The ignition started, Zhang Yifei drove from the maintenance channel to the track, and the roar of the engine began to resound.

Feeling the heat wave transmitted from the cockpit, Zhang Yifei understood that the engine working temperature was about the same, and pushed into the first gear and loosened the clutch to replenish the oil, and the engine speed instantly exceeded 8,000 rpm.

There is no so-called burning tire in a formula car, the moment the brakes are released, the whole car rushes out, and the huge acceleration pushes the back feeling to the face, pressing Zhang Yifei to the seat.

The Hockenheimring circuit is the fastest track in F1 of this era because it has four long straights, especially the long straight into the forest at the start, and the long throttle time of 15 seconds.

Speaking of forests, this is also a special feature of the Hockenheimring, which was originally built in a forest clearing.

However, during the construction phase, the forest trees were not cut down entirely, but a large part of the area was left.

Therefore, more than half of the route of the Hockenheimring Circuit is shuttled directly in the forest, and even the spectators cannot see the specific situation on the track, which can only be understood through the big screen broadcast, which later developed into the iconic location of the Hockenheimring Circuit.

After the start, the gear was quickly pushed to sixth gear, and the Renault car quickly reached its limit of 260 km/h.

The ultra-long floor oil time of 15 seconds made Zhang Yifei feel the excitement brought by speed, to be honest, few tracks can do this kind of extreme speed.

Unlike Monza, where you have to slow down a lot of time, Hockenheim makes the first left turn, and it's a high-angle high-speed turn.

With the performance of Renault racing cars, basically even the brakes can be ignored, and the empty throttle can just turn the corner, and the speed is maintained at about 180km/h in fourth gear.

High-speed corners seem simple, but the tangent requirements for the corners are extremely high, and if there is a slight problem with the route selection, then the opponent will seize the shorter corner route to overtake in the corner.

Moreover, at such a high speed, the reaction and selection time left for the driver is also very short, basically relying on the car feeling and solid driving skills brought by ordinary practice, there is no other shortcut.

Curve tangential lines have always been one of Zhang Yifei's strengths, so this kind of curve is not difficult for him. It's just that limited by tire temperature and grip, Zhang Yifei didn't choose to turn at the limit, and adopted a conservative strategy in the first lap.

The next two corners in a row are basically similar to Turn 1, which is the characteristic of high-speed tracks, basically as long as the grip is enough and the tangent line is perfectly chosen, don't even step on the brakes.

If you're a F1 car, you have a better air package for more downforce and can even go full throttle into corners.

The revamped Hockenheimring has a full throttle time of only 55 percent, but now the Hockenheimring can be as high as 70 percent of the throttle time, allowing drivers to experience even more extreme speed.

This feeling is even a little bit high for Zhang Yifei, after all, to become a professional driver, what he pursues is the excitement brought by this speed.

Many times, even if you know that there is danger, and even pay the price of your life, you will still choose to go down with one foot on the accelerator, because this sense of accomplishment after challenging the limit will really be addictive.

After a few high-speed corners, it was soon in front of a hairpin corner, and if it was a full-throttle to follow the opponent, then this hairpin corner, called Sachs, was the time to overtake.

The angle of this hairpin bend is very small, almost 180 degrees of turning back, which is relatively rare in Formula 1 and can be regarded as one of the most challenging locations at Hockenheimring.

Before entering a corner, you need to reduce your speed to about 70 km/h in first gear, and even when passing through the center of the corner, the slowest speed is not even 60 km/h.

This is a very test of the control of the braking point and the cornering route, the braking point is early, it will be overtaken, the braking point is late, even if the turning back is not out of the track, the cornering route will become a mess, and it will also be surpassed by the opponent.

Zhang Yifei had only seen it from the information before, and this was also the first time he experienced the hairpin bend of the F1 track.

There is no hairpin bend on the mountain road, and there is no possibility of drifting in the formula car, which means that you can simply hit the steering wheel and walk through.

Because it was really unfamiliar, and because of the test run on the first lap, Zhang Yifei lowered his speed very low, basically about 50km/h through this hairpin bend.

In addition to this Saches hairpin corner, the Hockenheimring also has a short straight front combination corner, which is a combination of two corners and a short straight.

When Zhang Yifei ran Guangshen Qixing Mountain before, he was more familiar with this kind of short straight front corner, but on the F1 track, this kind of corner is also called a double vertex corner.

And this bend also has a familiar name Sudkurve (Sade Bend) in later generations. It is the same name as the anti-missile system that the US imperialists are not familiar with in South Korea, but this kind of name is very common in hope.

In addition to these two difficult corners, there is also a No. 9 right-angle corner, and the others are some conventional high-speed corners, which are basically corners that can be passed by full throttle or loose throttle, as long as the cornering route is controlled, it is difficult for the rear car to overtake from other routes.

After a lap of trial running, Zhang Yifei was not fast, but there were no obvious mistakes, especially in the selection of cornering routes, not like a novice at all.

"Junko, what is the test lap time of Yifei-kun?"

"1:50.26."

Junko Takeda reported the test run timing of the first lap, because it was a hand-pinched stopwatch, so it could only be accurate to double-digit milliseconds, and the error was relatively large. But the lap time of about 1 minute and 50 seconds, Zhang Yifei still reached it.

Hearing this lap time, Ukyo Yamamoto also opened the record at Hockenheim Circuit, the above F1 lap record, which was set by F1 star Damon Hill in '96, with a time of 1:25.256.

But Zhang Yifei is now running a Renault Formula car, and compared with a formula with a horsepower of more than 700P, the gap between Renault cars is too big.

So the fastest lap of the Hockenheimring Junior Formula record is 1:47.317.

Zhang Yifei now has a lap time of about 1 minute and 50 seconds, which looks very different from the fastest lap record. But in fact, Zhang Yifei only tried to run the hot tire rim, and because of the neutral tires, Zhang Yifei's speed was even lowered.

According to Yamamoto Ukyo's estimate, Zhang Yifei's fastest lap in qualifying should be within 1 second of the current track record.

If the weather conditions are as sunny as expected on the two days of the race, then it is suitable for the characteristics of high speed, high temperature and high energy load of medium tyres, and you may be able to get close to the track record, or even surpass the fastest lap.

"The progress of Yifeijun is really amazing, and when I tried to run at Monza in the last race, the gap between the fastest lap and the track record was almost three seconds. And now just the warm-up lap has reached the level of the fastest lap in the previous test run, which can really be described as god speed. ”

Yamamoto Youjing's tone was extremely emotional, he had never seen any formula newcomer who could reach Zhang Yifei's speed of progress. As he said before, Zhang Yifei seems to have followed up with the same mutation every lap of practice and every game.

It is not the linear progress of ordinary rookie drivers at all, in other words, Zhang Yifei has achieved the effect of geometric multiple progress.

"The progress is really fast, but the last stop is the first time that Yifeijun has come into contact with the formula track, and he is a pure newcomer, and he is very rusty in all aspects."

"In this test run, I can clearly feel that Yifeijun has no previous sense of rustiness, and is more like an experienced driver. The natural ascension is fast. ”

After saying this paragraph, Junko Takeda suddenly felt that this set of words seemed to be insufficient to describe Zhang Yifei's progress, so she added in a low voice: "It does seem to be a little fast." ”

Zhang Yifei in the test run stage naturally didn't know about the discussion outside the paddock, but he could feel that he was becoming more and more proficient in the track.

It's not the feeling of recovery in the previous track races, it's a feeling of being in touch with the car.

That is to say, from this moment on, Zhang Yifei broke away from the previous category of eating his old book, and began to use the physical fitness and racing experience of this world to drive this formula car.

To be honest, Zhang Yifei has always thought that others are geniuses, and he can only be regarded as a "hanger".

If you stand on the same starting line, can you really outperform these future F1 drivers at the "genius" level?

The answer is actually no, Zhang Yifei himself does not have any confidence, without relying on the experience of his previous life, he also trained in karts from a young age, and he can be better than these talented drivers.

But now Zhang Yifei has a different feeling, that is, he is actually not bad, even if he puts aside the experience of his previous life, he has not been exposed to formula training for a long time in his life.

If you really count all the professional time, you really don't have to be longer than Massa who has been involved in karting since childhood.

If he used to feel that he relied on driving, then now Zhang Yifei gradually feels that the improvement of his driving skills is the result of his training day and night.

Take the previous Toyota youth training base as an example, Zhang Yifei dared to say without exaggeration that he had paid double the efforts of others. Whether it is the length of practice or the concentration of physical training, he really does not have the slightest laziness, he just feels that he has lost at the starting line and has to rely on hard work to catch up.

When facing opponents, although they also have the confidence to defeat the opponent, there is no doubt that Zhang Yifei is more confident now, and he begins to truly identify with his own strength!

The increase in the number of laps and the high temperature at noon in summer made the tire temperature rise very much, and soon reached a grip effect close to that of soft tires, which made Zhang Yifei's fastest lap speed also steadily increase.

At this time, Zhang Yifei came to the Sachs hairpin bend in the shade again, intending to challenge his extreme corner.

But just as he was cornering, Zhang Yifei felt a muffled sound of his racing car, and then the whole car swayed wildly and completely uncontrollably in the corner.

You must know that Zhang Yifei is planning to delay the braking to challenge the limit on this lap, and the speed of the car is close to 160km/h at the moment.

At such high speeds, the car, which suddenly lost control of its steering, rushed straight towards the shoulder of the road and then entered the gravel barrier.

What Zhang Yifei can do now is to control the steering wheel and slam on the brakes. After all, the suspension of a formula car is so low, even if you brake suddenly, you don't have to worry about rolling over or something, unless you hit some obstacles.

So now Zhang Yifei has to slow down, if the sand and gravel buffer belt can't completely slow down, then he will directly hit the outermost wall of the track!