The morning after qualifying, CNN published an article titled "F1 Paddock Surprises Dark Horses, Where Are the Limits of Chinese Newcomers?" Feature Article.

The article introduces Zhang Yifei's professional experience, highlights the bizarre nature of his ability to achieve good results in qualifying, and calls Zhang Yifei the number one dark horse in the new F1 season.

At the same time, the CNN report also raised a rhetorical question, that is, can Chinese drivers maintain this level, or will it eventually become a "flash in the pan"?

This kind of rhetorical question is a metaphor in a sense, indicating that they do not trust Zhang Yifei's absolute strength, and the current results of the qualifying competition are most likely Zhang Yifei's limit!

However, these are not the point, this report describing Zhang Yifei greatly praised the strength of a wave of Montoya, thinking that the champion of the Indy 500 has the strength to win the championship in F1.

This inexplicable comparison can't help but make people wonder about the real reason for the CNN report, whether it wants to praise Zhang Yifei, or wants to brag about Montoya, or more subtlely, it actually wants to promote the Indy 500 event?

Many people don't know that in addition to the formula cars under the FIA, there is also a relatively "non-mainstream" event in the world, which is the Indo-local program racing sponsored by the American Automobile Association.

Europe and the United States are often collectively referred to as one family, but neither Europe nor the United States are so willing to be a little brother. For Europe, Lao Tzu's ancestors have been rich, and he is the father of your American emperor!

But for the US imperialists, 30 years in Hedong, 30 years in Hexi, and now you are all a group of little brothers, all of whom have to accept my leadership.

In a sense, this competition extends to motorsports, and the FIA-led formula racing was based in Europe, and then developed to the whole world, becoming the main event in most parts of the world.

However, the Association of American Automobile Vehicles did not want to be led by the FIA, so they created their own event, which is the Indy Series.

Compared with Formula International, the Indy event has less investment cost and a more wild racing style. However, in terms of driver level and technology content, it will lag behind the international formula.

The United States has always wanted to promote its own Indy series of plugs, so that it can control the absolute voice in the field of racing and even the automobile industry. Therefore, CNN, as the mouthpiece of the United States, will naturally skew the content of the Indy series.

Although the CNN report contains a lot of private goods, as one of the largest mainstream media in the world, its report still caused a sensation in public opinion.

Many people don't know that there are still formula drivers in China, but now when I look at the report, it's amazing! China has not only Formula drivers, but also entered F1 and finished sixth in the opening qualifying.

This feeling is like a mountain nest in Africa, where a table tennis player suddenly came out, defeated a top Chinese table tennis master in the qualifiers of the Chinese National Games, and reached the finals with the sixth place in the qualifiers.

So this report even brings a sense of unreality to many ordinary people who don't pay so much attention to equations.

In particular, in some BBS about racing, a lot of curious newcomers have emerged and started to ask some questions about Chinese drivers.

"Is Formula Chinese so powerful? How can you become an F1 driver? ””

"Forget about being an F1 driver, running in the top six on his debut, it doesn't mean that he will be on the podium soon, I don't believe that the Chinese formula level can produce such a great driver!"

"Fei was not trained in China, the report said that he was a Toyota youth driver, and he should have received vocational training from Japan, right?"

"Then the karting stage is always in China, the question is is that there is any great karting professional training in China?"

"You ask me, who do I ask? I have the ability to go to China to investigate! ”

Similar discussions and questions in the BBS began to extend with the reports and the Internet, and more people knew that there was a dark horse-level Chinese driver in the F1 paddock.

And it's not just CNN in the United States, thanks to the top influence of F1 in this era, well-known media such as the BBC, AFP, and Al Jazeera have all reported on the opening race of the new F1 season.

It's just that they didn't focus on Zhang Yifei, and their attention was still on pole sitter Schumacher. As Schumacher in his prime, his qualifying lap times were so exaggerated that he simply didn't give his opponents a way out.

Many media outlets began to predict in the opening game whether Schumacher would be able to successfully defend his title this year.

Even thousands of miles away in China, this time the opening game of the new F1 season, because of Zhang Yifei's relationship, was on CCTV's comprehensive channel, and Zhang Yifei's qualifying clip was broadcast in the news broadcast at 7 o'clock in the evening.

As long as you are Chinese, you can understand what it means to be on the news network at this point in time at seven o'clock, and this influence is far greater than the previous broadcast of CCTV sports channels!

After all, the audience and influence of sports channels are far smaller than those of comprehensive channels, and in this era of China, racing can be called an extremely unpopular sport, and the audience is even less.

Therefore, although many people knew that Zhang Yifei had such a driver, he could not reach the height of national athletes, and more people just held a proud mentality that China could have a driver who entered F1.

After the news broadcast, all this became completely different, Zhang Yifei's national popularity began to soar, and many Chinese people began to discuss this F1 driver who is very distant to the people after dinner.

And as Zhang Yifei began to reap the results, and the Chinese Grand Prix is likely to be held next year, the media began to consciously build Zhang Yifei in the direction of "national driver", otherwise a qualifying result will not meet the standard of CCTV seven-o'clock news broadcast.

It can be said that after such a race, Zhang Yifei began to enjoy the feeling of "popularity", and even the Prost team, there are many media who plan to interview Zhang Yifei, hoping to dig out this "dark horse", those untold stories behind it.

In the face of media interview requests, Prost's original intention was actually inclined to agree. Because of the increase in Zhang Yifei's fame, in a sense, it is also associated with the improvement of the reputation of the Prost team, which has a very positive impact on the team's future sponsorship, commercial value and so on.

However, Korcel directly rejected these interview requests, on the grounds that the weekend is the main race, Zhang Yifei is now in an active state of preparation, how can he be interviewed by these media, it will affect the driver's race status.

In the face of the tough refusal of the competition engineer, the boss Prost had no choice but to dispel the idea in his heart. He used to be a driver and knew that a short interview before the race was fine, but this kind of pre-race interview by multiple media outlets had a big impact on the driver, both in terms of time and status.

Prost wanted to enhance Zhang Yifei's fame to expand the team's influence. But Zhang Yifei is just now showing the trend of a new star, and if he picks wool to death, it is tantamount to killing chickens and taking eggs.

Prost would still settle the account, so he finally agreed with Korcel's decision.

In the hotel where he stayed, Zhang Yifei was not affected by the media at all, he was working with the team strategy team to check the video of the qualifying race and decide on tomorrow's starting strategy.

The main decision point of the starting strategy is the number of pit stops, under normal circumstances, the number of pit stops in F1 is one, two, and three. A few stops in this place means that the driver will go back to the pit several times to change the tires and refuel.

If the one-stop tactic is adopted, then the car will use hard tires and heavy oil, so that although the lap speed will be a little slower in the initial stage due to the weight factor of the tires, it will save time in the pit stop and still not cause itself to fall behind.

The strategy of using the three-stop strategy is the exact opposite, with teams using light fuel and soft tyres that are not wear-resistant. In this way, you can run as fast as possible on each lap, and the time lost in the pit stops is cumulatively recovered.

The team will formulate the driver's pit stop strategy according to the different types of tracks and various objective factors at the time. At Albert Park, for example, Ferrari's favourite strategy is the three-stop strategy, and they are confident that they can recoup the time lost in the pit stops.

Of course, there are some exceptions to the use of four stops, such as Schumacher's classic four-stop campaign, which helped him win the French Grand Prix. But this is not a regular strategy plan, and there is a lot of risk, and it is not that the courage of the artist may not be able to recover the lost time in the pit stops.

"I think Fei, as a newcomer, it's better to use a one-stop tactic for tomorrow's event."

Team leader Henry first expressed his opinion that in Formula 1, two different sets of tyres must be used in a race. This means that one stop is the bottom line, and you have to make a pit stop no matter what.

As a newcomer, Zhang Yifei reduces the number of pit stops, which means that he can reduce the mistakes and rhythm disruption caused by pit stops, and improve the fault tolerance rate on the track.

You must know that when he was in the training base before, Zhang Yifei had a pit stop refueling accident. Although the accident was not serious and had little to do with Zhang Yifei himself, under the pressure of high-intensity events, no one dared to guarantee whether Zhang Yifei and Ah Hu, the newcomers, could withstand such pressure and not make any mistakes.

Since none of these things can be guaranteed, it is also the most reasonable plan to adopt a conservative and prudent strategy for the first race.

However, at this time, Yamamoto Ukyo, who has never spoken much, rarely took the initiative to express his opinion.

"With my calculations, the three-stop tactic will maximize the benefits, if you take into account factors such as risk. I think the second pit stop will be the best balance between risk and reward, and the one-stop strategy will theoretically lag behind the two-stop strategy by about 2.128 seconds. ”

"So I suggest that at least the two-stop tactics should be guaranteed, and if you are confident, it is better to stop three!"