CHAPTER 172: CHAPTER 115: WALKING THE TRACK WITH ZHOU GUANYU (PART 2)

Qin Miao greeted Sui Wentao and curiously went over to take a look.

This was the first time Qin Miao had seen Zhou Guanyu’s F2 car for this year in real life.

Compared to last year, Zhou Guanyu’s car design hadn’t changed much this year, but his driver number had changed from 7 to 3.

Not seeing Zhou Guanyu near the P room, Qin Miao went in and asked around, and they also said Zhou Guanyu wasn’t there. Qin Miao then took out his phone to call him.

"What’s up?"

"Where the hell are you? You’re not at the Red Bull Ring at all."

"You arrived? Why did you come so late?"

"Stop talking nonsense, where are you? Let’s check out the track together, see if I can secretly learn something from you."

"I’m eating. It’s too hot to walk around during lunch. Let’s go when the temperature drops a bit in the afternoon, I’ll call you then. By the way, has Qimeng arrived?"

Qin Miao was speechless: "Why the hell are you always thinking about my wife?"

Zhou Guanyu replied gloomily, "It’s because she gave me a gift for my birthday, and all you, the old guy, said was happy birthday and then asked if I wanted to play games!"

Speaking of this, Qin Miao felt a bit guilty. Maybe it’s because he never received gifts for his own birthday while growing up; over the years, Qin Miao had always been resistant to the idea of preparing gifts for others.

On one hand, he didn’t know what would be good to give someone else, and on the other hand, he thought giving gifts was an extremely troublesome thing.

So on Zhou Guanyu’s birthday, when Qin Miao, reminded by Qimeng, realized it was Zhou Guanyu’s birthday, he didn’t think much about it. Since he was planning to ask Zhou Guanyu to play games, he just said happy birthday and then asked, "When are we logging in?"

The key was that on Qin Miao’s birthday this year, Zhou Guanyu gave him a commemorative Dragon Sniper worth over a hundred thousand. In comparison, Qin Miao’s gesture seemed a bit lacking.

So when Zhou Guanyu brought it up, Qin Miao felt guilty.

"Ahem, well, someone’s looking for me here, gotta hang up now. Call me when you’re ready to walk the track in the afternoon..."

After saying this, Qin Miao hung up and nervously looked around. Seeing that Zhou Guanyu wasn’t nearby, he hurried back to his team’s P room.

Back in the P room, Frankie came over to ask Qin Miao when they were going to walk the track.

After explaining his plan to Frankie, he also found it reasonable, so he noted the schedule for the afternoon in his notebook.

In this free time, Qin Miao packed his luggage and took Qimeng back to their hotel.

In the afternoon, Qin Miao had some free time, so he took out his laptop and started playing games. However, since the laptop screen couldn’t compare to the computer at home, Qin Miao didn’t play competitive games, just small games like "Death Cells" to pass the time.

With no Lubos watching over him, Qin Miao basically lost all initiative. As long as he completed his training quota, he was satisfied, and would never do extra practice. Any spare time was spent playing games.

Although he knew it wasn’t good, young people at Qin Miao’s age, just starting to succeed, had so many people rooting for him, and with only an indulgent Qimeng by his side, no one could really control him.

Qin Miao played games until Zhou Guanyu called, and then they went to the Red Bull Ring together.

Upon returning to his team’s P room, Qin Miao saw that his car’s preparation was complete, and he also saw Zhou Guanyu there.

The man was closely examining his car.

Since Zhou Guanyu used to be a driver for the Prema team, and many in the team knew he had a good relationship with Qin Miao, plus they were all drivers, there was some level of respect.

So Zhou Guanyu examining Qin Miao’s car like a spy didn’t bother anyone.

"What are you doing? Studying your competitor’s car, huh? Careful, I might just report you to the FIA!" Qin Miao walked over with a smile.

Hearing the familiar voice, Zhou Guanyu straightened up, and upon seeing it was Qin Miao, a smile crept onto his face: "Go ahead and report, I doubt there’s anything commercially valuable to hide in your standard regulation car."

"Well, I at least gotta get a couple of Disney lawyers involved." Qin Miao said as he approached.

The two friends, who hadn’t seen each other for special reasons in a long time, shared a knowing smile and then gave each other a strong hug.

After the hug, Zhou Guanyu looked at Qin Miao with a somewhat complicated expression: "How did you, in your first season as a driver, get into F2? Did Roxin’s vision suddenly go bad?"

Qin Miao waved him off lightheartedly: "Nah, I’m just naturally talented. Roxin has a keen eye and immediately saw my extraordinary potential, my future’s bound to be great."

Zhou Guanyu, however, didn’t argue with Qin Miao’s words but instead shook his head and said, "Enough with the nonsense, let’s go walk the track."

Qin Miao had no objections to this, invited Frankie, handed Qimeng an umbrella, and the team on Qin’s side was ready.

Zhou Guanyu also went to his P room to gather his team members, and the seven of them entered the track from the entrance of the Red Bull Ring paddock.

The Red Bull Ring track was one Qin Miao quite liked, because when he couldn’t afford a steering wheel while playing games, running on this track with a controller was very easy; you didn’t need to adjust the joystick much, just turn the controller to the max.

Once inside the track, the two chatted while proceeding along the racing lines.

The Red Bull Ring track is 4.318 km long. If you walk a lap while inspecting the asphalt and curbs, it probably takes more than an hour and a half to finish.

At T1, Zhou Guanyu and Qin Miao started talking.

"What gear do you usually take T1 in?" Zhou Guanyu asked curiously.

Qin Miao thought for a moment before answering: "In F1 simulator, I start braking at about 80 meters, then exit in third or fourth gear... in reality, I’ve never run it, so I’ll have to try it tomorrow to know for sure."

Zhou Guanyu nodded.

After all, Zhou Guanyu has run this track before, and realizing it’s Qin Miao’s first time, he began to share some tips he knew with him.

"Look at this." Zhou Guanyu said as he squatted on the curb at the entrance of T1, "Although this curb is bumpy, it’s very minor. In the qualifiers, try to ride the curb as much as possible; the wider entry line offers more advantage than the speed loss caused by the bump."

After hearing Zhou Guanyu’s words, Qin Miao squatted down to feel the curb himself, confirming just as Zhou said, the curb was only about 1-2 cm high.

An F2 car’s tires might lose some speed when running over it, but it’s unlikely to lose traction.

After checking this spot, the two moved to the APEX point of T1, the center of the turn.

This curb was different from the entrance as it’s a slight incline, making the curb higher, and running onto it would result in greater speed loss. The best line is to have the outer side of the tires on the white line without touching the curb.

As for the curb height after exiting the turn, it’s the same as at the entrance, but with a yellow sausage curb on its outer side.

Zhou Guanyu mentioned he usually eases off at this point, avoiding the curb, as it could cause sliding.

However, Qin Miao had a different viewpoint: "Look at the paint on this sausage curb."

Pointing at the bright yellow sausage curb, Qin Miao said, "It’s obvious that it was recently painted over; I’m guessing from the tires running over it. You could try riding the left tires over it during practice; I think running like this might gain about 0.1 seconds each lap."

Zhou Guanyu pondered while stroking his chin, then touched the freshly painted sausage curb, feeling the friction seemed alright: "You know, you might have something there. I’ll try your method in practice tomorrow."

The following stretch is straight, just full throttle all the way, so Qin Miao and Zhou Guanyu even chatted about games while walking it.

Meanwhile, a photographer, already on-site looking for good angles, spotted the young Chinese driver from team Prema and the UNI-Virtuosi Racing Team walking the track together.

Finding the scene interesting, he snapped a photo and posted it on his social media account, and the photo quickly made its way back home to China.