Chapter 167 - 88: Winter Test

Chapter 167: Chapter 88: Winter Test

After visiting Bianchi, Wu Shi returned to England. His life became solely about training—eating healthy but bland food every day and constantly drinking all sorts of strange-tasting beverages.

On December 5th, the FIA year-end awards ceremony was held in Qatar, Doha. Wu Shi, dressed in a suit like an adult, went to attend and receive his award.

The front row was filled with F1 drivers and podium finishers from other top motorsports series. He stood in the third row, his head barely visible.

After the awards ceremony, Wu Shi quickly took the Super License test organized by the FIA. He had no problem with either the stable driving portion in an F1-level car at 300 km/h or the physical fitness training.

His neck was already as thick as his head and was still getting thicker.

According to Ken Ruiz, he had basically met the standard and would only need to worry about his stamina in the latter stages of a race.

By the end of the year, the F1 driver lineup for the next year was mostly finalized.

Vettel left the Red Bull Racing Team to join Ferrari as a lead driver.

Kvyat left the Red Bull Second Team and was promoted to the Red Bull Racing Team as a lead driver.

Alonso left the Ferrari Team and went to the McLaren Team.

Bottas joined the Lotus Team, and Maldonado temporarily left F1.

Five new drivers joined: Wu Shi and Verstappen, promoted from Formula 3;

Felipe Nasr and Alexander Rossi, promoted from GP2;

and Little Sainz, promoted from the Renault Formula 3.5 Series to the Red Bull Second Team, to partner with Verstappen.

In the midst of all these driver changes between the teams, a few interesting things also happened.

For example, there was the case of Sauber Team’s driver, Guido van der Garde. The Sauber Team gave his race seat for the year to Felipe Nasr, so an irate van der Garde took the team to court—and actually won!

However, the Sauber Team still had no intention of giving him the seat back.

Besides the driver changes, one team underwent a major shake-up: Ferrari.

As soon as the 2014 season ended, a brutal internal cleansing began. Team Principal Marco Mattiacci departed, Technical Director Pat Fry departed, Chief Designer Nikolas Tombazis departed, and Head of Tire Performance Hirohide Hamashima departed.

Basically, the entire upper and middle management was cleaned out, in what could be called a major internal earthquake.

This purge had been inevitable ever since Montezemolo’s departure.

As 2015 began and pre-season testing drew nearer, all the teams had to keep a close eye on their development schedules.

For the new season, the FIA introduced new technical regulations. First, the car width was increased from 1.8 meters to 2 meters, which undoubtedly made driving more difficult and also made narrow circuits like Monaco even more boring.

The minimum weight of the car also increased from 691 kg to 702 kg, and the engine remained a 1.6-liter V6 turbo.

Williams’s car for this year was designated the FW37, and it still used the Mercedes PU106B Hybrid as its engine.

In the 2014 season, the Williams Team relied on this ahead-of-its-time engine to beat out Ferrari for third place in the Constructors’ Championship.

On February 19, 2015, the new season’s pre-season testing officially began at the Catalonia Circuit in Spain.

The testing was divided into two phases. The first phase was from the 19th to the 22nd, and the second phase was from February 26th to March 1st, each lasting four days.

Throughout the pre-season testing, the average air temperature was only 10-15 degrees Celsius, and the track surface temperature fluctuated greatly, which was very unfavorable for tire testing. There was also some rain, which, however, did allow them to complete data collection for the intermediate tires.

During the tests, Wu Shi could clearly feel the car struggling through the corners. This was a shortcoming of Williams as a privateer team: their aerodynamic R&D was very poor!

Combined with the improvements other engine manufacturers had made, the FW37’s top speed at the end of the straights was beginning to lose its advantage.

On the fastest laps, the Williams Team was about 1.5 seconds slower than Mercedes-Benz. While this data wasn’t perfectly accurate, it was enough to show that the Williams Team’s car had lost competitiveness this year.

Perhaps the only good news from winter testing was that Wu Shi and Massa combined to run over four hundred and fifty laps, ranking third overall in lap count, and they didn’t experience any reliability issues during that time.

If one had to describe it, it was a car that wasn’t very fast, but was very reliable.

"Looks like this year’s car isn’t ideal," Massa said to Wu Shi after the test.

At first, he hadn’t been keen on this kid who was a full 17 years younger than him, but after completing the entire test, he had come to respect this youngest F1 driver.

"I feel that if we can’t have it all with our setup direction, then we should focus on one area," Wu Shi said.

"Oh? Kid, what do you have in mind?" asked Rod Nelson, the Chief Engineer responsible for race and testing.

"Unleash its straight-line potential," Wu Shi said. In testing, the Williams Team’s top speed only ranked fourth, a significant gap behind Mercedes-Benz, which used the same engine.

"We need to consider the balance," said Technical Director Pat Symonds. He was directly responsible for aerodynamic design, and R&D in this area was undoubtedly difficult.

"I understand the importance of balance, but sometimes, for the sake of more speed, we should sacrifice a little bit of it and rely on the driver’s skill to compensate for the lack."

Wu Shi’s point was simple: if the car is slow, it doesn’t matter who’s driving. But balance is something a driver can manage.

Pat Symonds frowned. He was actually quite troubled by this as well.

As the advantage of the Mercedes-Benz engine in the paddock gradually shrank, the FW37 was no longer one of the top three fastest cars.

From Massa and Wu Shi’s testing, it was also clear that the FW37 was now positioned as a leader of the midfield pack, making it difficult to challenge the three powerhouses: Mercedes-Benz, Red Bull, and Ferrari.

The whole team had just secured third place for the year and was still reminiscing about the glory of last season, but the winter test results were a harsh slap in the face.

"I think Wu Shi has a good point. Trying a more aggressive setup would help us fight for better positions."

said Performance Director Rob Smedley. He was a trackside engineer who had followed Massa from Ferrari to the Williams Team, and he had always been rather aggressive in his approach.

"I think it’s a direction worth trying," said Rohan Andrew Murdoch, the chief engineer of the performance department.

Massa broke his silence. He had made his earlier remark to draw out everyone’s opinions. He said, "I also think we need to be more aggressive. I hope we can get some excellent results after we install the new parts."

A brief discussion confirmed the future R&D and setup direction for the Williams Team’s FW37.

The days passed one by one. The track test ended on March 1st, and all car testing concluded on March 10th.

On March 13th, the practice session for the Australian Grand Prix, the opening race of the 2015 season, kicked off.