After the Ao Island Grand Prix, in the racing building, Zhang Yifei and Huaxia Petrochemical Group released a brief press conference.

There are two main points, one is that Huaxia Petrochemical Group has reached a cooperation with FIA and will become a sponsor of the F1 Chinese Grand Prix.

With this opportunity, Huaxia Group will also supply some of the oil used in the event and become one of the FIA's cooperative suppliers.

You must know that formula racing represents the world's most high-tech automobile competition, and it is no exaggeration to say that many F1 cutting-edge technologies, even 20 years later, have not been used in civilian cars.

For example, Williams's "black technology" - adaptive memory variable suspension, even in 2019, can only be seen on some of the top luxury cars, such as the Audi A8 level.

Other "civilian-level" variable suspensions that can be accessed are air suspensions and damping variable suspensions, which are far inferior to the F1 technology of thirty years ago in terms of technology content, and it can be seen from this point how far ahead the F1 car is.

Memory variable suspension is too far from the home level, as far as the next level is more ordinary. For example, engine multi-cylinder technology, such as V8 and V10, was first born in F1 congestion, and then applied to civilian-grade vehicles.

The more popular technology is the common parts such as disc brakes, wheel caps, damping shock absorbers, etc., which were basically popularized by civilian cars in later generations, and many people do not know that they were also born in F1 races, and eventually had to be decentralized to the civilian market.

It is precisely because F1 represents the crown of the human automobile industry that many manufacturers want to apply their own parts to F1 cars. In this way, with the help of the technological content of the F1 car, customers and consumers can feel the technical strength and high quality of their company.

The most conspicuous of this is that various tire manufacturers, such as Michelin, Prost, and Pirelli, have all been tire suppliers for F1 races.

Through the contract with Formula 1, he expanded his influence and proved his tyre ability, and eventually became a world giant.

At the end of the 90s, China was basically still synonymous with low-end processing and manufacturing, and Huaxia Petrochemical Group, as the largest oil company in China, naturally wanted to open up and occupy foreign markets and become oil giants like Shell, Mobil and Exxon.

This is not only to build a brand, but also to compete with foreign oil fields and petrochemical plants to ensure domestic energy security.

It is precisely for this purpose that Huaxia Petrochemical attaches so much importance to the cooperation with the FIA, and even does not hesitate to send a special negotiation team to the UK to negotiate sponsorship with the FIA.

The second point is naturally to announce that Zhang Yifei has become the driver spokesperson of the F1 Chinese Grand Prix, and in the future, Zhang Yifei will appear in the publicity of the East China Sea F1 event and become a "business card" of Chinese formula racing.

And on the day of the end of the competition, Huaxia Petrochemical efficiently paid Zhang Yifei 800,000 US dollars for endorsements.

Because the Ao Island Grand Prix won the championship title, it can be said that it caused a sensation in the whole of East Asia. For Huaxia Petroleum, this is simply a treasure, at a price of 800,000 US dollars, signing a driver who may affect the world is simply blood money!

You must know that the Grand Prix F3 championship is not only a level higher than the previous Formula Renault championship, but also a kind of crushing in terms of influence!

With a history of nearly 50 years, the Grand Prix is the oldest street racing car in the world, and countless famous drivers have competed at the Guia Circuit on the island of O'Island.

What's more, this is a competition held at the doorstep of the island, even if it is an after-dinner conversation for ordinary people, it is much more familiar than the Renault event in Europe.

Based on these two points, Zhang Yifei's fame has been greatly enhanced, and the drivers, who can only be mentioned in the news at the beginning, have begun to really appear in the mouths of ordinary people.

In this era, Liu Xiang has not yet appeared, and China has not yet broken the precedent of breaking the "monopoly" in foreign dominant-level projects.

But Zhang Yifei's sideways birth, there is no doubt that this kind of aiming has appeared, not to mention the world's top, at least the Australian Island F3 champion, has stood in the strongest position of the active formula driver in Asia.

It can be said that the gap between Zhang Yifei and Liu Xiang may be just one sensational achievement, such as the F1 championship!

Once Zhang Yifei can win the F1 Drivers' Championship, for the current point in time, he will not be the next Liu Xiang, but the first Zhang Yifei!

Of course, these are far away, even if they are as strong as Senna and Schumacher, they have gone through several years of fighting before finally standing on the championship podium.

Zhang Yifei is still far from it, and even for the European and American F1 level, Zhang Yifei is not even an entry-level driver in the eyes of many people, let alone a driver championship.

……

On the flight from Hong Kong Island to Paris, France, Zhang Yifei looked at the increasingly small city outside the porthole, and felt a little reluctant in his heart.

It is now the third day after the race, Zhang Yifei said goodbye to Uncle Lu and Xie Tiancheng, and will return to Paris, Europe, to the headquarters of the Prost team, to receive formal professional training as an F1 driver.

It's just that Zhang Yifei still has a trace of regret in his heart, that is, he didn't return to Guangshen and share with the old man the joy of becoming the F3 champion of Aodao.

At the same time, Junko Takeda, who was sitting next to Zhang Yifei, closed the notebook she was carrying and spoke.

"Yifeijun, the Prost team sent an email in the morning to inform them that they have signed a sponsorship contract with the Guo Group. For next year's F1 season, the Kwok Group will print its logo on the right rear part of the car for the advertiser's sake. ”

"Hmm."

Zhang Yifei replied softly, he was not interested in how the Guo Group and the Prost team agreed. However, the signing of the contract between the two sides means that Ah Hu and Brother Zhi can officially join the technical team of Prost Team.

In this way, not only can their own team be reorganized to join the team, but also Ah Hu and Brother Zhi will have the opportunity to get in touch with the crown jewel of the automobile industry.

"There's also the final leg of this year's F1 race, which will be held in Abu Dhabi in mid-November. The main technical team of the Prost team, as long as they finish this stop will return to the team headquarters. ”

"However, they have already redeployed some technical staff, including a chief mechanic, back to the team's headquarters to assist you in developing, tuning and adapting to the F1 car during this time."

"So I'm basically a test rider during this time?"

Zhang Yifei asked casually.

"It can be understood that way."

Cosell, who was sitting in the front, answered Zhang Yifei's question.

A test driver is a standard member of a team, but many ordinary people don't know enough about this position.

Most people know that test drivers are used to run Friday practice sessions, help teams set up their cars and collect track data, and the third driver is the substitute when it matters.

But the problem is, a lot of people think that whether it is qualifying or the race, it will be run by the official drivers, so that they can familiarize themselves with the track and adjust the car according to their needs, wouldn't it be better?

It's like an ordinary person buying a car, of course, you have to start driving it every day, in order to achieve the unity of the car and people, what the hell is it to let others drive?

This is the difference between a top car and an ordinary person, a formula car test driver, the responsibility of a team is not just to help drive a car. They have to collect and feed back a lot of data to the team.

For example, what are the advantages and disadvantages of chassis, gearbox, engine, suspension, pneumatics, etc. In other words, ordinary people do it, and it is estimated that they can say a simple statement such as good, relatively fast, and too slow after a few laps.

But for a test driver, he needs to provide very detailed feedback on the experience, and it can be a simple question that can be discussed with the team development for a day.

And you know, the development of a new race car is not just a drawing, and then you can build it casually. Even if it is easy to build, you have to design a variety of pieces to test which one is the fastest and most suitable.

This process can take up to a year, and regular drivers need to focus on training and racing, and they can't just do it all year. And driving a race car can be more physically demanding than moving bricks on a construction site, and it is common to lose a few pounds after an important event, and you also need to maintain the physical strength of a regular driver.

Later, in order to balance the gap between the strong and weak teams, the FIA stipulated that drivers could not drive their own cars during the off-season, which made it even more necessary for test drivers to take on the heavy responsibility of collecting data.

Of course, the test driver is mainly in control of a general direction, and the fine-tuning according to individual needs is still according to the habits of the official driver.

Zhang Yifei, as a pure newcomer, has not even been in contact with the F3000 level of the "tender sparrow".

The main direction of his early entry into the F1 team is basically to serve as a test driver to familiarize himself with and adapt to Formula 1.

"Test the driver, just test the driver, after all, learning makes people improve, and I am a hard-working person."

Hearing Zhang Yifei's words, the silence in the entire cabin was as if death, and even Ah Hu, who has always been a "die-hard fan", did not cooperate with the embarrassing blow at this time.

Damn, the number one horse boy seems to have a tendency to be two or five boys!

With Zhang Yifei's muttering, the plane landed at Paris-Daigale International Airport.

However, the purpose of Zhang Yifei's trip was not in Paris, but in a satellite city next to it.

This satellite city is still familiar to the Chinese people, the name is Versailles, and the famous "Treaty of Versailles" in history textbooks was signed at the Palace of Versailles here.

The headquarters of the Prost team is located in the town of Versailles, and it is also the only F1 team in Europe based in France.

After getting off the plane, the group did not stop and directly chartered a business car to Versailles.

When it was close to ten o'clock in the evening, Zhang Yifei finally came to the Prost Grand Prix Company, which is also the team's headquarters!