How Did I Become an F1 Driver?-Chapter 887 - 352: Agonizing Porpoising

For the entire morning, Qin Miao devoted himself completely to discovering and improving the issues with the race car.

It was pretty much running some ten to twenty laps, then coming back to adjust the car's setup, discussing the issues he found with the team's technicians and designers, and making a record. After the car adjustments were complete, Qin Miao would return to the car and hit the track again.

After the morning practice concluded, Qin Miao's work for the day came to an end. In the afternoon, it was time for Hamilton's testing.

During this time, Qin Miao took Hamilton's spot, observing Hamilton's driving data from his position.

It's worth mentioning that once Hamilton got Qin Miao's data, he immediately ran several flying laps.

The fastest of those flying laps was nearly 1 second quicker than Qin Miao's fastest lap from the morning session.

Qin Miao didn't feel much about it, just a little concerned about whether running flying laps at this moment was too risky for Hamilton. Meanwhile, Toto gave Qin Miao a meaningful glance.

However, upon seeing Qin Miao's calm expression, he raised his eyebrows, then shifted his focus back to work as if nothing had happened.

...

The next day, Qin Miao began attempting to speed up. Notably, because Qin Miao started to speed up, he discovered a major problem.

That is, the car tended to bounce while traveling at high speeds.

In the broadcast camera, this bouncing might not seem intense, just an up-and-down shake at high speed.

But for Qin Miao, as a driver, after each bounce, his entire back would collide with the seat cushion of the car.

Yes, it was a collision.

Because the human body is soft and has a certain compression, during the bounce, the car would first thrust upward sharply, causing the body to naturally fly upward under the counterforce of the suspension, then be pulled back into the seat by the safety belt while the car's suspension compressed again, creating an extra gap between the body and the carbon fiber backrest before being pulled back again.

Once or twice might not feel like much, but after multiple occurrences, it's truly uncomfortable.

However, the bouncing while traveling at high speed was always there, and even with Qin Miao's strong physicality, after many collisions, his back started to feel sore.

The only consolation for Qin Miao was that upon returning to the pit area, he found that almost every team had this problem, the difference being the frequency and severity of the dolphin jump.

Back in the team, Qin Miao naturally gave the team feedback about this issue right away.

The team also took it very seriously, since this dolphin jump not only attacked the drivers but also severely limited the performance of the Mercedes engine, preventing speeding in high-speed stages.

It might even affect the car's consistency.

The team immediately made adjustments, even sending Hamilton, who was frowning and thinking hard about the cause of this phenomenon, to the team's base, putting on his racing suit and getting into the car to help find the cause and solution to this issue.

Then, the team tested two solutions simultaneously. One was to increase the stiffness of the car's suspension, and the other was to install pre-prepared strengthening ribs on both sides of the car's floor.

Qin Miao and Hamilton tested them separately.

So rarely, during the testing phase, a scene like a practice race with two Mercedes cars speeding appeared on the track.

On the track, Qin Miao felt that the sensation from the road was overly strong after the car adjustment.

In the first place, the suspension was harder than last season because of a new suspension, and after the adjustment, it was really like Master Huang from Goose City—tall and hard.

But you have to admit, a harder suspension did alleviate the bouncing of the W13 at high speed, but Qin Miao found that the car's acceleration was slower than before the adjustment.

The only benefit was that previously the car would experience dolphin jumping at around 305 km/h without DRS, but now it happens at around 315 km/h.

However, the acceleration was slower than before the adjustment.

For an F1 car, this is like picking up sesame seeds and losing watermelon.

Besides this, there's another big problem. Due to the increased suspension stiffness, the time of dolphin jumping is indeed delayed for Qin Miao's car, but the magnitude and intensity of the dolphin jump have increased.

In short, this is not a good message.

On the other side, Hamilton's setup also alleviated the time of dolphin jumping, but it was only treating the symptoms, not the root cause. The appearance of the two rod structures even caused a slight increase in air resistance, and issues of weight and balance emerged, leading to inconsistencies in entry and exit of turns, with two different cornering characteristics appearing within two laps of the same corner, emphasizing a completely random nature.

In short, by the start of the second day of testing, Mercedes encountered a big problem.

However, despite this issue being particularly tricky right now, neither the high ranks of Mercedes, nor Toto Wolff, changed their belief in the current car structure because of this small setback, continuing to think that the situation can be solved gradually through upcoming upgrades.