"Xiangbei, congratulations on winning the pole position!"

Ross Brown walked over and warmly embraced Chen Xiangbei.

To be honest, besides joy, he also felt an inexplicable complexity at this moment.

Under normal circumstances, a test driver showing remarkable talent and potential is definitely good news for the team.

Especially when Button and Barrichello are both over thirty, considered "elderly" drivers in the F1 paddock, and could face the possibility of retiring due to poor performance or condition.

At this time, it's necessary for the third or test driver to be promoted to ensure the team's sustainable development!

In recent years, major F1 teams have set up driver academies or youth training programs to expand their depth of driver reserves, to avoid a situation where there is no one available to fill a position.

But closely following is a problem: super-talented rookies are often unwilling to be subordinate, what if the "junior" wants to rise to the top?

Even underworld figures know they need to take out the leader to rise, let alone top formula drivers, who naturally want the team's formal drivers, "big brothers," to step down and make way!

Coincidently, these two are in the ranks of championship contenders, and renewals are usually decided mid-year. It's impossible to suddenly tell Button or Barrichello at this critical moment, you two have to leave next year to make way for a newcomer.

Drivers, upon learning of such situations, no matter how strong they are mentally, cannot help but be affected.

With other teams upgrading one after another, especially as Ferrari Team made a strong rise mid-season, the BGP001 no longer has the "Mars Rover" momentum it did earlier, and Vettel has also joined the championship race.

Brawn GP cannot afford to lose the championship, and Chen Xiangbei, as a rookie, doesn't have that much influence to make the board of directors go all-in!

Such situations are quite similar to the Renault Team in '22, where everyone knows Piastri achieved "a jump a year" and is destined to be a super rookie.

But Renault Team's two formal drivers, Alonso has strong results and is experienced, there's no way they would let him go to make way.

Ocon, although slightly behind, has been consistently improving in performance and speed, not only matching Alonso but even surpassing him in points.

Plus, with the advantage of youth, if you let him go, who knows how many more years Alonso can race, and when he retires, there will again be a vacancy needing a talent to fill.

Renault Team's strategy was to stall Piastri, offering him prospect with the position up for grabs!

The result was a mess, Piastri left outright, and Alonso also couldn't stand his teammate's "lion's defense" and followed suit.

After a series of intense maneuvers, Renault Team became a laughingstock, giving away the super talent they nurtured to McLaren to compete for the championship...

To some extent, since the "Crashgate" incident in '09, with the punishment and exit of Renault leader "Hua Bu" from the paddock, and the management overhaul, this French team has been on a constant decline.

From a top factory team that could supply race engines and helped establish the Benetton, Williams, and Renault dynasties.

After muddling through for over a decade, all their engine customers left, their youth training collapsed, and by '26, even the engine factory had to close, transforming into a Mercedes customer team.

The once "Big Three" has completely fallen, doomed to linger in mid-field positions in the F1 paddock.

In comparison to the often criticized "Italian clown" Ferrari, Renault is the real top French clown within the paddock, with one silly move after another depleting their decades-old foundation.

Of course, the tangle and "distress" in Ross Brown's heart could never be expressed to Chen Xiangbei, and outwardly he was more enthusiastic and congratulatory.

"Thank you, Mr. Ross."

Chen Xiangbei politely replied and then, like the other team members, put on his headset and quietly stood aside watching the preparations inside the P Room.

Compared to the simple aerodynamics kit adjustments of the F3 race car and the team coordination when Chen Xiangbei tested at the Catalonia Circuit, it was obvious that the Brawn GP team was more professional and meticulous.

To put it simply, the members of the Super Dream Team were a batch eliminated from the Super Aguri Team.

The real technicians and elites had already been transferred by the Honda Group last year to the Blackley Factory Headquarters, and to the Honda F1 team that was still operating at the time.

To give a simple example, Chen Xiangbei's Dream Team still used "bar" as the unit for tire pressure descriptors, which is more common.

The tire pressure displayed on ordinary civilian cars is also in this unit, used to express the air pressure value inside the tire.

But the tire pressure unit for Brawn GP is in psi, the Anglo-American system.

Imperial units are often impractical, such as weight in pounds or length in feet, which are far less convenient than internationally used kilograms or centimeters and decimeters.

But in terms of tire pressure, the psi unit represents not just a simple air pressure value, but the pound force per square inch exerted on the tire!

Compared to "bar," "psi" can more accurately reflect the pressure value the tire is under, and its unit is smaller and more precise.

Of course, this is just one aspect. Aerodynamic tuning, power unit allocation deployment, data verification, and adjustment, etc., all are comprehensively ahead of Chen Xiangbei's Dream Team.

It can only be said that Super Aguri's bottom placement wasn't without reason, rookie drivers were only part of it, team quality differences accounted for another part, and the rest was the gap in research and development strength.

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