Chapter 76 - 8: Pre-Match Strategy

Chapter 76: Chapter 8: Pre-Match Strategy

In the afternoon, the track surface grew even hotter, and the wind picked up significantly.

"These are the data sets for the main race."

Before the race began, Wu Shi and the crew gathered in the conference room to discuss their strategy. An engineer slid a laptop over to him. On the screen were graphs charting the air and track temperatures for the afternoon, wind speed and direction shifts, and various vehicle parameters under different fuel loads. This massive, complex array of data wasn’t meant for the driver to memorize; it was to give him a fundamental understanding of the overall race conditions.

Once the race officially started, the engineers would provide real-time updates over the team radio.

"Understood." Wu Shi focused mainly on the general conditions around the start of the race. He wouldn’t be able to retain too many details of the subsequent data.

"Although we had some unpleasantness during qualifying, Wu Shi, I still need to tell you that during the race, you must follow the feedback the crew gives you," the engineer said.

Sid looked at Wu Shi, wondering how the guy would respond.

"Yeah, I was definitely too agitated during qualifying. Let’s discuss a few plans now to serve as the foundation for our afternoon strategy."

Currently, Wu Shi had three sets of tires: one that had run three laps in qualifying, one that had run a single qualifying lap, and an old set from Friday’s practice that had only seen five laps.

"What we need to understand is that if you drive the way you did in qualifying, the tires won’t last through all three races," the engineer emphasized.

Wu Shi nodded. This was exactly where the race tested one’s strategy. With three main races in total, each lasting thirty minutes plus one lap, how should the three sets of tires be allocated? Faced with attacks from the drivers behind him, should he bet on the tires lasting the entire race and fight hard to defend his position, or should he conserve the tires to ensure he finished?

"You have three pole positions. This is your advantage, but it’s also your disadvantage," the engineer continued.

As a front-row driver, Wu Shi’s strategic choices were very passive. No matter what tires he chose for the first race, the drivers behind him would specifically adopt a tactical mismatch strategy, sacrificing their worn tires to neutralize his good ones—provided that the second-place starters for all three races were different people. And according to the qualifying results, the second-place starters for the three races at Sebring were indeed three different drivers.

The second-place starter for the first race was Antonio Focca. The second-place starter for the second race was Nicholas Latifi. The second-place starter for the third race was Max Verstappen.

"I think we should use the worst tires for the first race," Wu Shi said.

"Why?" The engineer needed a reason to understand the driver’s intentions.

"First of all, among these three, Max is the most aggressive. He will definitely attack me, so there’s a high probability he’ll save his fresh tires for the third race. To fight for the win, he’ll give it everything he has. A fierce battle between the two of us could very likely lead to uncontrollable tire wear. I’d feel much more secure using the fresh tires there."

As the level of competition rose, Wu Shi could clearly feel that his opponents’ skills were gradually increasing. Taking the roster of this race as an example, they had all won numerous championships and had been racing since childhood. Their experience was quite extensive, their techniques were no longer amateurish, and everyone had their own unique insights into racing.

However, because the race tier hadn’t reached the absolute highest level, the performance ceiling of the cars wasn’t particularly high. This meant that during the race, any corrections brought about by pure skill would be constrained by the physical limits of the cars. It was like a simple math test where everyone scores perfectly; only a test with distinct tiers of difficulty could reveal the true gap between a top scholar and an average student. No matter how godly a driver was, without being able to break the laws of physics, using utterly shot old tires to beat another world-class driver on fresh tires was a fool’s dream.

The engineer shook his head upon hearing this. "If that’s the case, in order to secure more victories, you should put your better tires on the first two races to guarantee the wins, rather than fighting to the death in the final race."

"I’m confident," Wu Shi stated, adding with absolute certainty, "With fresh tires, I am absolutely sure I can beat Max. But if I use old tires, I likely won’t be able to hold him off if I want to ensure I finish the race."

During testing, Wu Shi had already ruined three tires of the type used for this race. The team had tire performance graphs showing that once wear reached its limit, the tire’s performance would drop off a cliff. At that point, let alone defending against Verstappen, holding off the other competitors would become a struggle.

"Confident. Sigh." The engineer shook his head. He didn’t point out that the young man was simply full of arrogance. How could anyone describe anything in a race with ’absolute certainty’?

"Look at my test lap times and compare them to his," Wu Shi said.

The engineer didn’t lose his temper or stubbornly argue with him. Even a person with the lowest emotional intelligence wouldn’t provoke a conflict for no reason after seeing Chairman Rafa show such favor to the young man. After everyone compared the lap times, they could see that under identical tire conditions, Wu Shi could indeed reliably beat Verstappen.

"What about Antonio Focca, then? Can you just sit back and ignore him?" the engineer raised another question.

"For him, we’ll use Friday’s old tires." Although this set had run for five laps, they were cruising laps; the wear was far less than the set that had run three aggressive laps in qualifying.

"Antonio’s lap times aren’t slow by any means. Can you hold him off?" The engineer was puzzled. In fact, everyone present was confused. After all, purely looking at the data, Antonio was the strongest driver in the group aside from Wu Shi.

How could Wu Shi explain this? Antonio’s driving was much cleaner and more disciplined than Verstappen’s. Defending against Antonio was a gentleman’s duel; defending against Verstappen was a street fight between scoundrels. A clash between gentlemen was fiercely contested but stayed within the rules, so using slightly worse tires was sufficient. However, dealing with a scoundrel left no room for carelessness. If Verstappen pulled off a torpedo dive-bomb overtake, it would be miserable—he’d either have to retire from the race or yield the position.

Verstappen’s approach, as described by some commentators, was the ability to keenly seize opportunities and execute decisive, resolute overtakes. But as described by another group of commentators, it was: "How can he overtake like that? That’s just a pure torpedo! A Tower Cannon!"

"He drives much more mildly. I don’t think the battle with him will be too intense," Wu Shi explained.

The group pondered over the data for a moment and held a brief consultation. Finally, the engineer spoke up. "I understand, and I respect your opinion. After all, you already defended your judgment in qualifying."

In the end, the tire strategy was finalized: Friday’s old tires for the first race, the three-lap qualifying tires for the second, and the one-lap qualifying tires for the third.

"It would be great if it rained. If we could just use wet tires, it wouldn’t be this troublesome," Wu Shi suddenly remarked.

After negotiating the tire strategy, they moved on to adjusting the car’s modes: the front-to-rear brake bias, left-to-right brake bias, fuel load, and so on. These tasks technically required a complex strategy team to handle. But right now, he was working with a temporary team provided by the officials, so more complex plans had to be shelved.

Fortunately, he could manage the on-the-fly settings required while the car was running. Even if the car ran into issues, he would figure out what was happening much faster than the crew and make the necessary decisions himself. So, as for whether he would actually listen to the crew, that would probably just depend on the situation.