How did I become an F1 driver?

Various titles flooded in, and Qin Miao was overwhelmed.

At the same time, Qin Miao felt relieved.

After all, there has been no news about Geely for a long time. Qin Miao sometimes even wondered whether Geely was backing down and was not planning to enter F1.

But it turned out that Qin Miao was overthinking.

However, what surprised Qin Miao was that he originally thought that even if Geely joined F1, their first choice should be Aston Martin. After all, Geely does have a lot of shares in Aston Martin's parent company. Geely and Stroll Sr. are on the same board of directors, and the two sides should be able to talk to each other.

But unexpectedly, what Geely bought in the end was Toro Rosso, and only bought 90% of the shares, not a full acquisition.

Qin Miao, who was very curious about this, naturally clicked on the news headlines to see the details.

But no one knows what these journalism students are doing. After Qin Miao clicked on it, there was no useful information, but a lot of repetitive talk.

Qin Miao simply opened Bilibili and found a video sorting service provided by a UP host on Bilibili.

To be honest, sometimes reading the news is not as good as watching the UP hosts on Bilibili.

After reading it, Qin Miao roughly understood the ins and outs of the matter.

It’s not that Geely doesn’t want to buy Aston Martin. In fact, the first team Geely contacted was Stroll’s Aston Martin team.

However, Stroll's offer was a bit too high. After evaluation, Geely felt that Stroll was just taking advantage of the situation. After several internal meetings, Geely finally decided to terminate the negotiations with Aston Martin.

But entering F1 has already been one of Geely's strategic goals.

The domestic automobile sales market is so competitive now. Although Geely can also compete, the pressure is also great. Therefore, Geely plans to open a publicity channel from another track and enter F1. The publicity strategy has also changed to shifting from exports to domestic sales.

The FIA ​​actually hopes that Geely will join.

After all, the Chinese market is really attractive.

The presence of these two Chinese drivers alone has caused FIA's revenue in China to surge by 500% in the past two years.

If there is a Chinese racing team, the FIA ​​can make a lot of money just by selling peripheral products in the domestic market.

By the time the Chinese Grand Prix is ​​held, or even if another Chinese Grand Prix is ​​added, the FIA ​​dare not even imagine how much money it can make in China.

Moreover, the FIA ​​often receives complaints from other teams about the Red Bull Racing and Toro Rosso.

After all, the Red Bull Group controls two racing teams, which is a bit unfair to other teams.

Although it is said that the Red Bull Racing and Red Bull Racing teams will not exchange key team data, FIA staff also play a supervisory role in it.

It is true that some designs on racing cars cannot be communicated or copied, but some obvious mistakes, minefields and experiences gained through trial and error cannot be detected by the FIA ​​even if they are communicated.

So it can be said that the Red Bull Racing team is, to a certain extent, the trial and error version of Red Bull Racing.

This not only caused dissatisfaction among other F1 teams, but the FIA ​​also realized the huge advantage of the Red Bull team, so it also wanted Red Bull to sell the Toro Rosso team.

But Red Bull also has an explanation. It was you who asked us to take over Toro Rosso when the overall environment of F1 was not good. Now that the overall environment of F1 is good, you want us to sell it again. There is no such thing in this world!

Therefore, Geely's entry is a good opportunity for FIA to kill two birds with one stone.

So after knowing that Geely had a strong intention to enter F1, Ben Sulayem from the FIA ​​found Geely and went to find the Red Bull Group together.

In recent times, there have been some doubts from the Red Bull Group about the existence of Toro Rosso.

After all, in 21, Toro Rosso's team's overall ranking was still maintained at 6th place, but in 22, Toro Rosso was only ranked 8th in the team rankings, and the decline was particularly obvious.

Compared with the Big Red Bull, the Little Red Bull is really too mediocre.

Of course, this is just a way for the Red Bull Group to pressure Toro Rosso, and they have no intention of selling Toro Rosso.

But at this time, the FIA ​​entered the market strongly and connected Red Bull and Geely.

And this time, the FIA ​​did not find the Austrian Red Bull, but Red Bull's major shareholder, Thai Red Bull.

After all, they are all people from the Confucian cultural circle. Coupled with the FIA's instigation and lobbying, Geely's sincerity, and the fact that Red Bull has been losing money, the Xu Shuen family was very tempted by Geely's offer.

However, Austrian Red Bull strongly opposed this. After all, Austrian Red Bull cares very much about the performance of the F1 team, and the existence of Red Bull can indeed provide them with great convenience.

Thai Red Bull didn't have any good solution after learning about the intense emotions of Red Bull.

Although the Xu Shuen family is a major shareholder of Red Bull, Red Bull is not a company that the Xu Shuen family has the final say over.

So around the time of the Singapore Grand Prix, people from Tainiu took people from Geely and FIA to Austria.

It is not known what the group discussed and what interests were exchanged after they went to Austria.

But what is certain is that Geely did successfully acquire 90% of Toro Rosso's shares and obtained a seat in the F1 arena.

As for the remaining 10% of the shares,
5.1% went to Thai Red Bull and 4.9% was in the hands of Austrian Red Bull.

At the same time, because no one at Geely was familiar with the operation and working relationships of F1, although many people were sent to the paddock to learn in 22 years, learning was just learning, and no one had any experience in actual operation.

Therefore, the internal personnel structure of the Red Bull Racing team will not change much in the 23rd year. The same people are still in charge, and Tost is still the team leader.

The only difference is that Tost's reporting entity has changed from Red Bull to Geely.

The only difference is that Toro Rosso's staff has been expanded, and 30% of the expanded staff are Chinese.

Everyone knows that these people are here for interns. Once they become familiar with the operating procedures of the F1 team and all the things they have to go through in a whole year, they will gradually replace all the current senior management of the Red Bull Racing team.

As for the team leader... that depends on Tost's performance in the last few years at Red Bull.

Of course, the Toro Rosso team has changed its name and is no longer called Toro Rosso.

After all, it has been acquired by Geely, so it is impossible to still use the original name.

Geely had already decided on this ranking after a long discussion.

And on New Year's Day, when he officially announced his joining F1, he also announced the new name of his team:
Lynk & Co- Lotus Saudi Aramco F1 Team. (Lynk & Co- Lotus Saudi Aramco F1 Team, hereinafter referred to as Lynk & Co Team)
Geely bought an F1 team not for profit but for publicity.

But it’s enough to have your own company at the beginning of the team, and the cards are all drawn, and then it all comes down to feelings and money.

The sentiment is naturally Lotus. After all, many old car fans like it. If Geely brings Lotus, the team will have a certain fan base from the beginning, and it will be more convenient to make money by selling peripherals.

The money naturally belongs to Saudi Aramco.

This needs no explanation, the word Saudi Arabia naturally carries the smell of money.

Now Lynk & Co has officially become the real prince of Geely.

Not only does it have a WTCR team, it also has an F1 team, which is absolutely second to none among domestic car brands.

At the same time, the paint job of Geely's new car has already been designed.

Lynk & Co originally planned to use the blue color of their WTCR as the main color of the paint, but after debugging, they found that the blue paint was a bit too heavy. If blue paint was used, the lap time might drop by about 0.05. For F1, a top racing sport where 0.001 seconds must be squeezed out of teeth, a speed loss of 0.05 seconds for paint is almost unacceptable.

So Lynk & Co adopted Lotus’ previous paint scheme, black and gold.

However, in order to reduce weight, black is the color of the carbon fiber of the racing car itself, and gold is used to thicken the body of the car.

At the same time, the Lynk & Co logo is used in the middle of the car's nose, followed by the Lotus.

The reason why Lynk & Co is so obsessed with the details of the racing car's paint job is mainly because the Lynk & Co team has too many sponsors this season.

The Red Bull Racing team already has some sponsor contracts that have not ended this season, and in addition, domestic sponsors have been attracted by the strong entry of Lynk & Co.

Basically, every place on the car body that can be covered with sponsor stickers has been covered.

After all, because of the presence of Qin Miao and Zhou Guanyu, the number of Chinese sponsors in the paddock has increased dramatically in the past two years. Now that there is a Chinese racing team, everyone naturally puts money into Lynk & Co.

At the same time, Lynk & Co will continue to use its original driver lineup this season.

Yuki Tsunoda is paired with De Vries.

The reason for keeping these two drivers is, on the one hand, because there is no time left for Lynk & Co to find new drivers.

On the other hand, the contracts between the Red Bull Racing team and these two drivers, one has not expired yet, and the other has just been signed. Even if Lynk & Co wants to regret it, it is too late, so it just uses them first.

Of course, the fact that Red Bull Group retained this 10% stake means that Lynk & Co is still tied to Red Bull to a certain extent.

However, the relationship between Red Bull and Lynk & Co is a bit like that between McLaren and Mercedes-Benz.

The two teams do have a relationship, but they are not almost one and the same like Haas and Ferrari, Toro Rosso to Red Bull, and Williams to Mercedes.

It is more of a win-win relationship.

At the same time, Lynk & Co's racing car research and development will still use Red Bull's wind tunnel according to the contract.

And using the wind tunnel also requires paying Red Bull.

At the same time, Lynk & Co can also recruit people from Red Bull's youth training system, but the current Lynk & Co is not like the previous Red Bull. Red Bull no longer has the room to transfer drivers from the Red Bull team to replace Red Bull's second driver.

In addition, the most surprising news for Qin Miao was that Red Bull decided to abandon Honda's engine and prepare to develop its own racing engine.

Originally, Red Bull found Ford, and when the two sides were discussing, Geely suddenly stabbed Ford in the back from another angle.

Ford almost gouged his eyes out.

Everything was going well with Red Bull, but suddenly their second team was gone. It was really annoying.

Oh, it seems that Geely can also make engines?
The performance of their WTCR car seems to be quite strong.

Coupled with the reserve talent in engine design within its own team, it may be possible for it to work with Geely to produce an F1 engine with good performance.

At that time, we won’t have to worry about Honda’s expression and can just force the Japanese in.

Add to that the reliable character of the Chinese people, and there's hope!
Red Bull wanted to get rid of its dependence on Honda, and Geely did not want to be a customer team. After discussing it, the two sides finally hit it off and established an engine design company.

Of course, it’s mainly based on auspiciousness, but the location is set in the UK.

After all, only the UK has so many people working in the field of racing engine design, and these people live in the UK.

It is more convenient to recruit people.

After the company was established, Geely did not announce anything to the public. After all, it was completely unknown when a usable engine could be built.

And if they announce that they want to build engines at this time, Honda will probably have some objections.

But Geely and Red Bull are planning to work on it for two years, and then see how the engine is doing. If the progress is satisfactory, Geely and Red Bull will replace the engine with a new one in 26 or earlier.

If research and development is hindered or the engine functions do not meet expectations, Honda's engines will continue to be used.

In short, this engine company is more like a casual chess move.

As for why the domestic media knew so much, Qin Miao was not very clear.

However, after seeing so much news, Qin Miao couldn't help but start to worry whether Geely was taking too big a step.

Of course, Qin Miao was just a driver, and he had no idea about the operation of the fleet.

Qin Miao can only pray that Geely will not produce an engine that will make drivers complain about GP2 in the future.

Geely's entry is indeed good news for the domestic market. At least the enthusiasm and traffic of domestic car fans now have a channel to be monetized.

But it may not be good news for me.

By then, there will definitely be public opinion asking me to join Geely.

I guess I'll have a headache for a while.

It would be a headache if I really met those stubborn people who came up to me and asked me if it was possible to join Lynk & Co.

It seems that I really need to come up with a more appropriate general answer.

Of course, what really worried Qin Miao was his good friend Zhou Guanyu.

Because compared to himself, Zhou Guanyu is the one who is more likely to join Lynk & Co.

Moreover, judging from the ambition shown by Lynk & Co at this time, it is estimated that Lynk & Co is also aiming for the position of a regular on the podium. With Zhou Guanyu's ability, if he really goes to Lynk & Co, he will only be destined to be a number two driver.

That would probably be a big blow to his self-confidence.

I rubbed my brows with a headache, not knowing whether this was a good or bad thing.

Thinking of this, Qin Miao immediately turned his phone to silent mode.

Because Qin Miao had already anticipated how many people would call or send him messages after Geely's strong entry.

In the next few days, Qin Miao hardly touched his phone and just stayed at home with his wife and family.

Qin Miao started replying to messages only after the matter had gradually died down.

Zhou Guanyu did call Qin Miao.

The two chatted for nearly three hours. Qin Miao didn't tell Zhou Guanyu anything about the driver's position or anything related to Lynk & Co. He just talked nonsense.

Before hanging up the phone, Qin Miao said, "Don't think too much. There is an old Chinese saying that goes, 'When you reach the mountain, there will always be a way. When you reach the bridge, you will find a way.' Just relax."

"Okay, I understand..." (End of this chapter)