At the end of November, with the end of the 1999 F1 season, all members of the Prost team took a chartered flight to return to their headquarters in France.

But at this time, everyone on the plane looked very good, and everyone was speechless. The two formal drivers in the fleet were like strangers, with no communication at all, and even the seats were very far away.

Team owner Prost leaned against his seat with his eyes closed. This year's F1 season has made him exhausted, and he is even more tired than competing with Senna on the track.

I thought the team scored 9 points last year and ranked seventh in total was already a low point. However, I didn't expect that after the whole season this year, the two official drivers completed the race in total only 11 times, and the points were not even scored, becoming the worst result since the establishment of the Prost team.

At present, it is not just a matter of performance, but the atmosphere of the entire team has also fallen to the bottom. Alessi and Hydefield have fought in the repair station more than once, without any cooperation from each other, and their relationship is even worse than their opponents.

If it weren't for the current difficult situation of the team, Prost really wanted to drive both of these formal drivers and recruit a fresh blood reorganization team.

But unfortunately, the team's current financial funds cannot afford the transfer fee of powerful drivers. This is also one of the important reasons why Prost is willing to take the risk of signing Zhang Yifei, that is, Chinese kids are cheap, just give them a basic salary.

Moreover, China has a large population and a huge market. With such a Chinese driver in the fleet, he can be of great help in sponsorship.

For example, Acer Computer, the team's main sponsor, plans to cancel this year's sponsorship in the face of such a bad performance of the team. However, Zhang Yifei's joining the team brought attention and there was also a rising Chinese market. Acer Computer eventually chose to renew his contract for a year, saving the Prost team, which was about to collapse in finance.

However, psn Network Company has no market in China, so they still chose to cancel the sponsorship. With the funds of a single sponsor, the fleet's expenditure could not be compensated for.

Because F1 racing is really too expensive, no matter how Prost saves it, the team's budget will exceed 30 million US dollars next year. The sponsorship and advertiser income, plus this year's Fom share, are estimated to be 20 million US dollars, and there is still a gap of about 10 million US dollars.

The only thing that made Prost feel relaxed was that Zhang Yifei brought sponsorship from the Guo Group from Hong Kong Island, compressing the gap to 8 million US dollars, but this is still a considerable gap.

Another point that Prost felt very tricky, that is, the French Peugeot Group was very dissatisfied with the team's performance, believing that this performance affected the reputation of Peugeot Engine, and they began to consider whether to continue to cooperate with Prost team.

After all, engine suppliers want to use F1 to label their product performance and reliability, so that more people can agree with the Peugeot brand. The result is a completely counterproductive effect now. Who dares to buy a car produced by this engine company with a 30% finishing rate?

Prost was angry and helpless about this. At that time, he opposed the public opinion and gave up the Honda engine, which was cheap and affordable, and chose the Peugeot engine, which is also a French company. It was because of the big French plot that thought that they were both French companies, and everyone could help each other to build a French fleet that dominates the world.

Unexpectedly, the team is facing a difficult situation now, and Peugeot has completely blamed the poor performance on its own team. Do they have no idea how many engine failures have occurred on the track? Is this caused by drivers' mishandling?

However, Prost can only silently bear these accusations, and he no longer has the qualifications to choose. If Peugeot does not provide engines, he can only buy more expensive engines from other suppliers, which will make it worse for the current fleet situation.

This time his important goal of returning to France is to contact Camel Cigarettes and Brazilian billionaire Diniz. If he can get sponsorship from these two giants, the financial crisis will be resolved and there will be sufficient wealth to develop a better performance Prost racing car!

After a long flight, the team members finally arrived in Paris and they would transfer to the headquarters of Versailles.

On the other hand, the remaining personnel at Versailles headquarters were also ready to welcome them.

But all this did not affect Zhang Yifei at all. He was sitting in the racing simulator, practicing different F1 tracks, laying the foundation for future competitions.

However, in the past two days, there is another Monrerey track because he is very dissatisfied with his training results a few days ago.

In Zhang Yifei's opinion, he had three field practices on the track, not to mention that he could catch up with the lap speed of the official F1 driver, at least he had to reach the level of the test driver Emil. After all, if he didn't even have the speed of the test driver, he would not have any competitiveness on the F1 track.

As for objective reasons such as the first time I came into contact with F1, the unfamiliarity with the track, it is not within Zhang Yifei's consideration and will not become his excuse.

It can be said that he and Kossel have a very consistent view of this point, that is, he only looks at the results and not the process! No objective reason can change the results, and the outside world will not care about these messy reasons.

"Cosell, what do you think are the problems with my circle?"

After the track simulation lap, Zhang Yifei asked Cosell, who was watching behind him.

Although the racing simulator has various inconveniences and cannot simulate all the situations on the real track, it is still very good, that is, the team members can see the driver's lap process more intuitively and find some operational flaws.

In fact, later generations of F1 racers have cameras with the first-view angle, which can perfectly see the driver's wiring. However, in this era, due to the wireless transmission level, it is already very good to be able to make the team call without problems, and real-time transmission of images is basically impossible.

At most, after running, you can watch the video and analyze it slowly. It is impossible to watch the driver's control in real time like this.

"The gear shifting timing is not good enough, and it cannot match the speed perfectly. Don't you feel the power gap?"

The biggest difference between f1 racing and Formula Elementary Racing should be in terms of power.

For racing cars like Renault, the maximum speed is over 10,000, but now, the maximum speed of JS51 cars has reached about 20,000, and the horsepower is even three times the weight.

The serial transmission can only be said to shorten the shifting time as much as possible and reduce the power loss caused by shifting clearance. However, the matching between the speed and the speed still depends on the drivers themselves to control it.

Zhang Yifei’s biggest problem now is that his habitual low speed shifting results, which leads to weak power when the car accelerates, affecting the overall racing performance.

This is like the way ordinary people drive manual gears to save fuel. In many cases, they start to shift gears after less than 2,000 rpm. This speed range is not the maximum output range of the engine power.

To get the fastest power response and speed up the engine, you need to step on the accelerator deeply and pull up the speed to get the maximum power of the engine.

Zhang Yifei's low speed shift is naturally probably to save fuel. I can only say that his habit of driving the primary equation has not been completely corrected. In addition, he is not used to the difference in maximum speed of F1 racing. These things need to be practiced more to master them.

"I feel that the shifting timing is not accurate enough, I will correct it."

Zhang Yifei nodded. In fact, he knew in his heart, but some things are like habits, and it is not that simple to change.

But as a professional driver, you have to make changes

In order to start faster, Su Bingtian spent two years changing his habits for more than ten years, changing from his right foot to his left foot to his left foot.

Today, Zhang Yifei has no two years to change his gear shifting habits. The time limit he gave himself is only three days!

Within three days, the gear shifting time on the racing simulator must be perfectly adapted to the power range of the js51 racing car. In this way, the next Monrerey track practice can make a significant progress again and catch up with the test driver Emile's lap speed.

Zhang Yifei even had an ambition in his heart, that is, he didn't want to be the No. 2 driver, nor did he want to be a wingman. If possible, he wanted to surpass the current team veteran, No. 1 driver Alessi, and become the chief driver of the Prost team!

"By the way, there is also a little faster speed, keeping the full throttle on some high-speed corners. Not only the simulator, but also the track."

Cosell emphasized again that he believed that Zhang Yifei's method of driving is still a bit conservative, which may be related to his inability to proficiency.

However, on the f1 track, the opponent he wants to defeat is far from the level of the original Formula or the f3.

It is no exaggeration to say that the 20 people on the f1 track are the 20 people with the strongest driving skills on the earth. If you want to defeat them, in addition to the strength factor, you must be more deadly than them.

Is Senna's driving skills really better than Prost back then? The answer is actually no. Even if Cosel doesn't appreciate Prost's conservative style, he even thinks that at some point he can be called a track coward!

But he still has to admit that Prost is not inferior to the track in terms of technical aspects. Otherwise, when he made a second comeback, he would not have defeated Senna, who was already at his peak, and won the 1993 driver championship with his desire to prove his blood.

"Full throttle?"

Hearing this, Zhang Yifei said with a wry smile on his face: "Cosell, you shouldn't know that Montrere Raceway does not have the kind of maintenance of the professional F1 track, and many shoulder positions are damaged."

"The simulator can also be used to turn the throttle. How can I ensure that the curved shoulders are intact on the track?"

Faced with Zhang Yifei's doubts, Kossel just replied without caring.
Chapter completed!