The first to qualify for the grid was Scuderia Ferrari's Schumacher, who was last season's Drivers' Champion and will be given priority on the grid until there is no historical result in the new season.

The flaming Ferrari roared through the pit lane and then merged into the main circuit, almost as soon as the red phantom appeared, the audience erupted in thunderous applause and cheers.

More than 80,000 people at the Albert Park circuit almost screamed and cheered for Schumacher at this moment. With the end of the Senna and Prost eras, and the exit of Mika Hakkinen "The Flying Man of Finland", there is now almost no competition for status and results with the triple crown winner Schumacher on the track.

And as last year's defending champion, Schumacher is also the most popular driver of any kind in the competition. Therefore, his appearance can be regarded as igniting the passion of the entire Albert Park circuit and kicking off the new F1 season.

"Shumi, take pole position!"

"The strongest driver, no one is your opponent!"

"OH MY GOD, WORTHY OF SCUDERIA FERRARI'S SCHUMI, HE'S SO FAST!"

"Is this Schumacher, the reigning champion this year?"

"That's right, he's Schumacher, the best driver in the game, there's no one!"

The spectator seats on the track roared to the roar of the Ferrari's engine, and there were various cheers and discussions. Compared with the fanaticism of foreign audiences for Schumacher, Chinese audiences are more curious about Schumacher.

Because the earliest broadcast of F1 races was in Guangdong Province in the 80s, receiving signals from Hong Kong Island TV, mainland audiences began to understand the world's most high-tech race.

After entering the 90s, local TV stations such as Donghai and Yanjing TV began to have some scattered recordings and broadcasts, and they were all recorded and broadcasted, not live broadcasts.

With the coming of the 04 Chinese Grand Prix, the F1 copyright operating company began to warm up the event in China, and directly gave the ten-year F1 event broadcast rights to CCTV in an almost free way.

This is why, since 13 years, CCTV's F1 live broadcast has disappeared, because the copyright time expired, and the broadcast ratings began to be sluggish, so CCTV did not renew, but transferred the live broadcast copyright to networks and local media such as LETV.

But with the advent of 18 years, CCTV has once again become the broadcast medium of F1 events. However, at this time, electronic online media has risen, and fans have been able to watch live F1 races more conveniently.

Behind Schumacher was supposed to be millennial world runner-up Mika Hakkinen, but history has changed in this era when he retired early to replace Kimi, also from Finland, in his driver's seat.

So in second place, it was postponed to David Coulthard of the current McLaren team.

The Scotsman Coulthard was one of Schumacher's key opponents, and after Hakkinen's retirement and Kimi grew up, Coulthard was even the only man who could pose a little threat to Schumacher during the Ferrari era.

And there are still a lot of grievances and stories between him and Schumacher. In the '98 season in Argentina, when Coulthard was in the lead, Schumacher, who was overtaking from the inside lane, grabbed Coulthard's cornering tangent, and pushed out of the track in a "according to the rules" way, and finally Schumacher won the championship.

After this incident, Coulthard's state plummeted, and a few months later, at the Belgian station, at the moment when he was about to be "humiliated by Schumacher", Coulthard, who was in the front car, suddenly braked with a revenge mentality.

Schumacher, who was in the rear car preparing to overtake, was naturally unable to react to such a sudden braking, and the impact caused the front wheels of the Ferrari to fly out.

So Schumacher drove the Ferrari "tricycle" with one less wheel into the pit, and then in front of the global live camera, he got off the car and rushed directly to the P room of the McLaren team, ready to give Cothard an old punch and stage a wonderful pit "boxing".

At that time, the scene of Schumacher angrily rushing towards McLaren Racing P has also become one of the most classic images in F1 history.

After a disastrous performance in the '98 season, everyone thought that Coulthard would be a paintpen driver, after all, he was trapped, which is a bit unreasonable.

Unexpectedly, in 2000, Coulthard and his girlfriend experienced a helicopter crash, and in the end the crew died, he survived.

As the saying goes, if you don't die, there will be a blessing, and after experiencing this life-and-death disaster, Coulthard seems to have undergone a metamorphosis, and his driving skills have begun to rise sharply, and he can even surpass Schumacher in corners, so that his career has reached the peak.

The appearance of Schumacher and Coulthard, coupled with the previous grievances, naturally made the audience feel high. It's just a pity that this is a qualifying match, not a main race, and I can't see the scene of two people facing each other.

The subsequent drivers also took the field in order of ranking, and the veteran of the Prost team, Alessi, because he was a competitor from last season, so he was ahead of Zhang Yifei in the starting order and left the pits first.

With all the veterans starting last season, it's the turn of the newcomers this season. Among the newcomers, Zhang Yifei's number is ranked second, and the first to start is a superstar driver from Colombia, who also won the Indy 500 championship - Juan Pablo Montoya!

Montoya is a newcomer to the F1 paddock, but he's already a true veteran of formula racing.

Since the 80s, Montoya has been trained in professional karting, and then won numerous championships, large and small, and eventually became the FIA F3000 International Champion and became a Williams team test driver.

However, Montoya did not choose to go directly to Formula 1, but went to the Indy series, winning the Indy 500 in his first competition.

This title catapulted Montoya to fame as a superstar driver in Colombia. At the same time, the Williams team was so impressed that they gave up future F1 world champion Jenson Button in favor of the Colombian superstar driver.

However, Montoya did not disappoint the Williams team, finishing pole position and finishing on the podium three times in the rookie season, which can be regarded as a qualified rookie performance.

Especially in the second season, he faced the peak Schumacher and the Ferrari "Mars rover", won 7 pole positions, and won the title of "King of Qualifying". However, his success in qualifying did not translate into race points, and he was still behind the two Ferrari drivers.

Montoya's self-selected car number this time is No. 4, a number that Chinese does not look very auspicious, just matching Zhang Yifei's No. 13, a number hated by European and American countries, and the same newcomer drove into the track one after another for qualifying.

It's just that they are also known as newcomers, but Montoya's popularity and foundation are much better than Zhang Yifei's. Otherwise, the Williams team would not have given up on Jenson Button in favour of the Colombian newcomer.

As soon as he got on the field, he won the cheers and applause of many spectators, and many fanatical Colombian fans also came to the scene to cheer for him.

Although Colombia is only a small country, Montoya's current image in Colombia has a bit of the flavor of Liu Xiang of China in later generations. Many Colombians see him as the next F1 World Champion, and he has the strength and foundation.

Zhang Yifei drove out of the maintenance channel, and the volume of all kinds of welcome and applause on the field directly dropped by more than one notch, and even some obvious ridicule and boos could be heard.

Because of the decline in the ranking of the practice match, many people think that Zhang Yifei's "emperor's new clothes" have been exposed, and the skills and strength that this Chinese newcomer boasted about before have now been revealed.

In addition, the Australian audience accounts for the majority, and some hostility towards the Chinese and China makes it impossible for them to objectively look at Zhang Yifei's achievements. You must know that even if it is ninth, it can be regarded as a qualified or even a dazzling answer sheet among rookie drivers.

In fact, not only Australians, but also many Europeans and Americans also want to see Zhang Yifei "short-lived". After all, in their subconscious, this kind of high-tech top motorsports, you Chinese or Asians can play, but it can't threaten my status.

Just like some Japanese drivers who landed in F1, they were basically regarded as the object of criticism by Europeans and Americans, or as clowns.

It's like Takuma Sato, his results can actually reach the F1 drivers' qualifying line, after all, he has won the championship. However, in European and American media reports, he has never been able to see his bloody nature of fighting for victory, and many times the so-called recklessness can also be an incomparable desire for victory.

All the media can see is the ridicule of him, and various nicknames such as "Cylinder King" and "Track Torpedo". It can be said that in the European and American car world, this Japanese driver has never really been looked up to.

And Zhang Yifei is different, he is arrogant enough, and proved his arrogance with the perfect performance of Renault and Aodao. This strong image, coupled with some media push, has made many people worry that there will really be a talented Chinese driver.

Now that Zhang Yifei is beginning to show his decline, they are naturally even happier.

Among the more than 80,000 spectators, Australia, Canada, Europe and the United States accounted for the vast majority, but there were still thousands of cheering voices bursting out, which may not be so conspicuous compared to the total of 80,000 people.

But their voices cannot be muffled, and their hopes for the success of Chinese drivers are also extremely strong!