After signing a few autographs, Chen Xiangbei noticed more and more fans heading towards the parking area, so he quickly stopped what he was doing and hurriedly left under the "escort" of Ayong and other team members.

Otherwise, given the number of fans on-site, Chen Xiangbei wouldn't even need to race today; he'd spend the whole afternoon just signing autographs.

At that moment, Chen Xiangbei finally understood what it felt like to be a celebrity.

Upon arriving at the team's garage in the pit lane, Liang Chi and Sawano Hiroyuki, who had arrived earlier, were standing in front of Chen Xiangbei's #13 Renault car discussing.

"Sawano, after the qualifying last night, the technician team found many bumps and scratches on the chassis during inspection."

"This morning, during a recheck, a noticeable crack appeared in the rear section of the chassis. We don't know if it was caused by stress release or was a latent damage from track collisions."

"We've already secured the pole position in qualifying. The main race focuses more on long-distance stability, so I suggest adjusting the setup to raise the chassis!"

After all, Liang Chi is now the team's chief technician, and his feedback on car setups also carries significant weight.

In fact, similar setup preferences are more common in F1 events.

Many F1 teams, especially some smaller ones, often adopt setups that favor qualifying performance in order to gain a starting advantage from the front row.

However, since the FIA explicitly prohibits changes to car setups after practice sessions, setups that are extreme for qualifying are likely to lead to significant tire wear during the main race.

This means that to maintain grip, drivers must use a multiple-stop strategy, frequently pitting to switch to new tires, otherwise they'd keep losing positions from being overtaken.

This is why, when watching F1 races live, you often see smaller teams making it into the top ten in Q3 of qualifying, but then not knowing where they end up in the main race, as the big teams consistently secure front rows for points.

Teams like Haas, Alpha Tauri, Williams, and other smaller teams exhibit such noticeable traits.

Particularly in '24, the Haas duo, Hockenheim and Magnussen, often had great speed and positions in qualifying, but couldn't score much in the main race.

Apart from the inherent performance gap in the cars and their high tire wear traits, setup plays a big role too.

The reason smaller teams still opt for such setups is because they understand that their cars alone can't compete with the long-distance performance of big teams' "Mars Rovers," so they need a gambler's mindset to take risks to score points!

They gamble on track incidents triggering yellow or red flags, which would grant them a free window to pit for tire changes.

If coupled with a track that's hard to overtake on, a front-row start advantage could secure major points if their gamble pays off!

Of course, in reality, these gambles often don't pay off.

As a result, teams often engage in a flurry of flashy, eye-catching operations that, from an outside perspective, look akin to a clown circus, directly tiring out the drivers...

Renault can change setups without any penalties or demotion, meaning there are no concerns.

Liang Chi believes that Chen Xiangbei has already secured the pole position with a setup that favors qualifying, and given the current state of the chassis, it's uncertain if it can withstand the dozens of laps in the main race.

At that point, severe damage from bottoming out could affect not just winning, but even scoring points would be an issue!

Sawano Hiroyuki, as the race engineer, understood the chassis risk and Liang Chi's concerns well.

However, he had to consider all aspects!

Donington Park is an old track with bumpy and narrow conditions, making overtaking very difficult.

The damage to Chen Xiangbei's chassis likely occurred during a qualifying battle with Mansell, where he took unconventional lines and aggressively used the curbs.

The FIA penalty from this battle was a slap on the wrist for both, with each receiving a five-place grid penalty.

However, the problem is that Mansell's car crashed in qualifying, and his last effective lap time put him at the bottom, making a five-place penalty meaningless.

In contrast, Chen's pole position penalty required him to realistically overtake five front-row drivers.

If a mid-level driver like Mansell found overtaking this track tough, aiming to overtake top-five drivers would be even harder.

It's not that Sawano Hiroyuki lacked faith in Chen Xiangbei, but logic told him that changing the car setup would make it impossible to overtake!

Faced with this dilemma, Sawano Hiroyuki hesitated for a moment, and ultimately left the decision to Odetto.

On one hand, he's the team leader, the top management figure.

On the other, Odetto, being a former F1 strategy group member, whether at Super Aguri or earlier with Ferrari, has far more experience than Sawano Hiroyuki as a Japanese person.

"Keep the setup unchanged."

Odetto gave his answer without any consideration or hesitation.

"Team Leader Odetto, can you explain it?"

The Super Dream Team wasn't just about Chen Xiangbei and Liang Chi learning and improving, but to some extent, even Sawano Hiroyuki's Asian team members were striving to absorb advanced European racing technology and experience.

Sawano Hiroyuki wanted to understand the deeper reasoning behind Odetto's decision.

"The original setup runs fast."

Odetto crossed his arms casually, answering with indifference.

Hearing this, Sawano Hiroyuki paused; that answer seemed too straightforward and crude.

"I know it runs fast, but..."

Sawano Hiroyuki wanted to probe deeper—qualifying setups, of course, run faster, and this he understood well.

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