Car Racing without Money

It's worth mentioning that among Perez's competitors, there's a driver from China, known as Cheng Congfu, who is considered the number one in domestic formula racing.

During the qualifying race, Cheng Congfu achieved an impressive second place and went on to overtake Perez in the main race to win the championship, marking the first time a Chinese driver historically defeated a future F1 driver.

Unfortunately, this was an F3 event in the N category (National Group), with pitifully low attention and prestige, hardly causing any splash.

According to Chen Xiangbei's estimate, considering the tire wear, he wasn't pushing full throttle. His lap time should be around 1 minute 09.5 seconds, which is about 1 second slower than the pole position record set by Ricardo.

After all, Ricardo's skill level and future achievements are evident, and compared to Magnussen's "blitz and wander" style, this Australian driver's impressive debut in F1 fully deserves the term "divine start"!

The battle for the 2010 F1 championship was extremely intense, with three teams and four drivers still vying for the championship position by the last final race.

Ultimately, the 23-year-old Red Bull Racing Team driver Vettel made an unbelievable comeback from a 15-point deficit, surpassing Hamilton to become the youngest world champion in F1 history!

Just two days after this race ended, Ricardo drove the same RB6 champion model as Vettel at the Abu Dhabi circuit, conducting rookie tests and secured the top spot among rookie drivers in lap times!

Solely based on this rookie test lap time leaderboard, there seems to be nothing special on the surface, with no prestige to talk of.

However, Ricardo's fastest test lap was 1.3 seconds faster than the pole position time set by Vettel with the same model car on the same circuit three days prior!

You didn't see the number wrong; it's indeed 1.3 seconds!

This result is like dropping a deep-water bomb into the F1 paddock. A rookie who has never driven an F1 car before, just by driving a test car, can be 1.3 seconds faster than the single fastest lap of a new world champion. It's simply unimaginable.

At that time, Marco, the Red Bull Junior Team mentor and creator of the "Great Shift of Heaven and Earth" in the paddock, immediately signed Ricardo as the reserve driver for the Red Bull Junior Team.

Judging by this performance and achievement, Ricardo early on displayed a terrifying talent ceiling. The track records he set have a prestige not easily dismissed, potentially harder to break than Schumacher's record at Silverstone Circuit.

Considering his unfamiliarity with the track and factors like insufficient grip, Chen Xiangbei could accept being about 1 second slower, but 1.5 seconds was a bit hard to swallow.

Keep in mind, this is just an over 1-minute short track; a lap time gap of 1.5 seconds is equivalent to over 2 seconds on a standard track.

The Renault Formula Racing Car's performance is being extended by over 2 seconds, completely overpowering the underclass!

"Xiangbei-kun, not too slow."

"Last year, the pole lap time for the Renault European Cup was over 0.5 seconds slower than Ricardo's pole record. You still have strong competitiveness."

Mizutani Sho replied through the TR, his words aren't purely comforting; in fact, Chen Xiangbei's lap time is decent.

As if to validate Mizutani Sho's words, Odetto issued a team command to have Chen Xiangbei pit for a tire change and receive a retune, while Kobayashi Shuji from the other car group performed track practice.

Compared to Chen Xiangbei's aggressiveness, Kobayashi Shuji was more conservative, honestly completing a warm-up lap before starting a timed lap furiously.

Odetto didn't impose as strict speed requirements on him as on Chen Xiangbei, simply watched the racing data with arms crossed expressionlessly, until the final lap time appeared on the screen.

1 minute 09.770, only 0.2 faster than Chen Xiangbei.

When he saw this number, Odetto frowned.

Kobayashi Shuji, after all, had raced karting events here and received technical support from the Honda Team, should've at least run close to 1 minute 09 seconds to count as a sufficiently competitive lap.

Last year's pole driver was 0.5 seconds slower than Ricardo, besides the skill disparity, there were also different track conditions.

This year's race weather wasn't bad, plus competitor's overall skill is considerably stronger. Odetto expected a lap of at least 1 minute 08.6 seconds to confidently become the pole driver at Donington Park Circuit.

Now, both are over a second slower overall. What's the deal?

"Kobayashi, you've raced on Donington Park Circuit before; could this actually be your skill level?"

For Kobayashi Shuji, Odetto was equally straightforward, with no ambiguity in his words.

Chen Xiangbei being slow still has some reasonable grounds, given that the Chinese Kid hadn't even raced here before and only saw what Donington Park Circuit looked like today.

Despite some corners pushing for extreme speed, the overall trajectory deviation couldn't be helped, gradually dragging down the lap time.

This was entirely unnecessary for Kobayashi Shuji, based on his performance at Silverstone Circuit, his lap should've been 0.5 seconds faster than Chen Xiangbei to be considered normal.

"Sorry, Odetto."

Facing doubt, Kobayashi Shuji too had grievances unspeakable.

He indeed had raced on Donington Park Circuit, but with karts, which significantly differ from single-seat formula driving experiences.

More critically, the track layout for karts and formula racing are completely different, even the starting direction is reversed.

One is counterclockwise, the other is clockwise.

This is tantamount to Kobayashi Shuji racing a mirror-image track, requiring him to reverse many fixed thoughts in his mind.