Zhang Yifei, who overtook the old Verstappen, began to chase Kimi Raikkonen in front of him, but the distance between the two was a little far.

Because the elder Verstappen did not put too much pressure on Kimi Raikkonen during the game, and even the grappling did not last long before he was thrown away by the opponent.

Coupled with Ralph Schumacher's pit stop tyre change, Kimi Raikkonen wanted to speed up and catch up, overtaking Schumacher Jr. to move to fourth.

Although it didn't work out in the end, Schumacher Jr. was still ahead of Kimi Raikkonen and only dropped one place to fourth. But in the whole process, Kimi's speed increased very quickly, and coupled with the previous gap, he threw off the old Verstappen a lot.

Now this big gap requires Zhang Yifei to rely on his own strength to catch up little by little.

"Fly, thirty-two laps, ready to pit stop."

Just when Zhang Yifei began to chase frantically, Cosell's voice came from inside the earphones again, making him ready to enter the pit.

"So fast?"

Zhang Yifei can now see Kimi Raikkonen's taillights, and if he is given two or three more laps, he believes he will be able to catch up.

"It's been delayed, otherwise you should have made a pit stop two laps ago."

The optimal number of grip laps on supersoft tires is actually only 12 laps, and exceeding the peak is a drop in grip.

On a long course like Suzuka Circuit, it is best to pit around 10 laps, and in extreme cases it should not exceed 15 laps. This mainly depends on the condition of the road surface, although the length of the Suzuka circuit exceeds the standard, the road surface smoothness is very good, and the pit stop time can be appropriately extended.

Now Zhang Yifei has seriously exceeded the tire change time, and theoretically has already made a pit stop to change the tire. Korser saw that he was currently in a relatively safe period of catching up, so he relaxed his pit stops, but 32 laps was already the limit and could not be delayed any longer.

"Kossel, the catch-up progress is better than I imagined before, this time let's pit for soft tires and cancel the three-stop tactic."

The lap time effect of the super-soft tyres has been well displayed, and it has also achieved the previous target tone. In the remaining 20 laps of the race, Zhang Yifei wanted to win it in one go and save the time of a pit stop to change tires.

"The soft tyres can't carry more than 20 laps, at least the medium tyres, but the problem is that you don't have the speed advantage you had before, and you even have one more pit stop."

As Korsell said, if you want to use neutral tires, then why not just stop the tactics, and directly start the game with more wearable neutral tires, and save a pit stop time.

Although he made a pit stop to change tires before, because of the accident between Coulthard and Villeneuve, it helped Zhang Yifei to offset it. However, the speed advantage of switching to medium tyres is also gone, and he is still a long way from Ralf Schumacher in front.

Unless the front grappling is very fierce, or there is another accident pressing the car, the unstoppable momentum of catching up before will be slowed down.

"It's that I didn't think it through, let's continue to implement the three-stop tactic."

Zhang Yifei quickly calmed down from the momentum of catching up, and indeed he thought a little too simply.

After passing the entrance of the pit lane on lap 33, Zhang Yifei did not continue to chase Kimi Raikkonen, but stopped to change tires. The chasing blue ghost disappeared from the track.

"Kimi, I've changed the tires at the stop, and the new super soft tires will be faster, try to get rid of him."

Hearing the reminder from the team's strategy team, Kimi Raikkonen subconsciously breathed a sigh of relief.

Although he is ready to fight with Zhang Yifei this time, it is undoubtedly a better solution to leave the Chinese kid far behind. Throughout the season, the high failure rate and poor finish rate actually hit Kimi Raikkonen's confidence hard, and he didn't have the confidence of the super rookie during the Battle of the Twin Stars!

Without hesitation, Kimi Raikkonen frantically accelerated forward, both to get rid of Zhang Yifei and to catch up with Ralf Schumacher who was further ahead. Because he had a hunch in his heart that Alessi was certainly no match for Schumacher Jr., and that he might have a chance to finish on the podium.

In the Pit Stop of the Prost Fleet, all the crew members were also in high spirits for tire change and refueling operations.

This is the most important stop, because there is a refueling process, the next three stops will not be refueled, directly light oil ultra-soft tires, and the final crazy ranking sprint.

"Fly, come on, join Alesi and get to the podium together!"

Charlie expressed the support of the maintenance technician team to Zhang Yifei through the team's voice, because only when the pit stop, the chief technician has the right to talk to the driver, in fact, it is always the team's strategy team call.

Other maintenance technicians can hear this cheering, but they can't make their voices heard like the chief technician. But they can use their actions to express the emotions in their hearts at the moment.

The crew members are as precise as the clock parts, and they have done a good job of refueling and changing tires at the fastest and most accurate speed.

When the lollipop man flipped the sign, the crew members who had completed their own work gave Zhang Yifei a thumbs up, and they could only express their support for him wordlessly in this way.

As a result, a scene that they didn't expect appeared, Zhang Yifei stretched out his arm high and gave his thumbs up on the maintenance channel, which was regarded as a tribute to the crew members.

His action directly made the audience sensational, I have seen a lot of one-handed Ferraris, but during the race, it is really rare to drive F1 with one hand, even if it is in the maintenance channel.

"Damn, it seems that Zhang Yifei is very confident, one-handed F1, is this provoking the opponent?"

"It's not like it's provoking an opponent, it's not on the track, it's about paying homage to the crew in the pits."

"That's right, the outstanding performance of the rookie season has a lot to do with the crew members behind him, and the Prost crew really gave him the greatest support."

"Yes, in addition to the drivers today, in fact, the most improved is the Prost team, which is like the team that finished at the bottom last year?"

"This is the domineering spirit of Your Excellency Yifei, it is the same as the absolute conquest on the shoreline of the bay that night!"

"What do you say, Shoreline? How soon did you run across the shoreline? ”

"Nothing, I'll say it casually."

The audience in the stands began to frantically discuss the reason behind Zhang Yifei's one-handed driving of the F1 car, and even some Japanese viewers even shook out the matter of the underground car on the Wangan Line.

However, these underground drivers still have points in their hearts, just know it, after all, Zhang Yifei is a professional driver, and it is not good to be so public.

"This kid can really do things."

The pit lane is not only Prost's team, but also the other ten F1 teams, and they naturally saw the scene of Zhang Yifei's thumbs up.

The person who said this was Jaguar CEO Nikki Lauda, although his words were Zhang Yifei doing things, but his tone had a kind of satisfaction that could not be concealed.

A young driver wants momentum and confidence, and there is no doubt that Zhang Yifei's actions just now showed his determination for the Japanese Grand Prix to the fullest. No wonder he dared to make a bold statement before the game, and went directly to the red super soft tires in the race, and used the three-stop tactic to fight for speed.

Now it seems that the Chinese kid really has the ambition of winning three consecutive championships in the rookie season!

"There will be a price to pay for being too complacent."

Steiner did not agree with Lauda's words this time, but on the contrary, he secretly sarcastic.

After all, with the end of the season as time comes, the power struggle for the team has heated up, and a lot of superficial harmony is too lazy to do.

Before, he did think that Zhang Yifei's strength as a newcomer was very good. But now this kid, a little too rampant, raised his thumb and made a winning move before the game was over, did he really think he was the champion?

Lauda did not refute Steiner's response, and did not even bother to speak to him.

Because of these teams in the F1 paddock, there are not many people who have really had contact with Zhang Yifei, and Lauda is one of them.

He knew that this Chinese kid was not as perverse and arrogant as the outside world seemed. As long as you don't provoke or despise him, on the contrary, Zhang Yifei is still very polite, and he is polite to the elders or senior drivers.

In comparison, the strongest newcomer in India, Helio, is called a real nobody, and does not take opponents or even teammates in his eyes.

It's just that these things are useless just by saying it, and many people have already formed a stereotype. The only thing that can change is that Zhang Yifei relies on his own strength, as long as the results are achieved, not to mention the current fake arrogance, even if he is really arrogant, others take it for granted, and even all kinds of "washing the floor".

The crew members who hold Steiner's idea actually occupy the majority in the pit lane, but the difference is that they also have Lauda's satisfaction, or envy!

From the opponent's point of view, he is naturally unhappy with Zhang Yifei's self-confidence. But if there is a chance, they also want to have a driver like Zhang Yifei under their own banner!

This kid has created many miracles in F1 history despite everyone's disapproval. And judging from the current situation, Zhang Yifei in this state is almost in suspense when he gets on the podium.

Many things really don't look at the strength completely, but the driver's performance and state on the track, as far as Zhang Yifei's momentum and confidence are concerned, who can still stop it?

Seriously, some team bosses are starting to be a little jealous of the Prost team, relying on a base salary of $130,000 to sign a Chinese kid, and when the team went bankrupt, relying on the Chinese kid to pull tens of millions of dollars in capital injection.

This is simply a manifestation of God, otherwise how could there be such good luck?