novelODS Chapter 55: Neither Up Nor Down?
Chapter 55: Neither Up Nor Down?
Russell, Hamilton, and Tanger entered the station.
Mercedes: No more departures.
AlphaToli: Great! If they don't leave the station, our soup won't leave either!
Is it that they cannot leave the station, do not know how to leave the station, or are afraid to leave the station?
There is no need to leave the station.
With these two Mercedes-Benz models performing well, they are guaranteed to advance to Q3.
Although Tang Che's assassination attempt on the king failed, his performance secured his place in Q3.
Are you so sure?
Are you that sure?
The Red Bull and Ferrari cars were neither as fast as Mercedes nor as fast as Toncher on their first flying lap in Q2.
Even if all four Mars rovers achieve a faster time than Tanger, Tanger will only drop from P3 to P7.
Based on the performance of the first flight laps in Q1 and Q2, only Bottas and Magnussen in the Earth group are likely to set a faster lap time than Tanger.
Tang Che will at most drop to P9, or still advance to Q3.
Moreover, not planning to leave the station for the time being does not mean giving up completely. Preparations for leaving the station are always in place, and if there is a real possibility of being squeezed out of the promotion zone, one should immediately leave the station to improve their performance.
Verstappen and Sainz both completed their second lap, and were faster than Russell.
Tang Che dropped to P5.
Neither Leclerc nor Perez completed a second flight lap, but Magnussen, driving his Barcelona-style car, achieved a time of 1:19.810, causing both Perez and Leclerc to drop one place.
Haas has truly mastered this car; they even managed to elevate the bodywork king, Mikko, to P10.
No one was able to challenge Tang Che's ranking after that, and Tang Che ultimately advanced to Q3 as P5.
Gasly was eliminated at p12.
The unlucky kid still couldn't find his rhythm on this track; hopefully, he'll be a bit luckier in the main race.
Q3 is here, it's time to show our true technology!
Hamilton, the cupping master, was the first to start doing flying circles.
First time slot, get purple! Immediately remove it with Tang Che!
He got purple in the second timeout! He was immediately overtaken by racing legend Russell! He was immediately overtaken by Sainz!
The third timeout period ended with a purple score! It was immediately overtaken by Sainz!
Cupping King 1: 19.664!
Racing Emperor 1:19.603!
Tang Che 1:19.731! The assassination attempt on the king has failed again! The attempt to kill the emperor has failed again!
Sainz 1:19.423! Assassination of the King successful! Kill the King successful!
Perez 1:19.486! Assassination of the King successful! Killing the King successful!
Verstappen 1:19.073! Assassination successful! Kill the king successfully!
The three assassins who successfully killed the king were oblivious to everyone else as they vied for pole position.
The Emperor of Racing is furious! He will once again personally lead the expedition!
First timeout segment turned green! Second timeout segment turned green! Third timeout segment turned green!
1:19.393! Deceased, but not completely!
Still a long way from pole position—Leclerc has already set a fastest lap of 1:18.785. —But faster than Perez's second lap, which undoubtedly proves that Mercedes has the ability to compete with the "Mars Group".
The Cupping King is about to complete his second flying lap! Can he return to the glorious peak of the Cupping Dynasty?
1:19.512! p6! The Cupping King still needs to persevere and endure hardship!
Verstappen's final flying lap is in its final stages! The battle for pole position is at its most intense... Verstappen's car has malfunctioned! His DRES won't turn on!
The pole position is decided!
But there's still suspense in Q3! There's still one person doing his final flight lap!
Tang Che is aiming for an even higher position!
First timeout segment turned green! Second timeout segment turned green! Third timeout segment turned green!
1:19.515! Just a hair's breadth away! Just a hair's breadth away from Tang Che succeeding in assassinating the king!
But this is a qualifying race, and even a difference of just one-thousandth of a second is a world of difference!
Tang Che gave it his all, but couldn't even defeat the Cupping King who wasn't used to the ground effect vehicle, which shows that Mercedes has indeed returned to the Mars team!
Alfa Romeo's two positive upgrades were not as effective as Mercedes' single positive upgrade after two consecutive mid-table upgrades, highlighting the sad, thick barrier between top teams and mid-table teams.
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The race will be held on Sunday at 15:00, with an air temperature of 36°C and a track temperature of 49°C.
Both are high-temperature tracks, but the Barcelona circuit is a little different from the Miami circuit.
The Miami circuit doesn't wear down tires much, while the Barcelona circuit does.
Pirelli provided the three stiffest tire compounds for this race.
The official website provides two entry strategies for reference: yellow-yellow-red two-stop and yellow-red-red two-stop.
However, only Hamilton, the "Cupping King," started on yellow tires; all other drivers started on red tires.
It's worth mentioning that there were four Red Bulls parked in the starting grid: two with a classic dark blue and red/yellow livery, and two with a green livery.
The aerodynamic design of the B version of the Aston Martin race car brought to the Spanish Grand Prix is exactly the same as that of the RB18!
Rounding down, it's like Vettel, the four-time champion, is back driving a Red Bull car (doge).
Given that Aston Martin once produced a pink Mercedes when it was still called Match Point, and given that Aston Martin poached the head of Red Bull's aerodynamics department, Marco has reason to suspect: "Someone secretly downloaded our data."
The FIA launched an investigation and concluded that "Aston Martin had an independent design for this version of the race car as early as November 2021."
This conclusion certainly cannot convince the skeptics, but given Aston Martin's exceptionally poor performance in qualifying, with both cars failing to qualify in Q1, there is little reason to question it.
Aston Martin has powerfully demonstrated that the quality of a ground effect vehicle depends on its chassis; if the chassis is subpar, even Red Bull's aerodynamic design will be ineffective.
The wind follows the tiger! The clouds follow the dragon! Dragon and tiger heroes soar through the heavens! The five red lights go out! The 2022 Formula 1 Spanish Grand Prix has officially begun!
Leclerc leads the Thunder! Verstappen leads the Thunder!
Sainz's start was absolutely dizzying!
Russell surpasses Sainz!
Perez overtook... Perez didn't overtake! Perez started and closed the goal! Preventing Tontatta is the top priority!
Cupping King Hamilton and Perez are practically telepathic! Hamilton also started and closed the door! Preventing Toncher is also his top priority!
As everyone knows, Tontatta's starts are always lightning fast, and he can always get into position at the beginning. Once a driver in the front row is overtaken by Tontatta at the start, it's not easy for them to get back, especially on tracks where overtaking is difficult. Tontatta can keep the drivers behind him completely on the defensive!
The Barcelona circuit is also a difficult track to overtake. You can basically only take over in the DRSE area and the corners at the end of the DRSE area. Overtaking in other corners is extremely difficult and risky.
In terms of overtaking difficulties, the Barcelona circuit is just as difficult as the Imola circuit, and Perez doesn't really want to recall Tanger's defensive performance at Imola.
Needless to say, no one in the world understands Tang Che's defensive level better than him!
In light of this, both Perez and Hamilton closed the door at the beginning of the season.
Hamilton/Perez: I can drop position at the start, but Tanger can't get ahead of me at the start!
Closing down a business, whether compliant or not, always carries the risk of conflict.
The Thunder's start was almost overpowered by Torpedo and the other two!
To avoid a collision, Tontard had to change course when faced with Hamilton and Perez closing in, which allowed Perez and Hamilton to hold their positions and gave Magnussen behind Tontard a lot of overtaking space.
Magnussen surpassed Tanger.
Hamilton closed the gates, blocking one lane, which naturally opened up the other lane, giving Magnussen another chance to overtake!
Magnussen...crashed! Right in front of Toncher! Magnussen and Hamilton collided!
Hamilton strikes his golden left front wing again! Magnussen goes off the track!
Hamilton's front left tire blew out! He's been dropping out of position!
Tang Che reached page 6 effortlessly.
Mattia reports in the TR: "0.8 seconds behind Perez."
If Tanger can stay within one second of Perez, then waiting for the DRRS to become available on the third lap might give him a chance to attack Perez.
On lap 2, Mattia reported in the radio: "1.4 seconds behind Perez".
On lap 3, Mattia reported in the radio: "2.1 seconds behind Perez".
I can't keep up! I simply can't keep up!
In this upgrade, Red Bull, Ferrari, and Mercedes all showed greater improvement than Alfa Romeo!
Perez's RB18 has extended its lap time advantage over Tanger's AT03 to more than 0.6 seconds!
If Tanger wants to catch up with Perez, he can only hope that Perez and Sainz will engage in a fierce battle ahead.
But on lap 3, as soon as he entered the DRSE zone, Sainz made a big mistake, handing P3 to Perez and allowing Perez to create a safe distance.
The Red Bull car is even faster than Sainz on this track, so it won't be easy for Sainz to catch up with Perez.
By the time Sainz closes in and engages in a close fight with Perez, Tontard's deficit against Sainz and Perez may have widened to the point where Tontard is unable to catch up before Sainz and Perez finish their fight.
Barring any unforeseen circumstances, Tang Che will not have another chance to be promoted.
It's also very likely that it won't fall out of position.
After Hamilton changed tires and left the pits, he fell to the back of the pack, more than 50 seconds behind Tontard. He was also on red tires, making it virtually impossible for him to catch up with Tontard.
Arro's performance may not be inferior to the AT03, but Bottas just can't keep up with Tanger when he drives it.
If Magnussen were behind Tontard, he might have been able to put up a fight with Tontard using Haas's Barcelona-style car, but now that he's behind Hamilton, it's virtually impossible for him to catch up with Tontard before the end of the race.
The remaining cars performed worse than Arro and Haas on this track, and it was impossible for them to catch up with Tanger.
In this match, Tang Che will likely be stuck at P6 single-player mode until the very end.
The wind in Barcelona: I don't think so!
On lap 7, Sainz went off the track inexplicably at turn 4, and Tanger easily moved up one position.
Sainz dropped to p11 after returning to the track, right behind Gasly, 8 seconds behind Taunter.
In the TR, Tanger said, "There's a gust of wind every now and then at Turn 4, and Sainz was blown off by it. Tell Pierre to be careful when cornering."
How did Tontard know so much? Because Tontard witnessed Sainz's entire runoff from right behind him. In Tontard's view, that kind of loss of control couldn't have been caused by driver error; it was definitely due to external factors causing the car to lose balance.
As Tang Che cautiously navigated Turn 4, the car also lost some control, as if it had been pushed to the side by something.
Besides the wind, what else on the track can push a car sideways?
Based on this, Tang Che concluded that the gusts at Turn 4 were sometimes strong and sometimes weak, and that Sainz was blown out by the wind.
Ground effect vehicles have revealed yet another weakness – they are extremely sensitive to changes in airflow.
Gasly was lucky to avoid any gusts of wind as he carefully navigated Turn 4.
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#2022 F1 Spanish Grand Prix Commentary (Five-Star Sports)#
"Look, Perez is going to attack Russell... Perez's lap time is clearly faster than Russell's right now..."
"We must get past them quickly. This suppression has been going on for too long; it's already been three or four laps."
"This isn't something you can just get by on your own (laughs). So the problem now is... the problem now is that Sainz has withdrawn... uh... let's not talk about the championship, let's talk about the podium. He's temporarily withdrawn and is already in 11th place."
"Sainz may have to compete with Tanger for a spot after that."
"Of course! Tom will definitely guard Sainz. Tom's defensive level... it's safe to say that Sainz has already dropped out of the podium race."
"I think Tom might catch up with Perez first. If Russell and Perez fight for a long enough time, Tom might catch up."
"If Little Tang really catches up, things will definitely get interesting."
"Russell should focus on guarding Perez now. If he can stop Tom from getting close to Perez, Russell might be able to get away."
Even if Russell manages to break free, his speed isn't enough to threaten Verstappen and Leclerc ahead of him.
"So it's another tactical battle between Verstappen and Leclerc, a one-on-one duel."
"Who's that? Who rushed out again? Huh???"
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Verstappen went off the track at Turn 4!
"The wind was much stronger than I expected," Verstappen said in TR.
The GP had warned Verstappen that there might be wind at Turn 4, and Verstappen was aware of it, but the gust of wind he encountered was far too strong and impossible to avoid.
After returning to the track from the gravel run-off area, Verstappen dropped to P4, right behind Perez, leading Taunter by 3.8 seconds.
If Russell can defend for ten or eight laps, Tanger could actually catch up and cause some trouble.
But now Red Bulls are playing two against one, can Russell stop them?
Perez activates DR!
Russell changed lanes before the corner, cutting towards the inside line.
Perez first followed Russell and cut towards the inside, then suddenly turned his head outwards!
Russell changes lanes again! Blocking Perez's overtaking lane!
Russell is now suspected of drawing a dragon!
"It shouldn't count, it shouldn't count." — Fei Ge
The FIA did not intervene in the investigation, and Russell has managed to thwart his plan!
Verstappen: Let me attack!
The two Red Bulls switched places.
Mercedes' performance on the straights has improved significantly after this upgrade. Will Verstappen be able to create attacking opportunities on the straights?
After passing the DR activation point, Verstappen tried to activate DR... but Verstappen's DR can't be opened!
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Bonus Chapter: F1 Anecdotes (13)
At 00:11, according to Sky Sports, Perez damaged Verstappen's rear wing, preventing Verstappen from properly engaging DRES during the Spanish Grand Prix.
This incident instantly became a trending topic on F1 social media, leaving fans utterly shocked and bewildered, with many commenting, "Marco hasn't criticized Perez recently, so why is Perez causing trouble again?"
It turns out that Perez had a premonition that Red Bull would not renew his contract and that he would be kicked out by Red Bull after this season. The more he thought about it, the angrier he became, so he decided to cause Red Bull some trouble.
So Perez disguised himself as a Red Bull engineer and secretly sabotaged Verstappen's car's rear wing.