After hearing Cosell's reconfirmation, Zhang Yifei felt that what he was saying was not a slander.

"It seems that I am indeed a genius driver, hahahahaha!"

Originally, Zhang Yifei was more excited to be able to drive the F1 car. Now that he has received praise from Cosell, he is even happier, so his face has become thicker.

However, Zhang Yifei soon found that no one seemed to support him, so he could only cough twice to hide his embarrassment.

After the test drive, the racing maintenance time is the time for the car. Because Ah Hu and Zhi Ge cannot be considered members of the Prost team, they have no way to get in touch with the racing.

This is not like the Renault and Dalra racing cars that Zhang Yifei had driven before. It is a standard racing car. All parts are mass-produced and can be rented or purchased at will. The technological content is not high.

For an F1 team, the racing car produced is the team's biggest core secret, so it is naturally impossible for irrelevant personnel to inspect and repair it.

Not to mention the maintenance of racing cars, if it weren't for Zhang Yifei here today, and Ah Hu and his team were about to join the company, even the accurate horsepower, weight, fuel capacity and other data were all team secrets.

The simplest example is that once the fuel tank size leaks, the opponent can easily calculate the number of entry and time of entry and exit based on the amount of fuel you carry.

For the F1 team, this is equivalent to the opponent having seen you through half of it, and the strategy plan is absolutely at a disadvantage. Therefore, many seemingly insignificant data may determine the outcome of a game.

"I'll be here for the time being today. Let's go back to the company building and sign the entry contract."

Henry said, the most important reason why he rushed back from Ben Suzuka Raceway was to sign an entry contract with Zhang Yifei's team members instead of the team manager.

Otherwise, it would be enough to handle Zhang Yifei's test drive if he didn't need to come forward.

"no problem."

Zhang Yifei nodded and agreed. The reason why he returned to China to go to the Grand Prix in the Island of Australia was to let all the team enter F1. Now that this wish has been fulfilled, he has fulfilled his thoughts.

After hearing this, Ah Hu and Chen Zhi expressed their expectations on their faces. Only by signing the entry contract can they truly become members of the F1 team.

Just like the driver's Supreme Hall is in F1, any car maintenance personnel will enter the F1 maintenance team. Only in F1 can you feel the precise maintenance cooperation to the millimeter level and get in touch with the most cutting-edge racing technology in the world!

After Zhang Yifei changed back to his regular clothes, Henry and his group prepared to return to the headquarters building. When passing the F1 racing car placed, Zhang Yifei saw a new racing car without any logo, which looked like a prototype car, so he asked.

"Henry, what model is this racing car?"

“JS53, the latest generation prototype of Prost team, will be used in next year’s F1 season.”

New racing car? When Zhang Yifei heard this, he was a little interested again. If nothing unexpected happens, js53 will be the car he will fight in the F1 paddock next year.

"Can I drive this prototype car next time I test it?"

Because the f1 race pursues the ultimate ability, the racing cars used by the team are replaced and upgraded every year, in order to apply the latest technologies born in the year to new racing cars.

In other words, the JS53 prototype car in front of me is the latest and strongest racing car in the Prost team at present, so Zhang Yifei naturally wants to feel it.

"No, this prototype car has not been finalized yet. It needs to be collected through track tests and fed back to the R&D center before it can be officially confirmed to be the next generation of Prost team racing."

"The test driver Emil is still here. You don't know enough about the F1 racing car and can't give accurate feedback on the racing experience, so now is not the best time to drive it."

Henry rejected Zhang Yifei's request. Although he performed well on the track just now, the F1 foundation was still very weak. Before the prototype car was finalized, there were many small problems in design and aerodynamics, which required detailed experience feedback from the test drivers, and then modified through the team R&D center.

This is also an important reason why there must be a test driver in the F1 team. Zhang Yifei is still too "young" and is not suitable for driving a prototype car.

"Oh well."

Zhang Yifei replied with a little regret, but he also understood in his heart that he did not know enough about F1 racing, and blindly driving a prototype was not a wise move.

Back at the fleet headquarters building, Henry took out the fleet contract that had been prepared long ago and signed a contract with Zhang Yifei's team members.

According to the team contract, Kossel will become Zhang Yifei's racing engineer and also serve as the chief racing engineer of the team's strategy group.

It has long been agreed that Cosell became Zhang Yifei's game engineer. However, it is a bit intriguing to make Cosell the chief game engineer of the strategy group.

Because an F1 team is composed of two formal drivers, each driver has his own independent racing engineer and chief technician, and then shares a team of technicians.

The strategy group of the f1 team is composed of these two race engineers, team managers, data analysts, etc. In order to ensure the unity of the race decision-making power, a chief race engineer will be selected to have the highest command performance.

Generally speaking, the chief competition engineer is either the team boss or manager. After all, the main function of this position is not to make suggestions, but to issue final instructions at critical moments.

If it is not the team boss or manager, then the chief race engineer will be the race engineer of driver No. 1.

This is because in future events, there is a high possibility that the issue of car transfer will be involved. For the team's performance and interests, the personal interests of the No. 2 driver will be sacrificed when necessary, and even the champion will be forced to give up.

The race engineer is the person with the closest relationship with the driver. In most cases, he transfers with the driver rather than with the team. Therefore, the two people are bound together in terms of their closeness and interests.

If the No. 2 driver race engineer is the chief, he will inevitably not issue instructions such as getting the car due to selfishness.

If there is a conflict with the decision-making of the fleet management, it will be a very troublesome period and will also affect the stability of the fleet.

Therefore, this position, except for the team management, can only be the No. 1 driver racing engineer, and there is no choice.

Does it mean that Cosel is now the chief race engineer of the future mean that Prost decided to let Zhang Yifei be the No. 1 driver of his team?

This is actually a bit logically unreasonable because the driver Zhang Yifei wants to replace is Prost team newcomer Nick Hydefield, and French veteran Alessi will most likely continue to stay in the team.

With such a French veteran who is far superior to Zhang Yifei in terms of status, qualifications, and share, it is impossible for Zhang Yifei to replace Alessi as the No. 1 driver in the novice season.

So even Kossel could not guess Prost's intentions at all. However, he became the chief competition engineer. From the perspective of interests, Zhang Yifei was on the profit side, so Kossel didn't care what Prost thought, so he simply signed an entry contract.

In addition to Kossel, Yamamoto Ukyo became the team's racing engineer. Ah Hu and Zhi Ge naturally joined the technician team according to the original sponsorship agreement.

The only positioning change is Junko Takeda.

Her previous position was the manager of Toyota Youth Training Team, but the manager of the Prost team was directly held by the founder Prost, and even the team leader was held by Henry, the former Ligier team manager.

There is no vacancy for Junko Takeda at all, and with her qualifications, it is difficult for her to become the manager of an F1 team.

Therefore, Junko Takeda's position is just Zhang Yifei's assistant, and he did not get the opportunity to enter the team management.

However, this was actually expected, so Junko Takeda simply signed a contract and became Zhang Yifei's driver assistant.

After the contract was signed, when the team was officially running, Ah Hu and Zhi Ge were transferred directly to the garage and received training from chief technician Charlie, striving to become a qualified F1 technician before the next season comes.

Kossel and Yamamoto Ukyo began to contact the Prost team's huge database. Only by understanding these things can you fully integrate into the team and better serve the drivers.

As for Zhang Yifei himself, he is not idle. He must learn all the basic knowledge and control of F1 racing during the winter break so that he can be qualified to compete in next year's F1 season.

In addition to theoretical knowledge and data learning, Zhang Yifei also has another task, which is to start a racing simulator every day.

You should know that the F1 Grand Prix is ​​located all over the world, and drivers cannot fly around the world to familiarize themselves with the track. In addition, in order to balance the gap between strong teams and weak teams, the drivers went to the track for private training.

To solve these problems, the racing simulator was born, which consists of a real F1 cockpit, plus a circular screen.

The simulator database contains all the data of the F1 track, and drivers can drive through simulation and become familiar with the global track without leaving home. To put it simply, it is similar to the kind of racing console you drive in the amusement park.

Of course, compared to ordinary racing game consoles, the technical content of the f1 racing simulator is far from the same level. Especially in the driving cockpit, all the strength feedback is not much different from that of the official racing car, and we strive to bring the driver the most realistic experience.

The driving experience is similar, but due to the technology of this era, the display effect is much worse. It is still the traditional multi-screen combination, rather than the super-large curved integrated screen of later generations, which makes Zhang Yifei feel uncomfortable.

But it’s good to drive a simulator these days, what other bicycles can be required? After all, the cost of F1 racing test runs is far more than that of the primary equation, and it is impossible to train on the track every day.
Chapter completed!