How did I become an F1 driver?

At the same time, Lynk & Co has established a power unit design department with Red Bull.

But this power unit design department is just a test project for the two teams. 26 years of engine manufacturing does not mean that you can build it whenever you want. If you do not register with the FIA ​​in advance, even if you have made an engine for a Mars rover, the FIA ​​will not allow you to install the engine on the racing car, let alone sell it to other teams to recover the investment.

而26年的引擎报名截止日期本来是23年的10月15号，不过因为其他车队的申请，这个时间最后调整到了11月15号。

Therefore, Red Bull and Lynk & Co invested a considerable amount of money and personnel to conduct research on the power unit during this period. Of course, Lynk & Co took the lead.

Ultimately, before the deadline, if the power unit is effective and there is a need and possibility for in-depth research in the future, Lynk & Co and Red Bull will register with the FIA.

After all, Lynk & Co invested more money, while Red Bull was mainly responsible for manpower, so the name of the power unit is still Lynk & Co. The advantage of Red Bull is that it can get the engine at cost price and will not have to participate in various commercial activities like Honda does now, and there will be additional conditions that are controlled by Honda.

Most importantly, the data from engine building can feed back into Red Bull’s supercar project.

However, we will have to wait and see what will be produced after October.

After staying at Lynk & Co for more than ten minutes and chatting with the Lynk & Co team leader, Qin Miao left.

As for the other party's hint, Qin Miao directly rejected it. He was doing well in Mercedes-Benz, could compete for the championship, and had seven championships to prove his ability.

Before he completely lost interest in the F1 world championship, Qin Miao had no intention of helping the poor.

After all, the team's foundation has not changed. It is still a downstream F1 team. The new things that Lynk & Co brings are just some different concepts and goals. It will probably take two years for the engineers and technicians sent from China to completely take over and understand the team before it really starts to change and transform.

To be honest, Qin Miao is still looking forward to what this team can achieve in the end.

After all, Chinese people are the best in the world in creativity and learning ability, and this is a team controlled by Chinese people.

However, these things have nothing to do with Qin Miao now. He is going to the team's P room to prepare to start today's winter test.

Qin Miao was also very curious about how powerful the team's W14 was this year. After all, a lot of designs were saved last year that could not be installed on the car due to budget reasons, and this year the early upgrades of the car alone have used up 20% of the team's annual upgrade budget.

As for the 20 kilograms of excess weight...

It's nothing more than a speed loss of 0.7 seconds per lap. Qin Miao feels that he can make up for the speed loss with his own ability.

Of course, Qin Miao also hopes that the team can solve the problem of the car being 20 kilograms overweight through later upgrades.

In addition to the hardware upgrades of the car's aerodynamics, engine, durability and structure, the team also upgraded the car's software.

The main thing is to optimize the startup logic of ERS and increase the power release of ERS. In addition, a small number of bugs were fixed and a lighter steering wheel CPU was replaced.

After replacing this CPU, the computing power of the steering wheel did not decrease at all, but became even stronger.

In addition, a steering wheel self-check procedure has been added before the start of the race.

At the same time, Qin Miao used the bandwidth of the on-board camera to obtain some telemetry data of the car from the team. During the safety car period or before the start of the race, he could check the tire pressure, fuel level, wind speed and direction of his car, and even the weather cloud map within half an hour.

Of course, since these things are not calculated locally but transmitted from the cloud, there is a certain delay.

But Qin Miao wouldn't look at these things during the competition.

On the way Qin Miao left Lynk & Co and returned to the P room of his own team, many senior leaders of other teams greeted Qin Miao enthusiastically after seeing him.

On the way, he met Horner, the team leader of the Red Bull team. After Horner saw Qin Miao, he started chatting with Qin Miao enthusiastically.
However, during the conversation, Horner was trying to test Qin Miao's intention to come to Red Bull.

Qin Miao had a chat with Horner, but never expressed his intention to change jobs, nor did he explicitly state that he was not planning to go to Red Bull.

After all, at this time Qin Miao really had not decided whether to switch to other racing teams or stay in Mercedes-Benz and continue to be his own prince.

But strangely enough, Red Bull won the Constructors' Championship last season, so during the winter test in Bahrain, the P room of the Red Bull team where Horner was located was located closest to the outer exit, while the P room of the Mercedes team was behind the Red Bull team.

But at this time, Qin Miao was behind the P room of the McLaren team, which ranked fifth last year. There was no reason for Horner to come here at this time?

Even if I want to find the little red cow... Sorry, I forgot that the little red cow is gone.

If, the leader of other teams could explain it by saying that they just happened to see him at the back door of the P room and greeted him and had a few words with him.

Then Horner's behavior gave Qin Miao reason to believe that he came here specifically to block him.

This is indeed the case. Horner came here from the team specifically after he learned that Qin Miao was coming to the paddock today.

After all, Qin Miao's contract is going to expire this year. He is such a big man, and only 21 years old, a double champion with almost unlimited growth potential.

If Horner doesn't try to recruit Qin Miao to Red Bull at this time, he would feel a little sorry for the high salary Red Bull pays him.

What if it succeeds?

As for whether Verstappen and Qin Miao will fight on the track? That's not important!

He spoke as if no one had ever studied Qin Miao. Horner did not believe that Qin Miao and Verstappen could still fight on the track by using different pit stop strategies.

……

When Qin Miao returned to the Mercedes team's P room, he was sweating all over because of these people.

Although it is spring now, Bahrain has a tropical desert climate, and the daytime temperatures in this place are only relatively hot or extremely hot.

In addition, dealing with these overly enthusiastic team leaders is indeed a bit of a headache.

Qin Miao only breathed a sigh of relief after he returned to the motorcade and turned on the air conditioner.

At this time, Qin Miao's new car was ready, and Reyes and others had already begun to do the final inspection of Qin Miao's car.

I greeted my colleagues whom I hadn’t seen for almost two months and told them that I had prepared gifts for them, which had already been delivered to their homes.

Amidst everyone's thanks and cheers, Qin Miao left the team's P room and returned to the team's home.

As for these gifts, they are prepared by Qin Miao’s agency and are given out almost once at the beginning and end of every season.

Qiu Meng was responsible for the delivery in the past, but now that Qiu Meng is pregnant and at home, Qin Miao’s agency is handling all these human relations.

After returning to the team home, Qin Miao also met his teammate Hamilton.

The old man looks full of energy today. The two-month offseason has indeed allowed him to recover his form.

The man had dreadlocks, a type of hair that was typical of black people, and they were tied meticulously. Apart from the bright green clothes, pants and shoes that looked a little eye-catching to Qin Miao, there was nothing else that made Qin Miao feel uncomfortable.

After the two met, they naturally hugged each other. After letting go, Hamilton looked down at Qin Miao's Mercedes team uniform, which never changed whenever he appeared in the paddock, and said, "Honestly, Qin Miao, you should go into the fashion circle."

Because there were no business activities today, Hamilton arrived in the paddock earlier than a normal Grand Prix weekend.

There was even a rare instance where both drivers waited for the pre-race meeting to begin.

So the two of them got together and started chatting.

"Sometimes I can't help but wonder which of us is the real young man," Hamilton complained.

Qin Miao looked at Hamilton's green clothes and had no doubt that if the old man didn't know what he had told him about the meaning of a green hat, he would definitely be wearing a green hat today.

Speaking of this green hat, it's quite interesting.

Qin Miao explained the meaning of the green hat to Hamilton.

After Qin Miao's explanation, Hamilton was particularly puzzled as to why cuckoldry could be linked to cheating on one's partner.

But considering that Hamilton also knows that he has many fans in China, and there is also Qin Miao by his side, out of respect for the culture, except for Qin Miao's first season in the paddock, Qin Miao has never seen Hamilton cuckolded.

"The key is that I really can't appreciate these things." Qin Miao spread his hands and explained.

Hamilton looked down at his emerald green outfit and said with a smile, "You'll get used to it."

Then he looked around and lowered his voice and said: "In fact, I was not used to it at the beginning. I felt it was too ostentatious. But after a long time, you will find that this is actually the easiest way to make money. In addition to the equal rights movement, many people who are committed to promoting activities in this area will give us money, and we only need to say something about this in the post-race interview. It has no impact on our daily work and life.

Low threshold and high returns. ”

Qin Miao still shook his head: "Forget it, I would rather wear something comfortable than make money, and I'm not short of money now."

The old man still didn't give up: "Then there will be a day when you will retire, right? What will you do after you retire? What will you do if you have no money by then?"

Qin Miao really thought about it seriously, and then Qin Miao said: "Even so, there is nothing to worry about."

"During the Chinese New Year, a movie I invested in was released, and this movie alone made me nearly $1400 million."

“And is there a possibility, Lewis, with the huge population base of our country and my popularity, I can earn $1 million in one day just by performing a mysterious ritual in our country, which is called bringing goods?
Hamilton: ???
The old man's surprise at this time was not because of Qin Miao's later words, but because Qin Miao invested in the movie.

As for the following words...Hamilton thought Qin Miao was just bragging.

What good guy can make $1 million in a day?
You can’t steal so much even if you rob a bank!

As a driver who has been immersed in the F1 and business fields for a long time, the old man has also made a lot of investments, such as buying real estate, cars, stocks, funds, securities, which naturally includes investing in movies.

Investing in a movie is actually a very easy thing. Just give the money to the director, sign a contract, and you’re done.

Anyone can do this kind of thing.

But the hardest part about investing in movies is that you can make money while investing.

First of all, you don’t know whether the movie you choose will make a profit or a loss after investing in it, and the payback period of a movie is very long, and the probability of losing money is even much greater than the probability of recovering the cost.

Even if the movie does not lose money after it is finally released, the money you invested in making the movie may be far less than the interest you would earn if you put it in the bank for a year.

After all, a movie can’t be made immediately if you give it money. Movies have a shooting cycle.

As for those movies made by famous directors that can make a profit after watching them, or even make a profit without losing money...

Who do you think you are? Is it your turn to invest in a movie of this level?

These directors have a lot of investors waving money to buy into the film industry, so how could a lousy driver like you get a turn?

But even in this situation, Qin Miao actually made 1 million US dollars from one movie?
Although this amount of money is not much compared to the salaries of the two, for some reason Hamilton felt a special and indescribable emotion brewing in his heart after Qin Miao's words.

What the hell...

So much so that Hamilton ignored the truly terrifying things in Qin Miao's words.

But strictly speaking, Hamilton was actually doing this for Qin Miao's own good.

In Hamilton's eyes, Qin Miao does have the ability and is a truly talented driver.

But Qin Miao was a little too casual in the paddock.

Qin Miao basically does not participate in any commercial activities, so he can only get a fixed salary and has no way to monetize his popularity and traffic during his peak period.

The road Hamilton pointed out to Qin Miao could help him earn extra money, but Qin Miao refused because he thought the road was ugly and uncomfortable to walk on.

After chatting for a while, other senior technical executives of the team also arrived at the team home one after another, and the team meeting before the winter test was about to begin.

The time after that was very simple.

Qin Miao and Hamilton started the meeting to arrange today's tasks.

Because there were so many things to do during the winter test, the meeting lasted nearly an hour before everyone's tasks were arranged.

After the meeting, Qin Miao and Hamilton returned to the lounge of the team's home, changed into their racing suits, put on their helmets, and went to the team's P room to prepare to start winter testing.

After arriving at the team's P room and saying hello to his colleagues, Qin Miao entered W14.

Qin Miao moved his body and still felt the familiar feeling of being wrapped in the racing car.

However, Qin Miao had a feeling that this seat was a little looser than last year's seat.

Of course, there is nothing strange about this. Qin Miao’s racing seat has to be remade every season, and the production time is almost in the middle of the season.

Because Qin Miao is only 21 years old now, some people will still grow at this age, and Qin Miao is no exception.

In order to better fit Qin Miao's body, the team will make a new chair for Qin Miao every six months.

This chair was made by the team half a month ago and is slightly larger than the previous ones.

what?
Is this chair comfortable to sit on?

It's a pure carbon fiber chair. In order to reduce weight and stabilize the driver's body, this thing is pure carbon fiber. Except for the helmet position, a layer of black felt is laid to absorb shock and prevent collision in order to avoid the sound caused by the collision between the helmet and the carbon fiber affecting the driver's driving. Other places are pure exposed carbon fiber.

Although the sitting position fits Qin Miao's waist, buttocks and thighs very well, it is not very comfortable. The space for body movement is very limited and the legs are basically fixed.

The only cushion is his fireproof racing suit and the sweat-absorbing lining inside the suit.

In addition, after the engine is started, the average temperature inside the monocoque is over 45 degrees, so it would be difficult to drive comfortably in it.

After stretching his body and then fastening himself with the seat belt, Qin Miao's heart gradually warmed up. He could finally get back into the familiar racing car.

Reyes skillfully placed the wall-mounted display in front of Qin Miao's racing flip-flops, which showed the wind speed, air humidity, temperature and other information on the track at the moment.

Of course, Qin Miao is now mainly looking at his own racing settings.

As the high-temperature lubricating oil was injected into the racing engine, Reyes personally took the racing starter lever and inserted it into the engine start port at the rear of the car. As the motor turned, the W14 engine roared for the first time on the car this season.

After hearing this voice, everyone in the convoy smiled at the same time.

If the engine can start successfully, it proves that there is no problem with the car and everything is progressing steadily according to plan.

Qin Miao was no exception. He reached out and patted the steering wheel of his racing car. After Reyes and the others nodded, Qin Miao stepped on the accelerator and drove out of the parking space and came to the track.

In fact, Qin Miao came out relatively late, but it didn't affect anything. After all, the entire day at the beginning of the winter test was reserved for the team to test, and coming out a little late did not affect the overall result.

After driving onto the track, Qin Miao heard Franky's voice through the team TR: "How does the new car feel? Is it different from last year?"

Qin Miao was still running the warm-up lap at this time, shaking his car left and right from time to time to warm up the tires. After hearing Franky's question, Qin Miao replied speechlessly: "I haven't started yet, but for now, I don't feel that the car is very heavy. Let me fly a lap and see?"

"Uh... never mind. You should start the test first. If you improve your lap time little by little, we can get more data."

"You just don't believe me, right?" Qin Miao had reason to suspect that Frankie didn't let him fly a circle because he was afraid that he would crash the car.

"It's not that we don't trust you. After all, we don't trust the driving skills of a two-time world champion. It's mainly because we are worried that something is not set up properly inside the car. After all, this is a brand new car."

Since the other party said so, Qin Miao stopped being stubborn and started the test.

……

For the rest of the morning, Qin Miao ran a few laps on the track, then returned to the team's P room to adjust himself, continued running on the track, then returned to the team's P room to adjust himself again, and then went back on the track.

This cycle continued until lunchtime.

Get off the car for a meeting, then eat, then have another meeting, and the afternoon test begins.

If nothing unexpected happens, Qin Miao will spend the next three days following this schedule.

The next afternoon, the sun was setting and the track temperature was only a few degrees higher than it would be on a normal Grand Prix weekend night.

Under such circumstances, Qin Miao filled up a tank of gas and used brand new soft tires to run a flying lap with all his might.

After this flying lap, although Qin Miao's lap speed was very slow, even worse than his casual practice lap speed, but after subtracting the weight of the fuel inside the car, the lap speed of the W14 driven by Qin Miao was 13 seconds faster than the W1.3 during the winter test last season.

Although it is undeniable that the W13 is a mess, the 1.3-second speed improvement in one year is indeed commendable.

And this is because W14 is not complete at this time.

After all, it is impossible for Mercedes to bring out the complete version of the W14 during the winter testing. What if Red Bull or Ferrari figures out something by observing the appearance design of their own cars in these few days, and they also learn and study it?
Isn't the first-mover advantage gone?
So these things can be hidden for as long as possible.

The longer you hide, the later your opponents will see the characteristics and advantages of your car design. The later they will study it, the later the car performance will be. So your advantage can be maintained for one day longer.

details make a difference.

As for why we don’t use the W13B’s data for comparison… because the W13B has never raced on the Sakhir circuit in Bahrain.

How can we compare without data?

However, I did compare them in the simulator, and found that W14 was more than a second faster in the simulator.

But you don’t have to think about it to know that the data in the simulator is more or less a bit inflated.

Soon, the three-day test came to an end. Qin Miao only ran more than 200 laps in the entire winter break. On the second day, he stopped on the track because the radiator pipe burst.

There were countless other minor issues, but fortunately they were all solved smoothly in the end without causing any major problems.

On the contrary, Hamilton had a flat tire because he wanted to test the grip limit of the tires. Fortunately, the old man has superb driving skills and pulled the car back from the brink of out of control without causing further damage.

And the speed.

The driver who dominated the list during the winter test was Sainz, while Qin Miao and Hamilton were not ranked high on the list, one third and the other fourth.

But according to statistics, Mercedes' W14 reached a top speed of 340 kilometers per hour at the Sakhir Circuit in Bahrain.

This tail speed is enough to dominate the whole game. (End of this chapter)