Almighty Athlete Chapter 253: Sepang
The Sepang circuit is located 65 kilometers away from Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. This circuit has been hosting the F1 Grand Prix since 1999, which happens to be its 10th year this year.
The track has a total of 15 curves, 8 straights, a single lap length of 5.543 kilometers, a race of 56 laps, and a total race length of 310.408 kilometers, which is the longest of all Formula One events. At the same time, Sepang Circuit also owns the fastest track in all Formula 1 circuits, with a width of 22 meters.
Despite being the widest of all F1 circuits, Sepang is not easy to overtake because the longest two straights of Sepang are followed by hairpin bends, and the speed difference is not very large (Love qíng) For leading drivers, as long as they can walk their own routes, it is difficult to be surpassed.
It is also worth mentioning that there will be a very dangerous animal on this track, that is the cobra. Sepang Circuit is surrounded by agricultural planting areas. In the rural areas of Malaysia, cobras and wild cats are two common animals, or there are always wild cats in places where there are cobras. Although the wild cat is not considered to be the upper layer in the food chain, it happens to be the nemesis of the cobra. However, most wild cats are more afraid of people, so they will not be too close to the track. The cobra is different. If you see a cobra on the Sepang circuit, , Then don't be surprised.
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Zhang Guan arrived in Malaysia on Wednesday, and he will attend the media meeting on Thursday. The staff of the convoy came earlier. The first thing they came to Malaysia was to go to the weather department to get a weather forecast.
This is Malaysia. It’s normal to rain (love qíng). It’s a new thing not to rain in Malaysia. And the most troublesome is some sudden and very short rainfall, sometimes heavy rain raids, but four or five minutes after the sun is shining, for the car, it is necessary to change the rain tires when it rains, and the rain stops After changing the dry tires, it might rain even after the dry tires are replaced. When the rain tires are replaced, the team's tactical deployment is likely to be completely disrupted.
So the weather forecast is very important for the fleet (love qíng). Most small fleets with no money get weather conditions from the meteorological department, while large convoys like Ferrari simply rent meteorological satellites and temporarily hire meteorological experts to provide services for them.
Due to their excellent performance in Australia, the China Force team has also become the focus of media chase, and they got more shots in the Friday practice.
The Friday practice didn’t rain, and the Ferrari status that gave up the kinetic energy recovery system also picked up, winning the top two in the second quarter practice session on Friday afternoon. As for McLaren, another giant who is entangled by the "door of perjury", his results are ranked in the middle.
For Zhang Guan, he has been familiar with the track all Friday, and then constantly adjust the car. He didn't run the fastest lap, but his results were upstream.
But Zhang Guan's teammate Barrichello was out of luck. During his practice, the gearbox broke down. According to the regulations, replacing the gearbox in the competition is to go back five places.
Saturday morning, there was light rain before the start of the practice, but after the start of the practice, the rain stopped and the sun was still out. Going to run, it wasn't until after a few laps that the track was dry that the drivers began to make the fastest results in turn.
Like the last race, Rosberg of Williams team still dominated the practice, and then Ferrari, Red Bull and Toyota also performed well. The two cars of China Power won the ninth and the first respectively. Ten, before McLaren.
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Saturday afternoon, qualifying.
Before the game started, reporters were already at the end, and various lances and short guns chased the track.
"From the results of the practice competition, it seems that the Chinese power that took the top two in the last stop, but it played more generally."
"A new team won a championship in the first leg. Did you really regard them as Ferrari? The result of the last race was just a coincidence."
"Yes, I think so too. After all, the big team is not ready for the first race, so it was a coincidence by China Power and won a championship. Now in the second race, other teams The state of the country has definitely picked up. It is impossible for Chinese forces to continue to dominate the Sepang circuit. You can see from the results of these two days of practice. China Force has not even entered the top three."
"When you remember the Australian station, the performance of Chinese strength in practice is relatively average, maybe they are hiding their strength?"
"Impossible. A new team, where is there any strength to hide! It was just good luck to get the pole position at the last stop Zhang Guan, you see, they might not be able to enter the third quarter at this stop Qualifying!"
"Look, look, Zhang Guan is out! There are no green stripes on the tires, they are hard tires!"
"Hard tires? It seems that China Power is (very tǐng) confident and dare to use hard tires to run the first quarter qualifying."
"Looking at their performance in the practice game, there should be no problem with the hard tire running the first quarter!"
The temperature in Malaysia is relatively high, and the Sepang circuit is also a tire-consuming circuit. If it is an ultra-soft tire, I am afraid that even 10 laps may not be able to persist, so Princeton is racing at this stop There are two configurations for drivers, soft tires and hard tires.
The hard tires currently used by Zhang Guan are the hardest and slowest of the four dry tires.
But this did not affect the promotion of Zhang Guan. Soon after, he scored a score of 1 minute and 35 seconds, and this result was enough to ensure that he entered the second quarter of qualifying.
The best result of the first qualifying session was made by Zhang Guan teammate Barrichello, 1 minute 34 seconds 681, which is almost 0, 4 seconds faster than Zhang Guan, but Barrichello is used It is a (set tào) soft tire, and in the second quarter, he will also use this (set tào) soft tire.
It is worth mentioning that the Ferrari team is probably too light. The two Ferrari cars only ran two laps and returned to the maintenance area. They thought they could enter the second quarter, but in the end Sa was eliminated, and Raikkonen was in the 14th place, almost not in the second quarter.
Ferrari is a strategic mistake~IndoMTL.com~ They are not inferior, but they misjudged the situation and caused a car to be eliminated. However, the Force India team is really weak, and their two cars are located in the 18th and 19th respectively, and they were both eliminated. The last one is Buimi of the Red Bulls. He is a driver who has just entered Formula One this season. It is normal to run a penultimate.
In the second quarter of qualifying, Ferrari ate a lot of time and came out early, and other drivers were stimulated by Ferrari’s elimination of a car, and they drove out of the pits at the beginning. And they used soft tires.
In the second quarter of qualifying, the drivers chose soft tires and ultra-light fuel, so the speed is much faster than the first quarter. Almost every driver's score is within 1 minute and 35 seconds, and It is still improving.
The Red Bull team and the Toyota team performed well in this stop. They have ran out of good results within 1 minute 34 seconds and 30 seconds.
However, this result is much slower than that of someone.
"1 minute 33 seconds 778! It’s Zhang Guan! He is still so fast, just like the second quarter qualifying of the previous stop, it is also a lap gap close to 0.5 seconds!"