Chapter 73 The Game with Tires
The engineer was wearing headphones, so Wu Shi's voice wasn't heard by anyone. He had intended to tell Chairman Montezemolo what he had said, but remembering his previous experience, he wisely chose to remain silent.
Everyone's eyes were fixed on the screen, where the blue dot representing Wu Shi was moving rapidly, much faster than some of the smaller dots in front of him.
The racetrack was clearly not clean, with a lot of cars running cooling laps blocking the way.
"Aren't you going to inform Wu Shi of the situation?"
Sid spoke to the engineer, saying that he had disliked the man since the man complained to him earlier that no team would like Wu Shi, and he was now assuming the man was malicious, hence the reminder.
The engineer glanced back and said in the TR: "Slow down when exiting Turn 4."
"Copy." The voice came through the headphones.
At this time, due to network signal issues, Wu Shi's first-person perspective camera would frequently lag.
The signal dropped just as he entered Turn 2.
"Has the signal problem always been this serious?" Montezemolo asked the person next to him.
"This is the first year of the Florida Winter Series. It wasn't like this during previous tests, perhaps because there weren't that many vehicles on the track at the same time," the person in charge of the series said.
Montezemolo nodded without speaking.
After the screen flickered, Wu Shi's first-person perspective reappeared. He had just arrived at Turn 4, and a slow car in front of him was on the inside line. Although it wasn't the racing line yet, it was hard to say what would happen in a few seconds.
Martina and Sid were both a little nervous, after all, this was a demonstration in front of the Lafayette BOSS, and getting past the slow train was also part of the scoring.
Then the view on the screen pulled to the outer edge, bounced twice on the curb, and then suddenly rushed into the apex of the bend.
"He widened the cornering line." Joss frowned, but in his mind he was calculating the different racing lines.
"Too close!" Martina couldn't help but exclaim.
If you don't watch from a first-person perspective normally, you'd never know how dangerous it was. Just as Wu Shi was going through the apex of the bend, it felt like his car was heading straight for the other car.
But just as they were about to collide, the two cars, like rays of light that had met, sped off in different directions.
The sense of speed from the first-person perspective and the impending urgency of the car crash made Martina feel as if time had slowed down.
Snap snap snap~
"Amazing." Montezemolo clapped; just one corner was enough to impress most people who know about racing.
The engineer glanced at the data. Due to the obstruction, the corner was still 2.5 seconds slower than before. He remained silent, hoping that this guy wouldn't achieve any good results.
Unfortunately, things didn't go as planned. After passing the first slow train, Wu Shi called out again in the train: "Hi, GUY, tell me about the situation on the next line."
On the straightaway, he could see slower cars pulling over to give way, but the curve he was about to enter was blocked by a safety net, leaving him with no visibility. Even a god could easily have an accident on such a curve.
"The area ahead is open and there will be no obstruction."
"copy."
Wu Shi continued to speed along, but the old tires, due to wear, did not have the same grip as the new tires, and because of the three laps of speeding—although he had released the middle lap to cool down the tires—the tires still overheated.
Faced with this situation, his choice was to increase the cornering angle, which would reduce tire pressure, while also slightly increasing the total distance and slightly increasing the lap time.
That wasn't the result he wanted, so after just one relaxed corner, he pushed the next corner to its absolute limit, squeezing out the full performance of the vehicle and tires.
Swoosh! Hiss!
The wind howled and the tires roared. In several consecutive bends, the race car kept changing direction, swaying left and right like a swimming dragon, and several times it seemed to pass close to the guardrail.
Whoosh!
The racing car drove by, and the swift airflow paused for a moment before lifting the advertising banner.
"Tires overheating, be careful," the engineer said in the TR, checking the speed. This combination corner had brought him back by 0.3 points!
"copy."
Wu Shi's voice was unhurried, as if the scalpel-like turn he had just made was effortless.
On the following short straight and a fake bend, because there was no need to push the tires to their limits, the tires cooled down rapidly as the vehicle sped along, and in the thermal imaging view, the originally bright red tires gradually faded.
Everyone focused their attention, wondering how he would handle the next few bends.
"It's still cooling down."
Joss spoke first, judging the corner simply by pulling the outer line, while Wu Shi was still letting the tires cool down.
"Hasn't the tire temperature already dropped?" Martina asked.
"The surface temperature has dropped a lot, but the tire itself is still very hot. If it wears even a little bit, it will overheat again."
As soon as Joss finished speaking, the thermal imaging showed that even with the slightest relaxation, the left front wheel in the corner quickly turned red.
As you exit the corner, the tires quickly lose heat again.
"Did he let some corners go?" Sid asked Joss.
"You could say that, but you can't say it that way either," Joss shook his head and explained:
"We believe that Wu Shi's speed on the corners he skipped was actually very fast. Compared to other drivers, he did not skip these corners. You can see that his speed on these corners was at most a little less than Max."
Joss's words drew some people's attention to Max's stats. He was fast too, but not as outstanding in the crowd. The fastest among them was Antonio Foco.
Sid knew that Joss wanted to draw attention to Max, but he didn't point it out.
Whoosh!
When the results for the first timeout came out, Wu Shi was a little slower than his previous lap times.
"Too slow." The engineer shook his head.
But nobody paid him any attention. It was just a timed segment result. Besides, being a little slower by 0.4 was only compared to Wu Shi himself. Compared to the other drivers, he was less than 0.1.
Moreover, this was because there were many slow trains blocking the way during the first timing segment.
In the second timeout, there were the fewest cars and the best track conditions.
After just three corners, the points lost earlier were completely recovered, and the overheating of the tires was also controlled.
"The control over the tires is quite strong," Joss commented.
Tire management is extremely meticulous and relies heavily on the driver's personal experience and intuition. Sometimes when you drive loosely, the tires inexplicably overheat and wear increases, while other times when you drive fast, the tires don't overheat.
This is actually related to many factors such as tire speed, wind impact, pressure on the road surface, and actual friction. It cannot be explained simply by speed. Tires are very difficult to manage and control.
After a timeout, Wu Shi had gained a deeper understanding of the worn-out tires.
At the same time, he saw the first timeout result displayed on the embedded data screen and knew that he could not make the fastest lap by taking breaks and running in between. Therefore, with greater control, he changed his running style in time.
Rustling sound!
The entire second time slot was incredibly smooth, with the car entering corners with perfect precision and without any corrections, perfectly following the racing lines in my mind as I traversed the track.
Whoosh!
In the second timing segment, he was only two points slower than on the first lap.
This achievement puts them ahead of everyone else.
"It all comes down to the third time slot." Martina felt a little nervous. She looked at Montezemolo, wondering how this BOSS viewed Wu Shi.
She went to great lengths to secure this opportunity for Wu Shi.
Unfortunately, things didn't go as planned. Montezemolo changed his itinerary at the last minute, which meant that the Rafa president's original plan to watch a full match turned into a quick visit.