At the beginning of March, the start time of the new F1 season. This time point is not fixed on a certain day in March, but it is normally held in March.

In Melbourne, Australia, the southern coastal city, eleven F1 teams have gathered here to prepare for the new F1 season that is about to arrive.

This is Zhang Yifei's first time to come to Australia, and it is even the first time he has arrived in the southern hemisphere. From the cold winter and spring that the northern hemisphere is experiencing, it is really uncomfortable to transition from the sunny summer and autumn.

However, in order to ensure the most suitable temperature for F1 racing, every year, the FIA ​​will choose Australia in the southern hemisphere for the first stop of the FIA, which can ensure the optimal temperature and avoid some extreme and severe weather.

For example, if it is placed in Russia or Nordic tracks at this time, there may be snow and freezing on the track, which will greatly affect the performance of the racing car and drivers.

After the group came to the hotel, Prost called everyone to the hotel conference hall and will officially decide on the members of the Prost fleet strategy team.

As the saying goes, three cobblers are better than Zhuge Liang, and the F1 team also developed from early drivers' personal race engineers to the direction of the strategy group. The most famous of these is the Ferrari team, who weakened the role of the race engineer and replaced it with the race strategy group to issue instructions.

At the same time, this approach has also led to the strong instructions of the team and the strategy group. If you are not the star driver, there is basically no room for negotiation or refutation, unless you don’t want to be in the Ferrari team.

For example, in the famous Austrian station in 2002, Barrichello received the team's designation and asked him to give the car to Schumacher, which led to Schumacher becoming the sub-station champion of the Austrian station.

Later, when Barrichello was interviewed by TV station, he expressed his racing mentality at that time: "I didn't want him to go over, but I received an order from the team that asked me to think about what to do, so I had to lift my foot off the accelerator."

From this passage, you can feel the strength of the Ferrari strategy group, and there is no room for bargaining for Barrichello, who was under Schumacher's halo at that time.

At the same time, this car-get-out incident also triggered widespread discussion after the race. The president of the Ferrari team and the subjective insisted that this was a reasonable and legal tactical arrangement, and the goal was to win the championship with the team and the drivers.

However, many people disagree with this statement, believing that this car-giving incident is a blasphemy and insult to the competitive sport of F1 racing! Even in Italy, Ferrari's nest, many media have made a statement that competitive sports should have competitive rules. This unfair victory is no different from losing.

The car incident also became one of the dark spots in Schumacher's career. Until later, some people thought it was against sportsmanship and shameful behavior.

However, things were not as dark as Volkswagen imagined. Schumacher's drivers secured the world championship with points and were more than twice as far ahead of the second place. The reason for the car was that Schumacher won the championship in other sub-stations except Austrian. The Ferrari team wanted to be adult-friendly and create a more beautiful track record.

But they didn't expect that such a big controversy would arise afterwards. In fact, the team could do it smarter, such as adding 10 kilograms of gasoline to Barrichello's car, or changing tires into the station.

It's really not possible to act, let Barrichello pretend to surpass Schumacher and not let it be so obvious. But if you do this, it will be even more unfair to Barrichello in a sense.

At least he gave in, and car fans would also recognize that the Austrian sub-station champion belongs to Barrichello. If he uses methods to give in, Barrichello not only has no trophy, but even the honor does not belong to him.

In a sense, although the Ferrari team's strategy group is strong, at least it does not play any dark methods.

At the same time, Schumacher also knew that the champion was worthy of it. At that time, Barrichello was still allowed to hold the championship trophy on the podium. And at the back US station, Schumacher took the lead, he slowed down and gave the car the championship seat that should belong to him to Barrichello, who was second.

In a sense, it is also a kind of gratitude and compensation for Barrichello. However, the influence brought by what happened later is far from being compared with the sensational "car-giving" incident, Schumacher still bears the infamous reputation.

...

In the Melbourne Hotel office, the team's core personnel arrived one after another, two official drivers, boss Prost, team leader Henry, Zhang Yifei's racing engineer Cosell, data analyst Ukyo Yamamoto, Alessi's racing engineer Cod, chief technician Charlie, and new racing R&D design director Leo, etc.

In addition to these old faces, Zhang Yifei also saw a newcomer, Sebastian Burdes, a new test driver who joined the Prost team.

Berdes is a French driver, runner-up for the 1997 Formula Renault and the 1998 French F3 Newcomer of the Year. With the success of Formula Elementary, he later joined the Prost Youth Team in the International F3000 Championship.

In history, as the dream of Prost purebred France's team was shattered, the French newcomer transferred to the dams team of f3000, becoming one of the most successful drivers in the international championship Formula, and eventually joined Red Bull II.

However, with Emile's departure in this world, Burdes got the opportunity to be promoted and became the team's test driver.

Originally Prost planned to let Burdes hone his training in the F3000 event for one or two years. After all, his current results are not outstanding and cannot meet the F1 test driver standards.

But now that Emile has left, Prost can't find a better candidate, so he can only let Burdes come on as a substitute. Otherwise, there will be no test driver and third driver. Once the official driver cannot participate in the competition, the team will have a competition vacancies.

Seeing that everyone had arrived, Prost said, "After personnel changes and adjustments, you are the backbone of the team. In order to ensure the team's competitiveness in the new season of F1, I decided to set up a racing strategy group to issue team instructions."

Hearing this, everyone's expressions were very plain. They all knew the purpose of Prost's convening members, so it was not surprising.

"The strategy group represents the team's highest racing command authority, so this strategy group will be composed of five people, namely me, Henry, Cosell, Codd, and Charlie."

When he heard the list of personnel, Zhang Yifei frowned slightly because Yamamoto Ukyo did not become a member of the strategy group. You should know that if the team boss is not around, the track instructions will be issued by the strategy group. Once any order differences occur, most strategy groups will adopt the principle of minority obeying the majority.

Yamamoto Ukyo did not join, which means that Kossell, the chief competition engineer, may not have absolute decision-making power when strategic differences and drivers conflicts of interests.

Although Zhang Yifei had not considered using the identity of driver No. 1 to instruct Alaixi to do things such as getting the car, blocking the car, making the line, etc., people are still selfish after all, and the situation on the track is changing rapidly.

To ensure your own results and the interests of drivers, of course, Zhang Yifei’s first choice. Competitive sports are all about results. Zhang Yifei is not a Virgin. He will not pay attention to friendship with Alaisi first and competition second!

But the following words dispelled Zhang Yifei's doubts, and Prost continued to speak: "If I didn't appear in the team, then Chief Racing Engineer Cosell will have the right to command the track."

There is no doubt that this sentence means that Cosell has the final decision-making power when Prost is not present.

The reason why Prost did this was not because he supported Zhang Yifei so much, but because he believed in Kossel's ability. And when there was a disagreement in the command of the team, there must be a decision-making voice, rather than a civil strife between the two sides.

Last season, Prost team was so chaotic that it was not an absolute controller. Once Prost did not follow the team to the track, driver No. 1 and driver No. 2 were dissatisfied with each other, and when he got angry, he would directly fight in the repair station.

Having suffered a loss once, Prost would not make the same mistake twice in a row!

Alessi's face was not good about Prost's decision, but he still agreed with the decision.

Not to mention anything else, if you lose the team competition, you have to be willing to accept the loss. The No. 1 driver himself has the team's resource privileges. Another point is that after experiencing last season, the veteran Alessi also understood the consequences of the chaos. Instead of being inconsistent with many ideas, it is better to be a powerful decision-maker, even if it will harm his own interests.

After all, Alessi is already at the end of his career and plans to retire from Prost team. He doesn't want the team to go bankrupt before he retires!

In addition, Zhang Yifei's performance in the winter test was also recognized by French veterans in a sense. He was a newcomer who was serious and hardworking and had potential. Alessi felt that Zhang Yifei could lead the Prost team out of the predicament, which made him feel much less in his heart.

Of course, there is another more important point, that is, Cosell's qualifications and ability can convince the public. Alessi believes that Cosell will not issue some malicious instructions for the sake of Zhang Yifei's interests, which is relatively fair and guaranteed.

After the team strategy group decided, after a short day of rest, all team drivers will hold a grand meeting of F1 drivers on the next day to answer some media-related new season questions and interact with car fans, which is a way to give back to the team and car fans' support for themselves.

That morning, Zhang Yifei put on a racing suit with the Prost logo, with a red national flag on his belt, and a Huaxia Petrochemical logo that was later sewn on Junko Takeda.

Zhang Yifei smoothed some wrinkles on the racing suit and his movements were very formal because this was his first public appearance as an F1 driver.
Chapter completed!