"For the HRT Racing Car to achieve this top speed without extreme lightweight fuel, either their team chose a setup extremely biased towards qualifying, or the hidden performance of the Toyota power unit far surpasses all major engine suppliers."

"I think the latter is unlikely; otherwise, Ferrari would probably leak the information, as they wouldn't want to nurture a threat."

"That leaves only the former."

Newey provided his own speculation.

Among F1's major engine suppliers, there are indeed performance differences, but the gap is usually not significant.

The absolute performance difference is at most 5 to 10 km/h.

Of course, occasionally unexpected situations arise, such as certain periods of the Kovost engine and Honda power units, which led to Alonso's famous "GP2 engine" complaint.

McLaren's results from the previous two rounds proved that the Mercedes engine is not weak, and there is at least no possibility of being overtaken by the Toyota engine!

"It's too late to change the settings now."

Horner shook his head in response.

At this point, it's already in Free Practice 3. All teams have completed car setups; the primary focus of testing is on long-distance runs and tires. Asking drivers to adapt to a low-downforce setup would backfire.

Just like Trulli right now, he's driving with a lot of struggle, still trying to adapt.

"Then go for overpower."

Horner calmly replied.

After the "Crashgate," Renault was internally chaotic and produced poorly, yet the Renault RS27 engine had excellent performance and stability. Throughout the year, it almost never experienced any blown engines or stability issues.

This era of F1 did not have the stringent rule allowing only four power units per year as in later years. Teams pursued extreme performance and stability, usually activating a new engine every two races.

This means that even if they go for overpower, there's no need to worry about engine lifespan; at worst, they can switch to a new power unit in the next race.

Especially for giants like Red Bull, being wealthy allows for recklessness!

In fact, Red Bull is not the only one indulging in recklessness, feeling the pressure from HRT Racing Car's absolute performance.

The management of teams like McLaren, Ferrari, and even Renault decided to activate the engine overpower mode, to at least not lose to Chen Xiangbei in performance and top speed.

At the same time, to test the compatibility of the setup, utilizing the remaining time in Free Practice 3, various teams unanimously called their drivers to pit, changed to soft red tires, and pushed for a lap of extreme speed to get a psychological advantage.

Observing the unusual concentration of pit entries, Liang Chi, standing outside in the pit box, sensed something amiss.

He then walked into the paddock to inform Sawano Hiroyuki: "Several teams directly brought their cars into the garage for setup adjustments. What are they trying to do?"

Upon hearing Liang Chi's words, Sawano Hiroyuki stepped out, coincidentally seeing Hamilton of the McLaren Team enter the pit.

But instead of stopping at the outdoor repair stall for a routine tire change, the team of technicians pushed the car into the garage, and an engineer holding a laptop connected it to the car's control system.

Seeing this scene, Sawano Hiroyuki instantly guessed what the other party intended to do.

The engineer was modifying the engine output mode; they wanted to run qualifying on overpower!

Realizing this, Sawano Hiroyuki immediately returned to the paddock and reported to Odetto: "Team leader, it seems the top speed exposed by Xiangbei has exerted significant pressure on our opponents on the field. Red Bull and McLaren plan to run qualifying on overpower."

"If they go for overpower, then we can as well."

Before Odetto could reply, Briatore interjected.

"We might not be able to."

Test engineer Mazzola shook his head.

He's also here at East Sea for this round to collect the data from the Toyota engine, adjusted by the Ferrari technical team.

Ferrari managed to address the stability issues of the Toyota engine through adjustments, but couldn't completely resolve them.

The reason is simple; after all, this engine is made by Toyota, and many things are fixed. To eradicate problems, you'd have to start from scratch.

Undoubtedly, HRT Team doesn't have the time or capability to create a completely new engine.

Let alone manufacturing one, they can barely even adjust it.

Being able to achieve the original paper data output is already considered a significant success.

Pushing for overpower to squeeze engine performance, afraid it won't blow up fast enough?

Briatore is not concerned about engine blowouts causing safety issues for drivers, but he is worried about its impact on team results.

Keep in mind, he's waiting for Chen Xiangbei to produce remarkable results to reach out to China's truly top-tier giant sponsors for money, and if the engine blows and they retire, it would be a futile effort!

Mazzola's words made Briatore realize the issue at hand, prompting him to remain silent and not respond further.

Observing everything, Odetto calmly said: "Let's first observe the effects of other teams running on overpower. They certainly have to run a test lap."

"Hmm, that's all we can do for now."

Sawano Hiroyuki nodded, turning his gaze to the broadcast screen.

The engineers of the top teams and manufacturer teams are highly professional. In just a few minutes, they completed the car engine power settings, and when the four major teams came out again, they were already fitted with softer red tires with better grip.

Just as Odetto expected, they needed to run a test lap to verify the effects. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

In comparison to the aggressive approach of the major teams, mid-lower-tier teams like Sauber, Red Bull's second team, and Virgin, found no necessity for pointless competition, seeing that Free Practice 3 was nearing its end, they returned to the pits to watch the show.