"Louis, change the engine for the next race. We use a special set of tuning. ”

In the post-race conference of the British Silverstone Grand Prix, Grant said to Liu Hongyu.

"You guy... Don't you really dare to use this set of tuning with extremely low downforce......"

Looking at the set of racing drawings displayed by Pavard on the big screen, Liu Hongyu didn't know what to say for a while...

The downforce of this tuning is quite low, and although the car will be fast on the straights, the corners... It's hard to put into words.

It was supposed to be used in Spamonza, as both tracks were famously low-downforce tracks, and most cars would choose to use low-downforce tuning to overtake on the big straights.

It makes sense for Pagani to choose to use this set of low downforce tuning in advance. After all, the big straight of this track is quite long, and one big straight is not enough, and the next big straight will follow. Anyway, three big straights in a row will always give you a chance to overtake wheel-to-wheel overtake.

After a few days of rest, Liu Hongyu followed the team to the Red Bull Ring in Austria for the second of the only back-to-back devil races of the season – the Austrian Grand Prix. It is also the home of Red Bull Racing.

But for the country of Austria ... Liu Hongyu's nerd impression of this place is that Vienna, the world's music capital, has produced two superstars such as Sadio Mane and Erling Haaland, and like the Red Bull Racing Team in Formula 1, it is outside of the Red Bull Club Salzburg owned by Matt Hitz, the founder of the Red Bull Group... It seems that there is only one Austrian art student left behind.

When it came to the practice match, because the weather forecast before the race showed that the probability of rain in the qualifying and main races was relatively low, Pagani still used a set of extremely low downforce aerodynamic kits for Liu Hongyu according to the original plan, and Kimi was similar to him.

Before the game, Pagani also officially released the news and decided to let Liu Hongyu and Kimi at Imola Station directly exceed the original limit and replace the new power unit. Naturally, he was punished to the last place like Kimi.

In practice, Pagani's two cars were just as they had predicted before the race. The speed of the straight is the best in the paddock, but the speed of the corner... Anyone who understands understands.

This set of aggressive tuning is still very good. Despite the strong return of the Royal Three, they swept the top six of the three practice sessions, leaving the cars in the Earth group behind them in the dust. Leclerc, Verstappen and Russell were in first, second and third, with Sergio Pérez close behind.

Despite this, Pagani still relied on his wake tactics and tail speed advantage to allow Kimi to squeeze out the tires in qualifying, and Hamilton and Sainz started fifth on the sprint grid.

Liu Hongyu's side was eighth in each qualifying session with only a symbolic dash of one or two flying laps, only 0.003 seconds behind Sainz in front, leaving behind McLaren, Alpine and Aston Martin (Aston Martin only Vettel could squeeze 120% of the car's performance to chase the car in front of him, Stroll couldn't squeeze the car to its proper level) but in the end had to go to the back of the grid.

It is worth mentioning that the Alfa Romeo team of Chinese driver Zhou Guanyu has also started to "lose the upgrade", but they started 14th and 16th on the sprint grid, with a Gasly in between.

"Kimi in front of you will slow down in successive corners and wait for you, looking for opportunities to overtake and move up one place."

Before the sprint qualifying match, Pavard lowered his voice and said in Liu Hongyu's ear after reading the tactical code words to Liu Hongyu.

Liu Hongyu nodded slightly, and after confirming, he put on a helmet and entered the cockpit.

It is worth mentioning that the sprint qualifying session was 23 laps in total, and most of the drivers chose to start on medium tyres, but Hamilton and Liu Hongyu both chose to use one of the two sets of soft tyres saved in qualifying to complete the sprint qualifying. (Don't ask, it's because both Mercedes and Pagani chose to let the one who usually has worse results go to the front.) Russell's grades in my book are slightly worse than the old man)

Let's talk about whether the two of them can survive it on soft tires... The answer may be yes, but there is a high probability that the final moments of the sprint race will drop like crazy.

After the warm-up lap, Liu Hongyu also deliberately played a cautious trick and stopped on the grid a little late. The purpose is to lower the tire temperature of a car that starts with neutral tires in front of it a little more.

Five red lights went out and the sprint qualifying session for the Austrian GP officially began. Hamilton and Liu Hongyu, who use soft tyres, have very good lap times and start to be superhuman from the start. Liu Hongyu passed Latifi, Albon, Schumacher and Stroll in succession, and then rushed into the inside line at Turn 1 and braked late past Haas driver "Ma Tulong" Magnussen to move up to 17th place, ahead of the two drivers of the "Little Red Bull" Alfa Toli team, Tsunoda and Gasly.

Hamilton started straight ahead of Kimi and Pérez, who had fainted from the start. Kimi knew that Hamilton, who was on soft tyres, would not be able to outrun him in a short period of time, so he chose to follow him and overtake Pérez.

About Pérez... The anti-stalling program at the start gave him a big job, and he fell straight out of the points area of the sprint qualifying, which is the top eight. Now in tenth place. In front is two-time F1 World Champion Alpine driver Fernando Alonso.

After passing the first turn, Liu Hongyu then turned on the overtaking mode on the big straight and stepped on the accelerator to the end, relying on the perverted tail speed to continuously overtake Tsunoda, Gasly and at the end of the straight with a late brake to overtake his compatriots, today's start is rare supernatural "Twin Pride" Zhou Guanyu (not black, simply ridiculous) rose to 14th.

"Wow! Liu Hongyu is killing all sides today! His performance gave me the feeling that I was watching Hamilton in Brazil last year! Zhou Haoran looked at Liu Hongyu's No. 15 car on the screen in front of him and exclaimed. (Hamilton, who was sent off for a rear wing irregularity, overtook the 2021 Brazil race with a power unit that was the envy of Marlaren Alonso.) Because of this, the engine on the Hamilton race car is also called the "rocket engine" by some fans.)

After overtaking the slow trains in the lower middle and lower reaches of the Earth and the center of the earth, Liu Hongyu overtook Ankang to move up to 12th ahead of four-time F1 World Champion Aston Martin Sebastian Vettel, who is battling Pérez.

Liu Hongyu can be described as a "fisherman". On stage 3 of the third lap, we were already behind the two cars.

"Hunting time..."

Looking at Liu Hongyu on the screen, Marcus also roughly guessed that he wanted to choose to follow the car in the third stage. When you get to the big straight, you can be a hunter and rely on the speed advantage to overtake.