After multiple attacks, the soft tires finally showed their lack of durability.
The degradation was severe, and the tires began to grain heavily, causing grip to drop sharply.
Every time they went through a corner, the rear of the car would slide slightly.
Meanwhile, Julian’s white hard tires looked almost completely unworn.
His pace remained steady, his racing line precise, and he was even slightly faster than at the beginning.
“Impossible…” Dennis gritted his teeth, his mind filled with disbelief.
He was on the grippiest soft tires, while his opponent was on the worst gripping hards.
He had attacked continuously for five laps, yet he still couldn’t get past?
It was absurd!
Dennis grew more anxious with each attack, his inputs becoming increasingly aggressive.
On the final corner of lap twelve, he forced an overtake on the outside.
The tires lacked grip, the car lost control and snapped into a spin, crashing into the barriers.
Simulation ended.
Dennis slammed his fist heavily onto the steering wheel with a loud bang.
His face was pale with anger, his chest heaving violently, his eyes full of frustration and unwillingness.
He was furious that he couldn’t even pass a pay driver shoved onto the team by a sponsor, and even more furious that he lost control and crashed at the end.
Ten minutes later, the red car crossed the finish line to complete the race.
Julian climbed out of the simulator, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and showed no expression on his face.
He even yawned, as if that thrilling defensive masterclass was just a trivial matter.
He silently summoned the system panel in his mind.
[Defensive Driving: 67 (20/200)]
[Endurance Consistency: 61 (15/200)]
It really went up by a lot.
Julian nodded in satisfaction.
Sander, Paul, and the surrounding engineers exchanged glances, all seeing shock and realization in each other’s eyes.
Julian’s defense just now was both thrilling and incredibly stable.
It was absolutely textbook.
“I’m a bit hungry, I’m going to the cafeteria to get some food.” Ignoring Dennis, whose face was dark as thunder, Julian waved to Sander and Paul and obediently turned to walk out.
After the intense attack and defense battle, he had burned most of his energy.
His stomach was already starving, and that single burger earlier wasn’t even enough to fill the gap between his teeth.
Taking advantage of the fact that no one was watching him right now, he planned to go to the buffet area and eat his fill.
After Julian left, the simulator room fell completely silent.
Dennis, with a gloomy face, slammed the door and stormed out.
Paul walked over to the control console and started organizing the simulation data.
He originally just wanted to take a casual look, but the more he looked, the more something felt off.
“Wait…” Paul’s brow furrowed.
He zoomed in on the tire degradation curve.
“This data…
there’s a problem.”
Sander walked over.
“What is it?”
“Look at Julian’s tire wear.” Paul pointed at the blue curve on the screen.
According to the AI system model, after twenty laps, the tire life should be around forty percent.
But look, his tire life is still at fifty-two percent!”
Sander’s expression changed too.
He leaned in close to the screen, carefully studying the abnormally flat degradation curve.
“Could the simulator be malfunctioning?” Sander asked.
“I thought so too.” Paul nodded.
“Let me check the hardware and software first.”
He quickly operated the computer, checking the simulator’s sensors, hydraulic system, and data acquisition modules.
He even restarted the entire system.
But everything was normal, with no faults detected.
“Weird…” Paul scratched his head.
“The equipment is fine.”
He then pulled up Dennis’s tire data from earlier.
Dennis was on softs, and after twelve laps, the degradation was at seventy-eight percent, which perfectly matched the system model.
“So only Julian’s data is abnormal?” Sander asked.
“Yes.” Paul nodded.
He suddenly looked up, his eyes full of excitement.
“Sander, we need to test this again!”
The two immediately sprang into action.
Paul grabbed the data report and took long strides toward the cafeteria.
At this moment in the cafeteria, Julian was sitting in a corner.
In front of him was a plate piled high with food: a beef burger, a fried chicken leg, and a glass of cola.
He was eating with his head down, his cheeks puffed out so full he looked like a little hamster.
“Julian!” Paul’s voice echoed from far away.
Julian jumped in fright, the burger in his mouth almost spraying out.
He hastily hid the plate under the table, grabbed his cola, and took a big gulp, pretending nothing was happening.
Paul ran up to him, panting heavily.
“Julian, quick, come back to the simulator room with us.
We need your help with something.”
“Oh, okay.” Julian nodded obediently.
He swallowed the food in his mouth, wiped his lips, and followed Paul out.
Sander was already waiting for them in the simulator room.
“What’s wrong, Team Principal Sander?” Julian asked.
“Nothing major, just want you to run a few more laps to test the tire data,” Sander said with a smile, trying his best to keep his tone calm.
“Try different tire compounds.
Softs, mediums, hards, ten laps each.”
“Okay.” Julian didn’t ask any more questions.
He obediently climbed back into the simulator.
The test began.
His pace remained steady, his racing line precise.
Sander and Paul stood at the control console, their eyes unblinkingly fixed on the tire degradation data on the screen.
One lap, two laps…
ten laps.
The data came in.
Softs: Theoretical degradation sixty percent, actual degradation forty-two percent.
Mediums: Theoretical degradation fifty percent, actual degradation thirty-five percent.
Hards: Theoretical degradation forty percent, actual degradation twenty-eight percent.
Regardless of the tire compound, Julian’s tire wear was significantly lower than the calculated values, and the grip drop-off was extremely slow.
It was equivalent to using the same tires.
While others would use up their tires in ten laps, he only used the wear equivalent of less than six or seven laps.
“Switch to simulator number three and try again!” Sander said.
Julian obediently climbed into the number three simulator and ran it all over again.
The results were completely identical.
Sander and Paul looked at each other, both seeing unbelievable excitement and confusion in each other’s eyes.
“All three simulators show the same thing…” Paul’s voice trembled slightly.
“It’s impossible for it to be an equipment issue.”
“Then why?” Sander asked.
“Is our tire data model wrong?”
“Impossible!
We’ve used this model for five years.
Every driver’s data fits it.
It has never had a problem.” Paul shook his head.
As if realizing something, he suddenly slapped his thigh.
“Could it…
could it be Julian himself?”
The two men looked simultaneously at the teenager in the simulator who was currently unbuckling his harness.
Julian climbed out of the rig, shaking his arms.
They were a bit sore.
He pulled out his phone and started scrolling through short videos with his head down, completely unaware of the massive shockwave he had just caused.
Sander looked at his obedient profile, his heart hammering wildly.
He originally thought Julian was just a talented young driver.
But now it seemed he was wrong.
This obedient, seemingly harmless teenager possessed a shocking talent that could alter the entire landscape of Formula 2.
If he could achieve this level of tire preservation in the real car…
Sander didn’t dare to think further.
He only knew that MP Motorsport had truly struck gold this time.
Not far away in the training room, Dennis Hauger was frantically punching a heavy bag, blow after blow, his eyes ice cold.
Just you wait.
Going fast in a simulator means nothing.
When the real car test in Bahrain happens in mid-February, I will definitely show you what real racing is.