The Red Ferrari Army, which began in 1999 and ended in 2004, was the F1 overall champion team for six consecutive years.

Six consecutive championships, in this era of competition, can be described as a miraculous achievement, thus laying the foundation of a generation of Ferrari dynasty.

Among them, the team's No. 1 German driver Michael Schumacher also achieved his personal five-in-a-row championship, plus the world championship title, Schumacher won a total of seven drivers' championship titles, is recognized as one of the greatest F1 drivers, and later is the second F1 driver to have the title of car god after Senna.

He also holds numerous F1 records, such as the most world wins, race wins, fastest laps, pole positions, and more. Schumacher also has a record of 13 consecutive wins in a single season, and in 2002 he finished on the podium throughout the year.

Schumacher is the holder of almost every F1 record imaginable.

This terrifying steady play almost made his contemporaries feel a kind of despair. Except for the 2003 season, when he was chased by Kimi Raikkonen, who was still a young driver, and brought a hint of threat, the other four years were absolute leaders, dominating the class, and locking up the Drivers' Championship early.

Because of these achievements, the official F1 website called Schumacher "the statistically greatest driver in Formula 1", and there is no one behind!

Now that this legendary F1 driver has appeared in front of his eyes, Zhang Yifei doesn't know how to describe his mood at the moment.

Zhang stood in stuppe, but Schumacher noticeably didn't notice the young Chinese driver, who was talking to the Ferrari team mechanic. If nothing else, the conversation should have been about the tuning of the Ferrari test car.

After all, during Schumacher's five-year rule, in addition to the amazing strength of the drivers themselves, and the lack of any chance for their opponents, the performance of the car was also an indispensable part.

You must know that many times, the driver who drives the "Mars rover" in the F1 paddock is like not running the same race compared to the driver who drives the "Earth car".

The Mars group can throw the earth group far away to the drivers, even if the drivers of the earth group behind them are useless with a perfect performance, and the car can't catch up with the opponent no matter how hard they try.

That's why, in the history of the FIA, the ban on "black technology" vehicles has been frantically banned. Because a team's car is too advanced, it will cause the balance of the entire event to be broken, and in the case of no way to make the small team improve quickly, banning is the most direct means of balancing.

"Are you following Schumacher?"

Coser's voice came from behind, and he had already noticed that Zhang Yifei's eyes were on Schumacher.

However, Schumacher is currently a three-time world champion, the first active F1 driver, and has maintained an extremely strong momentum, and is the biggest favorite to win this year's F1 title.

As a newcomer to the F1 paddock, it is not surprising that Zhang Yifei will pay attention to and even worship Schumacher, after all, the other party is very strong.

"Well, he's strong."

Zhang Yifei does not deny his attention to Schumacher, if even Schumacher can not be ignored, it is a rare thing.

Many people later believed that Schumacher relied on Ferrari's thighs to achieve five consecutive championships and run a dominant result.

But the problem is that Schumacher was already in Benetton before he joined Ferrari, and he was the defending champion at Benetton.

Ferrari made Schumacher, but again, Schumacher founded the Ferrari dynasty. There is nothing if in this world, no matter which team the strong man is in, he will eventually shine his brilliance, only the historical achievements are real.

And then again, if Schumacher didn't have the quality, he wouldn't have been able to get into the best Big Three of his time. Just like the giant teams of Mercedes-Benz and Red Bull in later generations, can ordinary drivers enter casually? Again, they only pick the best drivers to achieve each other.

So putting aside some objective factors and purely talking about driving skills, Schumacher is not too much to call the strongest driver in F1 history.

"It's very strong, after all, he was the driver who could put pressure on Senna back then."

Korcel said lightly that his impression of Schumacher is no more shallow than anyone else's.

Because in 1994, Senna was accidentally killed in an accident at the Imola circuit, and it was Schumacher who was chasing after his car.

In the F1 season, Senna was already a superstar in the F1 paddock, while Schumacher was just a rising star.

The desire for the championship made Senna choose to transfer from McLaren and join the Williams team, which had the "black technology" of racing at that time. What he didn't expect was that the active memory suspension system was disabled, and Williams' racing advantage was lost in an instant.

The transfer factor has put a lot of pressure on Senna, who desperately needs to prove himself at Williams. However, in the first few races of 1994, Senna did not win, which was an unacceptable result for the proud and aggressive Senna.

Therefore, he faced the pursuit of his junior Schumacher at the Imola circuit, and drove more aggressively, so he chose to use a top speed of 300 km/h in front of the corner.

Eventually, due to understeer and loss of grip, the Williams car crashed into the protective wall of the corner, and the suspension debris broke through the helmet, and the greatest driver of F1 fell.

Later, many people blamed Schumacher for this, believing that it was his too fierce persecution that caused Senna's accident. Even Schumacher, when interviewed by the media, blamed himself for his decision to press too hard at the time, and if it hadn't been for such a fierce fight, the accident might not have happened.

Of course, Kossel has always scoffed at these remarks. In his opinion, a driver who does his best to compete for the championship on the track is the greatest respect for his opponents.

Senna's accident was a tragedy and a pity, but Korcel believed that if Senna was given another chance, he would still choose to push the corner and not give the opponent behind him any possibility of overtaking, which is what a truly great driver should do.

Just when Korsell and Zhang Yifei were both looking at Schumacher, Charlie, the team's chief technician, came over, patted Zhang Yifei on the shoulder and said: "Why are you standing here, let's go to the pit first to introduce you to the latest JS53 car." ”

As a newcomer to the Prost team, Zhang Yifei has never driven and learned more about the team's latest JS53 car.

The reason is also very simple, because at that time, the JS53 car had not yet been finalized, and even at this stage, the car still needed winter testing. Therefore, for a pure newcomer like Zhang Yifei who has never been in contact with F1 cars, it is meaningless to drive this kind of prototype car for him, which can neither play any role in training, nor find some problems with the prototype.

"Hmm."

Zhang Yifei nodded, then withdrew his gaze from Schumacher in the Ferrari pits.

This is no longer the era of the previous life, and now he is also a professional F1 driver, so he can no longer look at Schumacher as an idol, and should regard him as his strongest opponent!

Arriving at the pits, Prost's new racing car, the JS53, was placed in the middle of the pits, and the team mechanics were installing the pneumatic kit in preparation for the next test drive.

Now this JS53 car has changed a lot from the prototype that Zhang Yifei saw at the Montlieri Circuit before, the most important thing is to install a new aerodynamic package and change to a blue team livery .

There are also sponsor logos such as Acer, Kwok Group, and the French Automobile Federation on the body. However, the biggest logo is still on the rear wing, with the logo of the Peugeot Group, representing the JS53 racing car, which is an engine provided by the Peugeot Group.

In fact, the name of the F1 team, most of the time you see is an abbreviation, and the full name of the general correct one is to bring the name of the engine supplier to it, and even some are directly United teams.

For example, the full name of McLaren should be McLaren-Mercedes team, Jordan-Honda team, Williams-BMW team, etc.

The reason for this abbreviation is that Formula 1 places more emphasis on the chassis manufacturer of the car than the engine manufacturer of the car.

As long as there is money in terms of engines, there are many suppliers in the market to choose from, such as Honda, Renault, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and so on. Basically, any car manufacturer that can be named can provide an Formula 1 racing engine.

Because for these car manufacturers, the F1 engine is just a by-product of their development. Even if you don't participate in Formula 1, you need to invest a lot of money in engine research and development, which is also the foundation of car manufacturers.

However, the racing chassis is not the same type as civilian vehicles at all, and various R&D and wind tunnel tests are equivalent to redundant expenditures. Automobile manufacturers can not only make their own products famous and make money, but also develop chassis is pure investment, so many automobile manufacturers do not set up their own fleets, but simply do engine suppliers.

The most famous of these should be Honda, which has been an engine supplier for decades, and finally couldn't help but buy the shares of the British American team in 06, ready to go to sea under the name of the Honda team!

As a result, after running for a year, I found that running an F1 team was surprisingly expensive, and it was better to make money by selling engines alone. In addition, it encountered the economic crisis of 08 again, so Honda directly announced that it could not afford to burn, and slipped away......

So many times the chassis directly determines the upper limit of a racing car, after all, the engine has a choice, and this one can't have the money to change to another. But the F1 chassis and aerodynamic design are things that no one will sell, only look at the team's own R&D strength.

There have been no major scandals in the history of the Prost team, after all, they have inherited the legacy of the Ligier team and have experience in design and development. Therefore, the main direction of this winter test is the new engine provided by Peugeot.

You must know that the Peugeot engine is really a bit of a pit in history, but when driving the JS51 car, Zhang Yifei didn't feel any big problems, so I don't know if this world and history have changed.