Car Racing without Money

Chapter 793 - 323: Confront or Back Down

At 2:30 on Friday afternoon, the second practice session of the Monaco Grand Prix began on time.After another round of car adjustments, Chen Xiangbei eagerly drove onto the track to warm up his tires, hoping to verify the accuracy of his feedback and quickly find the balance between the car and the track.

"We can see that HRT Team’s Driver Bei still chooses the red tires to exit, rather than testing the wear of the yellow or white tires like other drivers."

"Although the tire strategy at Monaco Station is very transparent, the tire formulations from suppliers are adjusted every year. Is HRT Team planning to assign all tire testing duties to their second driver, Perez? Or is it that Bei is dissatisfied with his practice lap times and wants to push for faster speeds?"

The commentator, Red, keenly noticed that Chen Xiangbei did not conduct tire tests and still exited with soft red tires.

The Monaco Circuit is different from other tracks in one key aspect: although the surface is bumpy and rough, it is not a high-tire-wear track. Even using soft red tires to drive twenty or thirty laps is no problem.

The main reason for this is because Monaco Circuit is very slow!

The three main factors affecting tire wear for F1 cars are as follows:

Firstly, there is the difference in aerodynamic pressure adjustment. High downforce naturally leads to greater tire wear, while low downforce leads to less.

Simply put, downforce can be understood as the difference in car weight. With the same tires, a one-ton car body and a two-ton car body will clearly have a significant difference in tire wear.

The second factor is the track surface environment. A smooth and flat track surface results in lower wear compared to a rough and bumpy surface.

The third factor is speed difference.

Braking at 300 km/h causes significantly more frictional damage to the tires than braking at 150 km/h.

The average speed at Monaco Station is just over a hundred kilometers per hour, which is much less compared to some high-speed tracks where speed differences can reach over a hundred kilometers. This indirectly puts much less pressure on tire wear.

As a result, the tire strategy for most teams at Monaco Station is typically a standard one-stop tactic, with two sets of tires running the entire race.

Some teams starting further back in qualifying even adopt extreme tactics for a comeback, pitting to change tires after the first lap and relying on extreme tire conservation to undercut their opponents.

Of course, facing some teams wanting to undercut, the drivers in the front row are not without countermeasures, such as extremely slow compressions of the car lineup.

Whoever pits first gets overtaken by the group or blocked by a wave of slow cars.

Although FIA rules require lapped cars to yield to faster cars, mistakes and time losses can easily occur during overtaking, not to mention that some drivers deliberately delay yielding.

The extreme tire conservation and compression tactics have led to Monaco Station races becoming increasingly dull, to the point where, in the absence of a safety car, it reaches a level that makes people sleepy.

To change this "endurance racing" situation, the FIA later enforced a mandatory "two-stop" at Monaco Station, requiring the use of soft, medium, and hard tires to increase randomness and entertainment.

However, such a rule only addresses the symptoms, not the root cause, which lies in the fact that F1 cars are getting bigger, making overtaking on the narrow old tracks increasingly difficult.

If Monaco didn’t have a legendary history and the strongest ability to attract money, no one would probably call for its cancellation.

Of course, this is the empty car era of the 2010 season. Relative to the future, overtaking is not as difficult and exaggerated, but the one-stop strategy remains the absolute mainstream, and collecting medium and hard tires is crucial.

Chen Xiangbei’s exit with soft red tires indicates he still intends to explore the limits of qualifying.

Just as Red predicted, as soon as the warm-up lap ended, Chen Xiangbei dynamically started and sped past the starting line, clearly intending to push for another lap.

Seeing this, commentator Henry questioned: "The Monaco circuit heavily relies on familiarity; gaining a breakthrough requires strong talent and track understanding, and cannot be achieved simply by aggressively pushing for faster times."

"In my view, Rosberg’s speed makes Bei anxious!"

Under normal circumstances, practice sessions are not about such urgent consecutive pushes, clearly indicating Chen Xiangbei’s behavior deviates from the norm.

The root cause is Rosberg’s practice lap times are exceptionally fast, creating a qualitative difference that alerted the Chinese kid to his exaggerated gap, prompting him to attempt catching up through continuous pushing.

However, the Monaco Circuit is not easily conquered.

Drivers attempting to challenge it easily usually pay a heavy price!

"I don’t think Chen Xiangbei needs to be so anxious. It’s the first time running such a complex Monaco track, caution is better."

Under the guidance of the commentary, spectators also subconsciously believed Chen Xiangbei’s mindset had changed.

"This not only concerns the glory of the Monaco champion but indirectly affects the world championship. Wouldn’t Chen Xiangbei be anxious?"

Another spectator held a different opinion, understanding Chen Xiangbei’s mindset very well.

For a rookie to stand on the precipice of a world championship, if they could win it would create an F1 rookie championship history precedented. Who could maintain a calm mindset and handle it indifferently?

"Driver Bei has created too many miracles; I believe he will once again become the miraculous Chinese kid!"

"Ha, his miracles have been accomplished by Hamilton and Vettel too, what’s so miraculous about them?"