Chapter 141 - 65: Is Wu Shi Behind Me?

Chapter 141: Chapter 65: Is Wu Shi Behind Me?

"Wu, is your ringtone a song from Hua Country?" a mechanic asked him right after he hung up the phone with Louise.

"Yeah, does it sound catchy?" Wu Shi knew this mechanic. The guy was a music fanatic who listened to all genres; it mostly depended on his mood at the time.

"Can you recommend it to me?"

"Of course."

Once Verstappen completed his overtake on O’connor, the rest of the race became rather lackluster.

At 11:40 AM, the race concluded. The long-absent sound of the "DU-DU-DU-DU" song echoed across the track. Verstappen stood on the podium, smiling shyly with pursed lips, swaying his body from side to side. As soon as the national anthem ended, he picked up the champagne and sprayed it directly at Wu Shi, who was standing off the stage.

"Fuck!" Caught completely off guard, Wu Shi got blasted with a face full of foam.

"HAHAHA!" Verstappen burst into roaring laughter before turning to symbolically spray O’connor and Lucas beside him.

During the 4:00 PM qualifying session, everyone’s performance wasn’t as good as yesterday’s. Wu Shi was the first to set a lap time of 48.081 and was originally planning to push for a few more solid times. As it turned out, no one else managed to break into the 48.1-second mark. However, due to a grid penalty, he would still have to drop ten places in the main race, even though he was the fastest in qualifying. This penalty was quite severe, effectively ruining three races.

After qualifying ended, Verstappen walked over with a cheerful grin. One look at him, and it was obvious what he was thinking.

"Maybe you should climb up from tenth place again, and then we can continue our showdown," Verstappen said. This guy had an incredibly strong competitive spirit. He would fight tooth and nail just playing Mario Kart with his sister. After losing, he actually went straight out to buy a Switch, declaring that he would practice for a while and then challenge everyone to a fight to the death. Clearly, this was the mindset of a true competitor. As long as it involved the realm of racing, no matter what it took, he wanted to win.

"Then let’s settle it on the track," Wu Shi said casually. Since the overtaking conditions on this circuit were extremely poor, he didn’t think he could flawlessly break free from the midfield pack.

"Alright! I definitely won’t let you disrupt my rhythm this time!" Verstappen’s eyes sparkled brightly, eager to continue the challenge.

The next day, however, a light, pattering rain fell. Although it eventually stopped, it wasn’t until 11:00 AM that a dry racing line finally emerged on the track. Faced with this situation, the team principal decided to have everyone use slick tires. During the formation lap, the track surface was noticeably more slippery. Weaving to warm up the tires as usual caused the rear wheels to lose a significant amount of grip, making it look less like tire warming and more like an attempted drift.

Five red lights lit up and went out. Twenty-six race cars roared in unison.

0.164 seconds!

Wu Shi’s reaction time was decent. Once the car got moving, he immediately began accelerating and upshifting. Spotting the dry patch in the center of the track, he abandoned any defensive maneuvers and drove straight onto it. As expected, the dry grip in the middle of the track far exceeded that on the sides. This allowed him to increase the torque distributed to the tires much faster, gaining stronger acceleration.

SWISH! SWISH!

He instantly bypassed two cars. Unfortunately, someone ahead had the exact same idea and had already occupied the dry middle line. Approaching the corner, everyone braked incredibly early. Wu Shi noticed this. He knew that it was because the others couldn’t get a good feel for their tire grip or the slickness of the track. But he had a perfect read on it!

SCREECH!

Executing an extreme late-braking maneuver, he swung onto the outside line, no longer bothering to fight for the inside with this group of slow cars.

"Wu has gone to the outside! Is he trying to overtake here? The only dry area in Turn Two is on the inside!"

"His car is slipping! No, wait, there’s a slight slide, but the front wheel grip is incredibly stable! How is he doing that?!"

The commentators roared, as if they had just witnessed something utterly unbelievable.

Meanwhile, Wu Shi adjusted the throttle and brakes with his left and right feet at thousandth-level precision. The feedback from the tires was instinctively analyzed and judged by his brain before being rapidly transmitted to his limbs.

SCREECH!

Even though he was pressing down on the much more slippery outside line, Wu Shi was somehow able to keep the car perfectly stable. Compared to the cluster of cars bottlenecked on the inside, it was as if he were cruising in the emergency lane. By taking a wide, unobstructed arc, he vaulted straight into fifth place.

Seeing this, a car behind him assumed the outside track had dried up and immediately followed his lead.

SPLASH! SCREECH!

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!

After a single corner, the pack of cars stretched out into a long line. However, yellow flags began waving across the track again, and the safety car was already waiting at the pit exit.

Alan TR: "Goddard and Guimaraes have collided. The safety car is expected to lead for three laps."

Wu Shi TR: "Copy."

Returning to Turn Two on the second lap, he happened to see a Mercedes-Benz GLC towing a wrecked blue race car off the track. By the third lap, the track surface had dried up considerably more. On the fourth lap, the safety car pulled away. Rounding Turn Eight, Verstappen acted swiftly, pushing straight to top speed. As he surged past the starting grid, the race resumed!

Now in fifth place, Wu Shi had a clear view of the situation ahead. Right in front of him was Lucas Oil. The German’s car seemed exceptionally well-suited to this circuit, maintaining an intensely strong competitive edge. Wu Shi knew that overtaking him wouldn’t be easy. He had no choice but to continuously close the gap and wait until Turn Two to make his move. However, in a one-on-one duel, everyone knew to seize the dry inside line. The slippery outside line held no value for a "fast in, slow out" maneuver.

This stalemate continued until the eleventh lap. As the track dried further, Wu Shi could clearly feel his speed increasing. Meanwhile, Lucas ahead—perhaps unsure of the grip—didn’t dare to speed up. Therefore, right after entering Turn Eight, Wu Shi tucked his car closely behind Lucas’s, utilizing the slipstream to continuously build up his speed.

By the time they reached Turn One, he didn’t hesitate to pull out to the right. Lucas naturally adjusted his racing line to defend. Otherwise, on this Great Straight, Wu Shi would completely overtake him! He clearly hadn’t carefully studied Wu Shi’s past races. This guy loved to fake out his opponents before launching a real attack.

Lucas blocked Wu Shi, but just before entering Turn Two, Wu Shi jinked back to the inside. His car’s wheels pressed exactly on the transitional edge between the dry and wet sections of the track. Any further inside lay the white line and completely slick tarmac. Spotting this through his rearview mirror, Lucas stopped worrying about track limits and once again swerved inside to block.

SPLASH!

The moment Car No. 3 drove into the same zone as Wu Shi, its left wheels immediately experienced massive slippage.

Lucas’s Engineer TR: "Adjust differential to 8!"

However, that call was clearly too late. With the left wheels suffering from far weaker grip, the differential caused the power to pour entirely out from one side.

SPLASH AND SCREECH!

Lucas’s car fishtailed wildly. He struggled desperately to wrestle control of the steering, entirely unable to pay any attention to Wu Shi.

WHOOSH!

Overtake complete. Wu Shi moved up to fourth place.

The speed of Jack Dennis up ahead wasn’t much faster either. Just when he thought it would take a few more laps to deal with the British driver, a light drizzle began to fall from the sky.

Alan TR: "It’s raining. Drive safe."

Wu Shi TR: "I know. Check how far behind Max I am."

Alan TR: "Five seconds."

Wu Shi TR: "Copy. He slipped."

WHOOSH WHOOSH!

As Wu Shi spoke, he seized his opponent’s mistake and completed the overtake right in the corner. At this point, only Jordan King and Verstappen remained ahead of him.

Unfavorably, however, the rain grew heavier. Before they could even finish two laps, an accident occurred. The deployment of yellow flags interrupted Wu Shi’s offensive. This was undoubtedly a setback, but thanks to the yellow flags, all the drivers began to close the gaps between them.

Wu Shi TR: "He’s too slow. He’s blocking me."

Alan TR: "Caution, yellow flags. No overtaking allowed."

Wu Shi TR: "I know, I’m just complaining. He’s occupying the latrine without taking a shit."

Since the latter half of the sentence was spoken in Chinese, Alan didn’t understand it and didn’t reply.

By the nineteenth lap, the yellow flags were directly replaced by red flags. After the safety car led for a lap, the race control notified everyone to switch to wet tires. Consequently, all the race cars returned to the starting grid under the guidance of the safety car. Once they were parked, the team mechanics rushed out, pushing tire racks.

Wu Shi parked in the grid spot right behind Verstappen. The guy caught sight of the familiar livery in his rearview mirror.

Verstappen TR: "Is that Wu Shi behind me?"

Engineer TR: "YES!"