Chapter 74 - 6: A Game of Tires

Chapter 74: Chapter 6: A Game of Tires

The engineer was wearing headphones, so no one else heard Wu Shi’s voice. He considered relaying the message to Chairman Montezemolo, but recalling his previous encounter, he wisely chose to keep his mouth shut.

All eyes were locked on the screen. The blue dot representing Wu Shi was moving at high speed, much faster than some of the dots ahead of him.

Evidently, the track wasn’t clear; it was cluttered with a large number of cars on cool-down laps.

"Aren’t you going to inform Wu Shi about the situation?"

Sid asked the engineer. He’d taken a dislike to the man ever since he complained that no team would want Wu Shi. Now, suspecting malicious intent, he felt compelled to speak up.

The engineer glanced back, then said into the team radio, "Slow car on the exit of Turn Four."

"Copy," a voice replied through the headset.

Due to network signal issues, the feed from Wu Shi’s first-person camera kept stuttering.

The signal dropped just as he was entering Turn Two.

"Has the signal always been this bad?" Montezemolo asked the person next to him.

"This is the first year of the Florida Winter Series," the series organizer explained. "It wasn’t like this during the earlier tests. Perhaps it’s because there weren’t this many cars on the track at the same time."

Montezemolo nodded but said nothing.

The screen flickered and Wu Shi’s first-person view returned. He was just arriving at Turn Four. Directly ahead, a slow car happened to be on the inside line. It wasn’t on the racing line just yet, but that could change in a matter of seconds.

Martina and Sid both grew tense. After all, this was a demonstration for the boss from Rafa. Overtaking a slow car cleanly was part of the evaluation.

Then, the view on the screen swung to the outside line. The car bounced twice over the curb—THUMP, THUMP—before diving sharply toward the apex.

"He’s widened his cornering line," Jos noted with a frown, mentally calculating the different possible lines.

"That’s too close!" Martina couldn’t help but exclaim.

You never saw how thrilling it was when you didn’t watch from a first-person perspective. For the instant they passed the apex, it looked as if Wu Shi’s car was going to slam right into the other one.

But just at the would-be moment of impact, the two cars diverged like intersecting beams of light, each speeding off in a different direction.

The sense of speed from the first-person view and the urgency of the near-collision made Martina feel as if time itself had slowed down.

CLAP, CLAP, CLAP.

"Impressive," Montezemolo said, applauding. That single corner was enough to win over most people who understood racing.

The engineer glanced at the data. Due to the obstruction, he was still two-tenths slower through that corner than before. He said nothing, silently hoping the guy wouldn’t post a good time.

Unfortunately for him, after passing the first slow car, Wu Shi’s voice came over the team radio again: "Hi, guy, tell me what the track looks like ahead."

On the Great Straight, any slow cars he could see had already moved aside to let him pass. However, the upcoming corners were obscured by safety netting, blocking his view. Even a god would risk an accident taking a blind corner like that.

"Track is clear ahead. You won’t be held up."

"Copy."

Wu Shi continued to fly. The old tires were worn, their grip inferior to a new set. And after three flying laps—even though he’d backed off for a cool-down lap in the middle—the tires were still overheating.

Faced with this, he chose to widen his cornering angle. This would reduce the stress on the tires, but it would also slightly increase the total distance traveled and add a little to his lap time.

That wasn’t the result he wanted. So, after taking it easy for just one corner, he pushed to the absolute limit on the next, squeezing every last bit of performance from the car and tires.

WHOOSH! SCREECH!

The shriek of the tires mingled with the sound of the wind. Through a series of consecutive corners, the car constantly changed direction, weaving left and right like a mythical dragon, several times looking as if it was scraping the guardrail.

WHOOSH!

The car sped past, the violent gust of air pausing for a moment before flipping up the advertising banner.

"Tires are overheating, be careful," the engineer said over the radio. He glanced at the speed. Wu Shi had gained back three-tenths through that sequence of corners!

"Copy."

Wu Shi’s voice was calm and unhurried, as if that surgical, razor-sharp cornering was second nature to him.

On the following short straight and gentle curve, where he didn’t need to push the tires’ grip, they cooled down rapidly. On the thermal imaging view, the once bright-red tires gradually faded in color.

Everyone watched with heightened attention, wondering how he would handle the next few corners.

"He’s still cooling them."

Jos was the first to speak. Just by observing how far he swung to the outside line, he could tell that Wu Shi was still letting the tires cool in this corner.

"But haven’t the tire temperatures already come down?" Martina asked.

"Only the surface has cooled significantly. The core of the tire is still very hot. If he pushes them even a little, they’ll overheat again."

As soon as Jos finished speaking, the thermal imaging view showed that even with a relaxed approach, the left-front tire quickly turned red in the middle of the corner.

On corner exit, the tire temperature dropped rapidly again.

"So he’s sacrificing some corners?" Sid asked Jos.

"You could say that, but it’s not entirely accurate," Jos said, shaking his head. He explained:

"In the corners we think Wu Shi is sacrificing, his speed is actually still very high. Compared to other drivers, he isn’t sacrificing them at all. You can see his data shows he’s less than a tenth of a second slower than ’max’ in those corners."

Jos’s comment made a few people glance at ’max’s’ data. The guy was fast, but he didn’t particularly stand out from the crowd. The fastest of them all was still Antonio Focca.

Sid knew Jos wanted people to pay attention to ’max’, but he didn’t call him out on it.

WHOOSH!

The time for the first sector came in. Wu Shi was four-tenths slower than his own previous lap time.

"That’s way too slow," the engineer said, shaking his head.

But no one paid him any mind. It was only the time for one sector. Besides, while he was four-tenths slower than his *own* best, he was less than a tenth slower than the other drivers.

And that was with being held up by several slow cars in the first sector.

Once he reached the second sector, there were fewer cars and the track conditions were optimal.

After just three corners, he had already made up the tenth he’d lost earlier, and he had the tire overheating under control.

"His ability to control the tires is outstanding," Jos commented.

Tire management is an extremely delicate art that relies on a driver’s personal experience and feel. Sometimes you drive conservatively, and the tires inexplicably overheat and wear out faster. Other times you push hard, and the tires don’t overheat at all.

It’s actually related to a whole host of factors: tire rotation speed, airflow, pressure on the road surface, actual friction, and so on. It’s not something that can be explained simply by ’fast’ or ’slow’. Tires are incredibly difficult to manage and control.

After one full sector, Wu Shi had gained a much deeper understanding of this worn set of tires.

At the same time, he saw his first sector time flash on the data display. He knew that a strategy of ’conserve then attack’ wouldn’t produce the absolute fastest lap, so with his newfound level of control, he immediately changed his approach.

WHOOSH!

His entire second sector was incredibly smooth. The car’s entry into each corner was precise and flawless, perfectly following the racing line he envisioned in his mind.

WHOOSH!

Second sector: just two-tenths slower than his first lap.

And with that time, he was now ahead of everyone else.

"Now it all comes down to the third sector," Martina said, feeling nervous. She glanced at Montezemolo, wondering what the boss thought of Wu Shi.

She had gone to great lengths to get Wu Shi this opportunity.

But fate had other plans. Montezemolo had made a last-minute change to his schedule, which meant the Rafa chairman’s original plan to watch an entire race had turned into just this fleeting visit.