Chapter 1436 - 540: Undercurrents Stirring
"Hey, hey, hey, take the gift first." Toto handed the square box in his hand to Qin Miao.
Qin Miao accepted the box, it felt light in his hand.
"What’s this?" Qin Miao asked curiously.
"Why don’t you open it and see?"
Qin Miao thought for a while but shook his head: "I agreed with Qimeng that we won’t help Qin Muqiu open any gifts given to her. We’ll put all of her gifts in a room that belongs to her, and let her open them herself once she’s grown up and developed the ability to judge."
After hearing Qin Miao’s approach to dealing with children’s gifts, Toto raised his eyebrows in surprise. To be honest, this method is indeed quite innovative.
However, for people like Toto in the older generation, arranging gifts for their children this way is indeed a bit too avant-garde.
"I really don’t understand what you young people are thinking, but as long as you’re happy."
Qin Miao smiled: "Anyway, thank you, boss, for your gift. I’m sure the child will like it. If there’s nothing more, I’ll head to the simulator department. I’m curious about how much the race car’s performance can be improved this week."
"Alright, looking forward to your performance this Grand Prix weekend."
Watching Qin Miao leave excitedly, Toto sighed.
What a fine young man, talented, capable, and hardworking, filled with enthusiasm for racing.
What is Ferrari thinking?
How can you afford to give so much?
Isn’t this over the top?
If you’re going to poach someone, go for Verstappen! Why are you eyeing my Qin Miao?
It’s insane!
FK Ferrari!
FK Vassel!
...
Next week’s race is in Azerbaijan, a street circuit, and the Baku track in Azerbaijan boasts the longest straight of the entire season.
Without a doubt, the layout of the Baku track is particularly suited to Mercedes’ W14, making it the race where the performance gap between Mercedes and Red Bull is the smallest.
As long as there are no unexpected incidents in this race, using the performance of the Mercedes car and Qin Miao’s ability, widening the points gap between Qin Miao and Verstappen again is not too difficult. Of course, that’s assuming Red Bull doesn’t bring any unbelievable upgrades within these three weeks before the Grand Prix.
But considering Newey’s ability, it’s unlikely he won’t bring some incredible upgrades.
When Qin Miao went to the team’s simulator department, he was testing on this track.
To be honest, after entering the simulator and running a few flying laps, Qin Miao didn’t feel any changes in the simulator, be it in appearance or operational feel.
Of course, the operational feel of the simulator is best left unchanged, as it’s modeled after real-life driving experience.
However, after finishing the laps and seeing his telemetry data, Qin Miao noticed the differences.
The upgraded simulator data seemed richer and more comprehensive, even including a replay function from the perspective of the car’s four tires, allowing one to see if the car exceeded the track limits.
Finally, Qin Miao realized that this upgrade mainly optimized the operating logic inside the simulator, only speeding up the computation.
However, what truly surprised Qin Miao was the terrifying tail speed brought by the upgraded version combined with the low-downforce kit of the W14.
The Baku circuit in Azerbaijan is inherently a track with very high straight-line tail speeds. Almost every team uses a medium-low downforce wing setup on this track.
It’s not unheard of for cars to hit 345 km/h on the straights of this track.
While in the simulator, Qin Miao used a rather extreme qualifying setup. If it weren’t for regulations, Qin Miao would probably ask the simulator department to adjust his rear wing to be flat.
Downforce relies entirely on mechanical downforce and ground effect floor.
And because of this extreme setup, Qin Miao clocked a tail speed of 352 km/h on the straight.
Though it couldn’t compare to the actual race during the Mexican Grand Prix in 2016.
Cars back then were lighter compared to today’s ground effect cars. Additionally, Mexico is famous for its high-altitude tracks.
High altitude means the air density on the track is low, resulting in less air resistance for the car. Moreover, the weather and temperature on race day were particularly favorable for racing.
To top it off, the wind direction in Mexico City that day was just right, blowing along the straights.
It can be said that in such a situation where all aspects were favorable, drivers from various teams marked tail speeds exceeding 355 km/h at the end of the straights.
Perez, in particular, managed to set the fastest speed record in F1 history during the main race of the 2016 Mexican Grand Prix: 370 km/h.
It’s a terrifying record with no precedents, and it’s unlikely to be surpassed.
During that time, Perez had not only the aforementioned advantages but also DRS and slipstream provided by the car ahead, allowing him to achieve such an unbelievable tail speed.
But replicating such operations with today’s ground effect cars is almost impossible.
After all, the air resistance of ground effect cars is the largest among cars in F1 history.
Meanwhile, there’s the issue of increased car weight.
Moreover, with continuous upgrades of the engine and increased battery weight,
they have significantly added to the overall weight of the car.
Naturally, this also affects the car’s acceleration.
The car certainly cannot exploit its acceleration advantage.
Yet, despite these numerous disadvantages, Qin Miao managing to drive the car to 352 km/h is quite extraordinary.