First Ride

Senna went back to rest, while the Prema Racing technicians pushed their team's equipment into the maintenance area and arranged it. This location is the open space at the door of the F1 team's P room.

When Senna changed into his racing suit in the team's temporary P room and came to the maintenance area with a helmet, the team was ready. The two Prema Racing cars were already placed and replaced with brand-new tyres. Because Senna entered the track from the entrance of the maintenance area, he had to pass by many parking areas of teams on the way to his team's parking position.

After completing all the work, Sui Wentao, who was resting on the load-bearing column at the door of the P room, saw Senna coming over, and hurriedly picked up the documents he had placed on the tyre rack and handed them to Senna.

This is a vehicle inspection report. Every time before the race, the technician has to hand over this report to the driver after checking the car, and then let the driver cross-check to ensure the status of the car before the race: "Vehicle inspection report form, just confirmed, the car is fine."

 Senna nodded, came to his car and placed his hand on the nose tail of the car as before he did it on the reveal and whispered "Let's go !". After That Senna came into contact with the car, and felt his connection with the car. Senna had a clearer understanding of the status of his car at this time.

  It is indeed as Sui Wentao said, there is nothing wrong with this car. Senna simply did not check it, and directly took the document from Sui Wentao and signed it, which was regarded as an approval of Sui Wentao's pre-race preparations.

  Seeing Senna's actions, Sui Wentao was stunned, but before he could say anything, Senna took the contract walked through the track maintenance area and handed it to Renne, who was sitting on the command desk, completing the handover.

Renne encouraged Senna a few words when he took the document handed over by Senna.

He stretched his body beside the racing car, then put on the noise-cancelling headphones, a sweat-absorbing headscarf, and finally a helmet. After everything was ready, Senna sat in the cockpit. At this time, there were still more than ten minutes before the start of the F2 practice session. Senna needed to get in the car first to get a feel for it, and by the way, calm down his excitement about stepping onto the track for the first time.

  "Jason, didn't I send you a playlist before I came? I happen to have some free time before the race starts. Set it to random play mode and let me listen to it." Senna said in TR.

 Jason didn't say anything, but after a while, Senna's headphones sounded familiar melody. After everything was ready, it was almost time for the practice session to begin.

  "Radio test, can you hear it?"

  "Yeah... very clear. Jason, please turn off the music."

  "... OK." Jason turned off the music in Senna's headphones and then said: "The countdown to the start of the practice session: 3, 2, 1... Start!"

  Hearing Jason's voice, Senna started the engine of his car, and Sui Wentao quickly came to the side of the track, observed the road conditions, and signalled Senna not to drive yet, because many cars had already lined up at the exit of the maintenance area before the practice session started, and the traffic at the exit was a bit congested at this time.

  So the car was released a little late.

  Coincidentally, when Sui Wentao released the car, Zhou Guanyu was also released by his team, and he happened to be behind Senna's car.

  After Senna saw Zhou Guanyu's helmet with blue and white porcelain elements through the rearview mirror. But after He entered the track and started to accelerate, Senna didn't have any extra thoughts about messy things.

  It was as if a switch was turned on in Senna when he came out of the maintenance area. The distracting thoughts in Senna's mind were eliminated at this moment, and the whole person instantly entered a state of extreme concentration.

  At this time, Jason's voice came from the TR: "First, get familiar with the track in the first two laps. In the third lap, we will conduct a long-distance test for a total of 7 laps. After that, we will return to the maintenance area to change a set of soft tyres to test the long-distance wear of the soft tyres. In the last ten minutes of the practice session, we will return to the garage to drain the oil and use the old soft tyres to test the qualifying speed. This is our arrangement for today.

  Is there anything else you want to add?" "

  No, please help me pay attention to the traffic conditions on the track." Senna's voice was very calm at this time, even a little cold, which was completely different from the tone of Senna's usual speaking.

Senna's first three laps on the track were mainly to experiment with some things he learned when he walked the track with Jason yesterday, to see if these skills could be used in the test later under today's track conditions.

  Three laps were enough time for Senna to memorize all these things.

  At the end of the third lap, Senna started the long-distance test.

  This stage mainly tests Senna's speed over long distances when driving the F2 car with heavy oil and the performance of the tyres.

  Then in the second lap of the long-distance test, Senna got three purple sections, with a time of 1:17:001, temporarily taking the first place in the practice session. This speed is at least 0.4 seconds faster than those drivers who were doing flying laps at the beginning with soft tyres.

 On the other side, Mercedes's large Black RV, Mercerdes's team leader Toto Wolff and Team director Niki Lauda were both sitting in a place similar to a living room. However, there

were only two of them in the conference room that was usually used for meetings, and they were not discussing anything, but staring at the TV screen in the conference room together, and the F2 practice match was broadcast on TV.

 After Senna completed the seven-lap long-distance test on hard tires on the track, he refreshed his lap record set in the second lap twice. Now the fastest lap was brought to 1:16:607 by Senna, and the fastest speed of the three sections was set by Senna.

  "Okay, the test is completed, the data is very good, and the effect exceeds our expectations. Let's go back to the garage first."

  Senna returned to the maintenance area as he said.

  However, Senna did not stop but changed to a set of soft tyres and drove back to the track to test the degradation of the soft tyres on this track.

  In the command platform of the maintenance area, Rosin and Jason fell into silence as they looked at the telemetry data of Senna's seven laps.

  Because Mick drove out of the maintenance area faster than Senna, he had already changed to hard tyres and started another round of testing before Senna came back, so the two had Mick's data at this time.

  The data showed that Senna's fuel consumption was 7% less than Mick's, and tyre loss was 20% less than Mick's...

  In the next soft tyre test, Senna's speed was even faster. He broke his own lap record in the first lap. After running all seven laps, the fastest speed reached 1:15:919.

  However, Senna's lap time was broken by others. This is normal, because Senna was using this set of tyres at the rhythm of the long-distance race, and there was at least 50% fuel in his car, so it would be a miracle if he could run fast.

  The good news is that Senna completed all his long-distance tests today. Jason got Senna's tyre wear data on this track, and based on this data, he began to formulate tyre usage strategies for the sprint and race stages in the next two days.

 At the same time, Senna returned to the garage, drained some of the fuel in his car, and only left enough fuel for Senna to run five laps, and then let out to do flying laps.

 Senna didn't run for long. Due to traffic and time constraints, he only ran two flying laps before the end of the practice session. He ran 1:14:295 on the first flying lap. He

was blocked by a slow car in the latter flying lap. Senna knew that he was blocked and lost at least 0.2 seconds. He had already pushed himself to the limit and knew that after losing 0.2 seconds, he would not be able to refresh his own fastest lap, so Senna gave up and slowly drove the car back to the maintenance area. After pitting Jason informed him the car that slowed him belonged to Russian Driver Nikita Mazepin.

The first practice session of F2 in the 2020 season ended after Senna returned to the maintenance area. Senna ranked first with a speed of 1:14:295.

  Yuki Tsunoda ranked second, 0.91 seconds slower than Senna.

  Zhou Guanyu ranked third, a full second slower than Senna.

  As for Senna's teammate Mick... He ranked 19th, and his lap time was 2.5 seconds slower than him...

  But this was just a practice race, and the lap time can be seen for fun, but it basically has no reference value.

  After the first practice, the drivers and staff of each F2 team also packed up their things and evacuated from the maintenance area.

  Next is the first practice of F1. They can't block the door of the F1 team's P room and affect the highlight of this Grand Prix.

  Senna and his crew members didn't have time to watch the F1 race. After packing up their things and hurriedly returning to their team's P room, the two crews of the Prema team gathered together for a meeting.

  Rosin didn't say that Mick's car was slow or anything, but just explained to the crew members the precautions for the subsequent qualifying race and cheered them up.

  After a brief rope-twisting meeting, Senna and his crew members returned to their P room and began to check the car.

  Naturally, no problems were found in this inspection. Although Senna drove fast, his driving style was gentle and did not hurt the car for today as his first time driving his car on the track. The wear and tear of the car caused by a practice race was very small.

  During the F1 practice session, Senna took a break, replenished some water, and took some time to listen to some songs. Time soon came to the F2 qualifying. It

as still the same process. He pushed the car, pulled the tyre and took the tyre changing equipment to the door of the P room in the maintenance area to prepare.

After the intense preparation time, the time for the qualifying session was approaching.

 At the same time, Sky Sports, which is quite famous among the F1 fan group, also started the live broadcast in advance today, contrary to its usual practice.

  However, unlike in the past, they did not show the opening promotional video of F1, but F2. After the Formula 1 Theme, which is unique to F2, was played, three hosts from Five Star Sports appeared on the TV screen.

  After the on-site director signalled that the live broadcast had begun, the host Alex Jacques began to greet the audience in front of the TV: "Good morning, audience friends, welcome to watch the first stop of the 2020 Formula One Grand Prix, the Austrian Grand Prix warm-up race: the live broadcast of the Formula 2 qualifying race brought to you by Sky Sports. I am Alex Jacques."

 "I am Alex Brundle."

 "I am Harry Benjamin."

"Today is the first round of F2 of the F2 2020 championship, I am here joined by Alex Brundle and Harry Benjamin to talk about it. Tell me Alex who are optimistic about ?" Jacques asked Brundle who is looking at him.

"I am confident about the Home hero Senna surprising us today" Brundle spoke with a confident tone and saw Benjamin frowning as he realised what he was going to say. Brundle added, " I know he is a rookie, But if he is able to perform or showcase the same talent in his junior formula series, there is a high chance for a podium !".

Jacques added " Senna Williams Lauda grandson of the legendary driver Niki Lauda, is pretty famous in Junior racing as he conquered championships in almost all the levels he participated. Born in 2004, Senna is 16 years gonna turn 17, and is the youngest driver on the grid having a high expectation of him. He is the highly watched rookie and people believe that he is the second coming of Max Verstappen. It is also rumoured that almost all the Teams in F1 are eyeing this talented driver and his Fp 1 and Fp2 results show his talent. He might beat Max's record of the Youngest driver to enter the F1 grid if he performs the same throughout the season."

The first shot was the exit of the maintenance area of ​​the Red Bull Ring. At a glance, at least more than a dozen cars were squeezed at the exit, just to have a relatively good space to do lap times in the next qualifying process.

As the green light at the exit of the maintenance area came on, cars gradually drove out of the maintenance area.

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