Chapter 358
As time goes on, the F1 venue is constantly being adjusted, with new races and new circuits in China, Bahrain and Turkey entering the F1 family, and of course, old circuits such as Suzuka, Manikul and Silverstone gradually disappearing.
This year's European Grand Prix will undoubtedly be presented to the world with a completely new look, and the highlight of this will undoubtedly be the new Valencia circuit.
The brand new circuit in Spain's beautiful harbour city of Valencia was once the perfect venue for Formula 1 boss Bernie for a few years now. After officially joining the competition to host the F1 Grand Prix, the Valencians also won the hearts of the F1 bigwigs with a new design concept for the street race design, and finally won the title of "F1 Europe". The Nürburgring, which had been hosting the European Grand Prix, will take turns hosting the future German Grand Prix together with Germany's other famous Hockenheimring circuit, so that both circuits will have enough time to complete the renovation and upgrade.
The addition of the Valencia circuit also adds a street race venue to F1 in addition to the Monaco Grand Prix and the Singapore Grand Prix, which is also new this year.
Compared to Monaco, another famous street in Formula 1, the new Valencia is clearly distinguished from Monte Carlo by its own speed (this circuit is currently second only to the Italian Formula 1 circuit in Monza, Italy), and like other new circuits, it has a wide buffer zone, which is in stark contrast to the high walls of Monaco. Accompanied by the equally beautiful sea breeze of Spain's Gold Coast. Even if it collides with the Olympics, this year's European Grand Prix is destined to attract a lot of attention.
Racing on a track that was new to everyone, the big names at the front of the pack were undoubtedly much more careful than before, taking a relatively conservative approach to practice sessions, and everyone seemed to be familiar with the track.
As a result, the old four-car scenario of Ferrari and McLaren dominating three practice sessions did not happen here, but instead allowed Alonso, Vettel and Massa to play well with the powerful but restrained drivers who were able to drive the car. Alonso's performance has earned him the most enthusiastic cheers from the home fans, and Alonso can happily have two home stadiums a year after settling in Spain in Europe.
But. After all, practice matches are different from main races. Everyone understands that if there are no accidents in the next qualifying and main races, it will undoubtedly be the world of the two major teams.
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Although he didn't get all his strength in the three practice sessions, Ye Feng still liked this new track with its speed very much. Compared with Hungary and Monaco, where the order of the grid determines most of the success or failure, Ye Feng still prefers races like Silverstone, Spa Francorchamps and Circuit de Catalunya, which are full of overtaking opportunities and uncertainties. Of course, this does not mean that Ye Feng will relax in the competition for pole position. Because he has absolute confidence in his speed.
However, for some time at the start of qualifying, the sporadic rain in the sky caused some problems for Ferrari. Although he still passed the first qualifying session easily. However, the results of both drivers were not very satisfactory, Ye Feng was fourth in the first quarter, and Raikkonen, who still looked sluggish, was inexplicably only in thirteenth. The poor performance of the two drivers made Schumacher, who had come to watch the race with the team, a little anxious, and when the camera cut to the king of cars, he happened to walk out of the Ferrari garage and reach out to test the size of the rain. To the relief of the king and all those who support Ferrari, the skies have cleared as the second qualifying session begins, which undoubtedly provides the best climate for Ferrari's two drivers to fight for pole position.
This is not the first time this season that Ferrari has behaved in very different weathers, and it has been proven that Ferrari's car and Bridgestone's tyres do not perform very well when combined with slippery roads and cold temperatures. Racing in sunny, warmer track conditions, the F2008 would be a speed monster with Bridgestone tyres, and most of Ye and Raikkonen's early season results have come on sunny days. Most of the games they lost were cloudy or rainy.
Today
The position race will undoubtedly prove this once again, and the biggest contrast is in the design concept of the car. Coming out of sunny Italy all year round, Scuderia Ferrari designed this F2008 seems to be in line with the Italian climate:.
The opposite is true for the McLaren racing cars, where the MP4-23 is almost no match for Ferrari in terms of speed on sunny tracks, but when it's cloudy, rainy, and the track is slippery, it's even more like a fish in water! The few races they won were also in a couple of races in poor weather, which seems to be an interesting phenomenon, and the cars designed by McLaren, who spent most of their time in the gloomy British Isles, seemed to be more adapted to the local climate.
After gradually discovering this problem, Scuderia Ferrari also began to consciously seek more opinions from the team's two drivers on how to adjust the car in cloudy and other bad weather, because both Ye Feng and Raikkonen are extremely familiar with the British climate and car design concepts. Of course, there is no need to deal with other team secrets and patents.
And because Ye Feng has a deep attainment in car design and tuning because of Senna, so after having more help from him, although the inherent problem cannot be cured because the basic structure of the car cannot be changed, but now the situation of the Ferrari car when it encounters some bad weather is much better than in the previous races.
Still put his eyes back on the race, after the weather cleared, Ferrari's two cars, especially Ye Feng, really began to show strong competitiveness, although he still failed to take the first into his arms, but Ye Feng's second quarter qualifying results were only 0.2 behind the first Hamilton. Raikkonen soared from the embarrassing thirteenth to fourth.
As the weather continues to clear and the drivers continue to drive on it to accelerate the evaporation of the moisture, the Valencia circuit is drying out fast. Such a track has become more and more conducive to the performance of Ferrari cars, so soon Ye Feng refreshed Hamilton, who had been occupying the first place in several qualifying sessions, although Xiao Hei quickly grabbed the first place later, but the speed of Ye Feng's car rebounded undoubtedly made Hamilton feel huge pressure!
At 1:39.199, Hamilton took the lead in qualifying, which also allowed him to surpass Ye Feng and temporarily rank first, but then Ye Feng ran his own perfect lap on this brand new track! The last lap!
At 1:38.989, Ye Feng took the first pole position in the history of the Valencia circuit into his arms with the perfect performance of the only one in the race to break the 1 minute 39 second mark! At the same time, after enduring the opponent's domination in the qualifying round in three consecutive races, Ye Feng finally broke this situation with his own hands! In this way, China Ye seems to be telling all his opponents that no one wants to stop him from winning a perfect match on the closing day of the Olympics!
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Valencia in 824 has changed from yesterday's gloom, the sun is shining from beginning to end, and the weather could not be better. Such a good environment undoubtedly gave Ferrari and Ye Feng a good start to this European race, and it was also a heavy blow to other opponents, because it was difficult to imagine who could shake his position under the condition that Ye Feng played normally in good weather.
Five red lights went out, and the race was staged in the shouts of more than 100,000 enthusiastic Valencians, as people expected, Ye Feng really used the tangential start from the beginning to firmly block Hamilton behind him, and maybe because it was a high-speed track, no driver was able to complete the overtaking at the relatively chaotic moment of the start! Twenty long flowing cars drifted around this picturesque city track, accompanied by the slight sea breeze, and the moving picture that enchanted Bernie was finally perfectly presented in front of everyone's eyes.
Accompanying everyone's hearts is the wonderful play of Ye Feng, who is leading in front! Not only did he successfully block his opponent in the starting stages, but he also quickly widened the gap with Xiao Hei in sunny weather. And from Ye Feng's driving action in the leading position but by no means conservative, it is not difficult to see Ye Feng's desire for the championship of this sub-race! Because in the distant land of China, there is also a group of Chinese who have created remarkable achievements in the world, looking forward to Ye Feng's victory...... At this moment, Ye Feng is becoming unstoppable!