Currently, the lap time gap between Trulli and Chen Xiangbei is up to one second.

Moreover, this is just practice session results, and the qualifying could show a stark difference.

The reason is Chen Xiangbei is likely able to drive even faster, while Trulli might go beyond his limits and lose control!

Trulli hasn’t felt this kind of pressure from a teammate for a long time, even more surprising that the opponent is a rookie.

The pride of a veteran makes him not want to lose too embarrassingly, at least keep the final result within 0.5 seconds.

At some point, Trulli’s goal was not to beat Chen Xiangbei, but to not lose too badly, which is somewhat regretful...

One night passed, and it’s now Saturday’s third practice session.

This practice session’s main project is race simulation; the two drivers will test different tire compounds with heavy fuel loads, collecting tire wear, cooling, and stability data under race conditions.

Considering Trulli’s progress and pressure in adapting to the new car setup, Odetto let Chen Xiangbei take on more testing tasks, giving Trulli more time to adapt.

This is why Briatore insisted on defining the statuses of the first and second drivers.

When there’s no conflict of interest, it actually reduces internal friction, allowing them to cooperate and even benefit the second driver.

Otherwise, according to the previous team internal struggle situation, data not being shared would force them to repeat tasks, wasting time and resources.

The crowd in the paddock increased from around 150,000 yesterday to nearly a full-house of 200,000; besides the densely packed crowd, there were various China red flags waving.

Everything is ready; after the safety car track inspection ends, the teams start their cars one by one from the pit lane according to track traffic conditions, avoiding any incidents before the qualifying begins.

To an F1 team, as long as there’s a spare part available, even if an F1 car crashes to scraps, it can be successfully repaired after an overnight effort.

But with just half a day on Saturday, fixing the car before qualifying becomes significantly harder, meaning there’s no room for error.

Trulli was the first to start this time, while Chen Xiangbei filled up fuel and changed to medium tires for long-distance testing.

Due to the intense heavy braking at the East Sea Grand Prix, tire wear is very high, typically using a two-stop strategy with yellow-white-white or a one-stop strategy with yellow-white tires.

Unless qualifying positions are behind or betting on a safety car appearance, the soft red tires are used to start.

The green light in the pit lane lit up, Chen Xiangbei floored the throttle, and the TF110 car quickly rushed out of the pit and entered the pit lane.

Accompanied by the black-orange colored No. 13 car exiting the pit, thunderous cheers erupted from the crowd, and the Chinese audience was very excited, looking forward to witnessing Chen Xiangbei’s miraculous performance on the track!

There weren’t many waves during the heavy fuel load long-distance test; the focus was mainly on tire wear and cooling issues.

The medium tire paired with the hardest suspension caused the TF110 car to have almost no damping effect on the rough roads; in some rough patches with height differences, Chen Xiangbei even felt the "porpoising" shake of the future.

Luckily, being young with a good back, if it were the future Hamilton’s old back, they’d probably have to notify the team to soften the springs and suspension height.

Just as Chen Xiangbei was driving leisurely, a sudden reminder came through the headset from Odetto.

"North, watch out for the Mercedes car behind."

What?

Upon hearing Odetto’s voice, Chen Xiangbei instinctively glanced at the rear-view mirror.

He found a silver Mercedes behind him, rushing towards him like a torpedo.