"Dong, you might soon have a fellow countryman as an F1 driver."

Watching Chen Xiangbei's lap time of 1 minute 23 seconds 231, the Renault engineer commented meaningfully.

Despite pushing the tires for three laps, Chen Xiangbei still managed a lap nearly a second faster. This kind of improvement is truly remarkable.

Based on Renault Team's years of experience, as long as this lap time isn't a mere flash in the pan, after multiple practices and tuning of the car, Chen Xiangbei can definitely run close to or even exceed the speed of both Honda's official F1 drivers.

Unbelievable!

Hearing the team engineer's words, Dong Hebin was shocked and didn't know how to respond.

Even before the Grand Prix event, he had been following Chen Xiangbei because there are very few Chinese racers who can run Formula in Europe, and even fewer who achieve results.

Dong Hebin was very aware that Chen Xiangbei is definitely China's hope for the future in racing!

He just didn't expect Chen Xiangbei to come to Catalonia Circuit for testing so soon, let alone imagine he'd directly demonstrate the strength of a prospective F1 driver.

Not to mention catching up with Honda's two official drivers, just Chen Xiangbei's current lap time already leaves Paffett trailing by a second and is four seconds ahead of Dong himself!

How did China's racing environment manage to produce a "monster" driver like Chen Xiangbei?

No one knows the reason, not even the Super Dream Technician Team members, who are somewhat puzzled about how Chen Xiangbei got here, apart from his initial slight discomfort driving the F3 in the Grand Prix.

Jumping straight to driving F1, he was unexpectedly smooth, daring to go all out right from the start.

"Sawano, I'll pit this lap."

After crossing the start line, Chen Xiangbei conveyed his pit-stop request to the team through the radio.

"Received."

Sawano Hiroyuki responded, while simultaneously, the entire technician team, about twenty people, rushed out with various equipment from the P room to the maintenance area, planning to conduct an F1-level pit-stop practice.

Real car practice is also an extremely rare opportunity for the team technician group, as most of the time they can only practice statically against models.

The car entered from one end of the pit lane, and Chen Xiangbei followed the F1 event standard procedure by pressing the speed limit button on the steering wheel, keeping the RA108 at a constant speed of 80km/h.

Exceeding speed in the pit lane is a very common phenomenon in F1, especially before the advent of one-button speed limits, many drivers have suffered FIA penalties for this.

Soon, Chen Xiangbei saw the Super Dream Technician Team in front of the P room, each technician standing in position according to their different responsibilities, and Chen Xiangbei had to stop very precisely within the maintenance spot.

If he stops too far forward or backward, it will cause the technician team to adjust their positions, which can be fatal for the time-critical pit-stop.

Additionally, Chen Xiangbei braking from 80km/h to 0km/h needs to stop instantaneously without crashing into the front jack technician.

The scenes of F1 drivers crashing into maintenance technicians are also quite numerous, requiring mutual trust and complete harmony between the driver and the technician team!

Regarding the pit-stop tire change process, Chen Xiangbei has experienced it in his past life during the F2 events, and his proficiency is very high, and he showed it in the Australian Grand Prix.

One precise brake to stop in the pit spot, then Chen Xiangbei felt his car being lifted off the ground, followed by the continuous "whizzing" sounds of the tire gun motors, as technicians performed the tire change according to the practice standard process.

Odetto stood nearby this time, observing the whole technician team's operation; his face showed no change in emotion.

As the car touched down, the green light on the start signal above lit up, indicating the end of the entire pit-stop tire change process, and Chen Xiangbei could drive the RA108 out to the track.

However, Chen Xiangbei did not drive out; he still needed to conduct a car feedback tuning, as this was just a practice in real conditions.

At this moment, Odetto's expression finally changed, his face looked very unpleasant!

The electronic timer showed that this pit-stop tire change took a total of 7.3 seconds, with mistakes in nearly every step, which made him feel unacceptable.

He could somewhat understand the errors made by the Chinese members of the technician team who were slow, but even the original Super Aguri crew exhibited rookie-like unfamiliarity, entirely lacking the look of a top F1 team.

"Heh, inexperienced driver exceeding expectations, while a technician team with an F1 background performs poorly, that's truly interesting."

Bruce, the McLaren Team race engineer, seeing this scene, showed a mocking smile.

He and Odetto are considered old acquaintances; in the 1980s, McLaren Dynasty's peak time was replaced by Ferrari in the 1990s, so there was quite an accumulated grudge.

Odetto has always been known for being aggressive and strict, yet now he can't manage even a "third-rate" crew well, a Chinese rookie falling into his hands is truly "a waste of talent."

The F1 technology content of this era might be quite behind compared to later generations.

But the tire change speed doesn't have any fundamental difference.

In 2009, McLaren Team set a record of 1.88 seconds for tire change at the Italian Grand Prix.

This speed was only broken by the Red Bull Racing Team's 1.82 seconds a decade later in 2019, and the latest record in 2023 was again refreshed by McLaren Team to 1.80 seconds!

7.3 seconds for a tire change could be considered as slow as a snail, no wonder Odetto's face turned black instantly.

"After today's test, all technician members will stay for 50 sets of tire change practice."

Without the slightest leniency, Odetto immediately set the target.

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