, Perez had seen countless drivers along the way, and none of them had adaptation ability as terrifying as Chen Xiangbei’s.

Especially since Perez had specifically studied Chen Xiangbei’s driving; this Chinese driver’s habits were completely different from his own.

And yet he changed them in a single night?

The outside world’s ridicule and attempts to compare them, in that instant, sounded like pure jokes to Perez.

Or maybe these South Korean spectators were just frogs at the bottom of a well, completely unable to imagine what Chen Xiangbei’s level of adaptability really meant.

If he hadn’t missed FP2 and hadn’t had engine issues, if Chen Xiangbei had put all his energy into learning Lingyan Circuit—

His lap times would at least be good enough for the top three!