It took three days for the Pit Stop to be completed, which was almost a day slower than the top teams such as Ferrari and McLaren.

Even the "recruits" Renault and Toyota teams that joined F1 this year are more than half a day faster than the Prost team.

Among them, who are at the same level as the Prost team, there are only a few "poorer" brothers such as Minardi and Jordan.

You must know that building a maintenance station is not as simple as building a prefabricated house, the framework is only the most basic thing, and the real difficulty lies in the connection and wiring of various computers, cables, telemetry instruments, and communication instruments.

Don't underestimate these electronic components, all the remote sensing data transmission and voice calls of the racing car rely on sensors all over the track to synchronize with the team's P room.

Not to mention the quantity, the weight of the computer plus the cable alone is as high as several tons! That's why the stevedores of the Prost team are as high as 30 people, and without so many team members, it is almost impossible to get everything done in two or three days.

The reason why these large Ferrari teams are fast is that they have as many as fifty or sixty stevedores, and as the saying goes, there is strength in numbers, and they are naturally faster than the Prost team with only 30 stevedores.

However, there are exceptions to everything, and under normal circumstances, the factory team has a strong strength to rely on, and the Jaguar team is the exception.

It has Jaguar's car brand, and it is backed by a world-class old car manufacturer like Ford. Not to mention that it is better than the old Ferrari and McLaren in F1, at least it is on par with the new recruits Renault and Toyota, right?

As a result, the speed of the Jaguar team was only a little faster than that of the Prost team, and the internal struggle consumed too many team resources, and even the team atmosphere began to "grind foreign workers".

This situation is very similar to the Prost team in the latter part of last season, when the atmosphere collapsed, everyone was mixed up one day at a time, and anyway, they were waiting to retire from the race, and they still wanted efficiency in this mentality?

So Zhang Yifei sometimes sympathizes with Nicky Lauda, such a legendary F1 driver, who was invited by Ford to nominally use his "fame" to suppress the team's infighting.

In fact, Ford didn't give Nicky Lauda enough authority at all, and when things couldn't be suppressed, he directly fired Nicky Lauda without informing him, which is really a "backstabbing man"!

After the pit was built, Zhang Yifei went from the hotel to the Sepang Circuit in Kuala Lumpur, and the airtightness of the Peugeot engine of the racing car still worried him.

The sixth-place finish in his debut at the last leg actually gave Zhang Yifei a lot of confidence and confidence, and he wanted to go further on the Sepang circuit to see if he could hit the podium.

But now the hidden dangers of racing seem to cast a shadow on this goal. Zhang Yifei's requirements are not very high, as long as he can survive the Malaysian station, so that the next station can be replaced with a new event engine.

Driving to the Sepang Circuit, in fact, Zhang Yifei is no stranger to this track. Needless to say that you will become a professional F1 driver in this life, familiarity with the F1 track is a basic professional requirement.

Even in his previous life, Zhang Yifei has learned about the Sepang Circuit in detail, after all, there are only a few top F1 tracks in the whole track, and in this industry, whether there is a chance to run or not, it is also appropriate to understand it.

Sepang Circuit has historically hosted the Formula 1 Grand Prix in 1999, five years before China's East China Sea Grand Prix. In addition to the Suzuka Circuit, it is the second professional F1 circuit in Asia, which is not only earlier than the East China Sea, but also earlier than the Bahrain and Istanbul circuits.

The reason why the Sepang circuit was built is because this era is at the peak of Malaysia's economy, and there is money and capital to play F1 games. Another point is that in recent years, the F1 league has been actively expanding beyond Europe to consolidate its position as the leader and prevent the rise of the Indy 500.

The Sepang Circuit was born because it was new enough to provide a more comfortable pit lane and a high-tech press center for the media.

At this moment, in the team's pit pit, two of the three F1 cars have been assembled, and the remaining 13 car of Zhang Yifei is still in the state of parts.

In the engine area of the pit station, the engineers of the Prost team are briefly tuning and overhauling the engine of the race, trying to repair the engine as much as possible to meet the requirements of the race.

Korsell was clasping his hands to his chest, looking at the engine debugging on the workbench with a serious face, and even Zhang Yifei stood beside him and didn't notice it.

"Kossel, what's going on now?"

Zhang Yifei also looked at the engine, but asked Kossel in his mouth.

"When did you come?"

Korsell was a little surprised, he didn't notice when Zhang Yifei entered the pit stop.

"Just arrived."

"Yesterday, after the construction of the main structure of the pit station was completed, we have already cooperated with Peugeot engineers to seal the airtightness of the engine. Two short rounds of testing have been carried out today, and no abnormal pressure in the cylinder has been found for the time being. ”

Hearing Cosell say this, Zhang Yifei was also relieved, when he came in just now, he saw Cosell's serious expression, and thought that things were wrong.

"Looks like it's going well."

"The car is good, but the track is not good."

The expression on Cosell's face did not change in the slightest, and he replied unabashedly.

"What's wrong?"

"Haven't you seen the track profile? Sleeping in your room these days? Do you need to ask me this kind of question? ”

In the face of Kossel's rhetorical question, Zhang Yifei was a little speechless, this old German man was taking gunpowder today, why did he speak so impulsively?

It seems that Malaysia's tropical climate, staying in the hot engine area, is indeed a bit annoying!

But when he thought of the high temperature, Zhang Yifei instantly understood what Korsell was referring to.

Malaysia is in the tropics, and even though it's only spring in the northern hemisphere, the temperature at the Sepang circuit is approaching 40 degrees Celsius. This hot climate made Sepang the hottest of the many races, but it also made it difficult to cool down the engine.

But that's not the hardest part, it's the two 800-metre long straights on the Sepang circuit that really put a lot of pressure on the engine!

The average speed of these two long straights can exceed 300 km/h, and the maximum speed can even reach an exaggerated 320 km/h. So on such long straights, the car will inevitably accelerate at full throttle, and the engine will run at full speed.

The bad thing Kossel is saying is that the short test doesn't fully simulate an official game that lasts for more than an hour. Now that the test can be passed, it does not mean that in the face of high temperature and high pressure, the engine is still stable, and the future is still not very bright, which may be the real reason why Corer's face is serious.

Zhang Yifei opened his mouth again and asked Koser: "The long straight road will put a lot of pressure on the engine, is there a way to solve this?" ”

"Nope."

"What then?"

Faced with Zhang Yifei's question, Cosell didn't bother to answer directly, and from his attitude, Zhang Yifei came up with two words - "cold salad"!

But at this time, Henry opened his mouth to comfort: "Fei, don't think too seriously, today's short test went well, and the air tightness problem should be solved." Besides, didn't you have any problems with the last stop? ”

After speaking, Henry also glanced at Zhang Yifei with sympathetic eyes, he listened to the conversation just now, Cosell's attitude really didn't take into account Zhang Yifei's psychological endurance at all.

After all, Zhang Yifei is just a newcomer to the track, and in the face of possible failures, he must be under a lot of psychological pressure. As a result, the race engineer did not have any intention of easing, and completely regarded Zhang Yifei as a veteran driver, which I don't know how this attitude was carried by the Chinese newcomer before.

Although Henry knows that Zhang Yifei's psychological quality is very good, this is already beyond the boundaries of newcomers.

When he met Cosell as a rookie, a former Senna strategist, and he was still a super radical, I really don't know whether to say that Zhang Yifei was lucky or his "misfortune......

What Henry didn't expect was that Zhang Yifei just smiled at him indifferently, and then continued to get to Korcel's side to discuss some questions about the Sepang circuit with him, without taking the pressure just now to heart.

Seeing Zhang Yifei's attitude, Henry suddenly understood, it turned out that this kid was a masochist!

The completion of the pit station does not mean that all the processes are over, and there will be logistical facilities such as drivers' restrooms, office areas, and even kitchens.

The two-week interval between races is tight for the teams, but it is quite generous for the drivers. At least Zhang Yifei can use the remaining more than a week to thoroughly familiarize himself with the Sepang track.

No matter how many laps the simulator takes, it is impossible to be completely 100% simulated in the field. Therefore, Zhang Yifei and Yamamoto Youjing, as usual in the next few days, walked a few laps along the Sepang circuit and recorded detailed track data.

It was during these laps of field exploration that Zhang Yifei felt the difficulty of the Sepang circuit, where in addition to the two exaggerated long straights, there are many corners with different arcs, and most of them are some low-speed corners, which is very challenging for the control of the line.

Another point that made Zhang Yifei feel very uncomfortable was that in addition to the high temperature, the Sepang track also had very high humidity. Just like acquainting with some parts of the southern part of the country, there is an unusually muggy heat.

And in a week, Zhang Yifei encountered several rainstorms of different durations, which was also a challenge for rain fighting technology and tire selection.

The more he learned, the more difficult Zhang Yifei felt the challenge!