It is true that Prost team has no choice now. Even if they have money, they have missed the time to replace the engine supplier.

You should know that the development of the new racing car of the F1 team normally starts half a year in advance. The racing chassis is also designed based on the characteristics of the engine, rather than any engine that can be easily stuffed into the body.

In history, there are not many teams who have done such stupid things, such as the McLaren Mercedes team in 2005.

Because the development progress of Mercedes-Benz's new engine was slow, McLaren's R&D department simply opened up its mind and designed the chassis without an engine.

As a result, when the engine arrived, everyone was stunned because the new engine was not equipped with the chassis, which led to the inability to be installed in the racing car. Now, whether it is McLaren or Mercedes-Benz, they are probably capitalized MP in mind. Such mentally retarded things can happen. I just don’t know which IQ is wrong.

But reality tells us that the lower limit of IQ is simply unimaginable. McLaren did such a stupid thing again in 2017, but this time it was replaced by a Honda engine.

This kind of slutty operation can happen twice in a team, and McLaren does not rank at the bottom later, which is really unreasonable.

Prost team believes that they don’t have this ability. With only one month left before the F1 race, they developed a new racing chassis and passed the test. Therefore, the only way to adopt the “repair of the sheep” method.

Charlie led a team of technicians to seal the cylinder connections twice. In order to ensure the smooth progress of the following winter test, the engine's maximum horsepower was reduced to 890p to 820p.

Originally, the parameters of Peugeot engines had no advantage in the eleven F1 teams. After lowering the horsepower again, they became the bottom-ranked existence. Only when the Peugeot Group R&D engineers came over and improved the problem from the root, then adjusted the power parameters back.

The Peugeot engine after the reduction did not have any problems in the following tests. However, no one was as relieved as before. After all, the two consecutive engine failures have already made the team members question the reliability of the engine.

In the afternoon, the Catalonian Circuit, which is relatively warm in winter, experienced a round of cooling, and the temperature reached around 5 degrees. The meteorological bureau also released a preview that the cold wave will sweep across Catalonia in the next few days and may experience snowfall.

If snow falls, the temperature rise in various operating conditions of the car will become slower and the grip will be greatly reduced. According to previous winter test experience, bad weather will shorten the precious test time, which is undoubtedly a worse problem for the Prost team, which is anxious to verify the reliability of the car.

However, the difficulties encountered by Prost team are still coming one after another, but this time it was not a racing failure, but a driver's problem.

When the test was about to end the next afternoon, French veteran Alessi almost had a crash on the track due to excessive fatigue, so Henry stopped his track test.

You should know that after two winter tests, Alaixi ran nearly two hundred laps, and an F1 event can be at most seventy laps. The winter tests of the normal F1 team are all made by drivers one and two plus test drivers, and at least three people take turns to change shifts for testing, so that they can get a rest time.

However, Prost team, test driver Emile, has left the team, and Zhang Yifei is a new rookie who "leap-up" and has no experience in winter testing at all. Therefore, the heavy responsibility of the test in the first two days can only be put on Alessi. After Zhang Yifei learns and gets familiar with it, he will start the first test.

As a result, the frequent racing failures caused the team to increase the test intensity to explore the engine's working conditions. In addition to various commissioning steps to enter the station, Alessi wore a full set of heavy equipment and ran on the track for four or five hours alone.

Fortunately, this is winter in the northern hemisphere. If it were summer, it would probably be severely dehydrated after one day of testing and had to interrupt the test.

But even so, Alessi couldn't hold on anymore and had to give him some rest, so he changed Zhang Yifei to test in advance.

To be honest, Zhang Yifei had a very good impression of Alessi before, because the behavior of this French veteran last season was not much different from eating and waiting to die.

If an F1 driver loses his most basic fighting spirit and desire for a champion, what's the point of being in the yard? Will he be the last one to be a runner-up every time?

However, Alessi's performance during this period made Zhang Yifei improve his views. The French veteran still had fighting spirit in his heart, but he was a little "spoken" before.

Perhaps because of losing to himself, the newcomer, stimulated the self-esteem of the French veteran. He finally got rid of the previous mutt form and fulfilled his professional spirit as an F1 driver.

So facing Alessi, whose physical strength reached its limit due to the winter test, Zhang Yifei expressed his respect for the French veteran in his heart.

In the last hour of the afternoon, Zhang Yifei drove the JS53 car and drove onto the track for testing.

Because it was Zhang Yifei's first test, the team did not provide him with any heavy test feedback, but asked him to adjust the car according to his driving habits and verify the stability of the engine.

Without any requirements, Zhang Yifei naturally had no pressure. He was more curious and excited to participate in the winter test for the first time.

Since 1991, the Catalonian Circuit has become the official team test track designated by Fia. Countless vehicle testing and R&D activities have been carried out here. It can be said that no F1 team will be unfamiliar with the Catalonian Circuit.

However, this level of familiarity does not reduce the challenges brought by the track. The combination of various curves here, coupled with the appearance of rough and bumpy faces, all have high requirements for the driver's physical strength and the mechanical performance of the car.

The Prost team inherited the database of the ligier team, so Zhang Yifei has a sufficient understanding of various track data. Moreover, during the winter break, Zhang Yifei has also driven the Catalan track many times on the racing simulator.

In addition, the on-site watching in the past two days, even though it was the first time that Zhang Yifei actually drove on the Catalonian track, he still had no strange feeling.

Zhang Yifei's first winter test allowed many other convoy members to come to the guardrail to watch the battle.

Their motivation for watching the game is different from Schumacher's previous winter test. You should know that Schumacher has attracted a lot of attention because he and the Ferrari team are too strong. These team members want to see if this year's new Ferrari cars can maintain their strong position last year.

When they watched Zhang Yifei, they were all pure curiosity. After all, Prost racing is not very good, and there is no good reference for black technology and copycats.

More importantly, the various failures that happened in Alessi in the past two days have also made other teams feel confident. That is, compared to last year, Prost Racing is still as competitive as ever.

So their focus is on the driver Zhang Yifei, a newcomer from China, who has accomplished the same "three-level jump" miracle as the European genius driver Kimi. Does he really have the strength of an F1 driver?

If so, what kind of lap speed can Zhang Yifei run in a mediocre Prost car?

Among the curious crowd, there were two gazes from McLaren, namely David Coothard, the No. 1 driver of McLaren, and Kimi Raikkonen, who replaced Mikahakonen with the retirement vacancy.

"Kimmy, the PY from China is finally going to play. What do you think is his fastest lap speed?"

Coothard asked with a smile. His OPY has two meanings, one is the literal meaning. Now in the F1 circle, Zhang Yifei is regarded as the copyist of Kimi's "three-level jump" miracle.

Another layer is the metaphor that Zhang Yifei is a copycat from China. After all, in this era, whether it is Chinese drivers or Chinese products, in Europe and the United States, they are the endorsements for low-end copycats, and they are habitually ridiculed.

"have no idea."

Kimi Raikkonen simply spit out a word and then stopped talking.

This is also Kimi Raikkonen's character. He has always maintained an indifferent image of "loving words like gold" in the outside world, so he is called the "Finnish Iceman".

Kurthard had been used to Kimi's attitude for a long time. He said to himself: "I hope the Chinese boy can achieve some good results. After all, Prost team is in a difficult situation now. If there is no improvement in performance this year, there may be one less team in the F1 paddock next year."

"It's a pity for F1 to lose any convoy, so I wish the Chinese boy good luck."

Although Kurthard uses the vulgar adjective opy, he actually does not have much malicious intentions towards Zhang Yifei, but it is more of a strong sense of superiority in the subconscious of European and American people.

Since Kimi Raikkonen did not cooperate with his vulgar jokes, he naturally did not continue, but instead talked about the current situation of the Prost team seriously.

However, Kimi next to him still did not respond. He just looked at Zhang Yifei on the track.

Although Kimi's performance was not obvious, in the heart of the Finnish Iceman, he was also curious whether this Chinese driver who copied his miracle could show the strength of a qualified F1 driver in the F1 paddock.

Zhang Yifei on the track did not know the attention of these people, and he did not have the energy to care about these things.

Because Zhang Yifei was tested by Alaisi, there was no step to warm the beads. As soon as he got on the track, Zhang Yifei was like a dragon entering the sea, and he stepped on the floor oil and accelerated wildly.

The driving screen of the racing simulator is combined with the track data in your mind, allowing Zhang Yifei to drive on the Catalonian track for the first time and start challenging the ultimate speed.

However, the reduction in power parameters and the inadequacy of adjustment style, Zhang Yifei's lap speed was actually not fast. When his lap of the first lap came out, the other team members who watched his first test all had various laughs on their faces.
Chapter completed!