In April 2024, the hottest event in Shanghai will be F1.
Events closely related to F1 took place in bustling business districts all over Shanghai, including the Qatar Airways flash mob at Sun Palace, the Tumi McLaren Experience Center at Kerry Center, the Aston Martin F1 roadshow at Taikoo Hui Cha Mansion, the TAG Heuer Red Bull joint exhibition at IFC Center, and the joint venture between Puma and F1 at Huaihai Road. Even a complete outsider to racing can take this opportunity to see at a glance the commercial value of the world's top sports events.
The excitement was to celebrate the return of F1 to Shanghai after five years and to show support for local driver Zhou Guanyu. Coupled with the spread effect of social networks, the originally niche F1 has become a popular trend.
But for an F1 fan, there are still some regrets.
It was said that Zhou Guanyu's posters were hung all over the subway stations, but I had only seen the poster once at a bus stop, and it was just an ordinary poster that I wouldn't stop to look at twice. Later, when I was chatting casually with a friend, I learned that the helmet Zhou Guanyu wore in the Shanghai station was painted with the Shanghai Metro. It was a pity that such an important thing was glossed over like this.
In addition, the long-prepared documentary about Zhou Guanyu, "Chinese Driver Zhou Guanyu", also hits theaters during the race week. Imagined that this should be a good thing to increase the popularity of F1 and Zhou Guanyu, but judging from the screening time, it was ruthlessly classified as a niche movie, with only two screenings a day, either at 6 pm or 10 pm. People have to choose between dinner and sleep. What should they do?
Moreover, the day after the race, I suddenly had an impulse and ran to the newspaper rack at the entrance of the supermarket on the first floor of my office. The front page of Oriental Sports Daily was a special issue on the Shanghai Half Marathon that had just ended, and F1 was relegated to the 12th page of the entire newspaper. Fortunately, both Liberation Daily and Xinwen Morning Post gave F1 enough space, leaving one-third of the front page space.
So what kind of sport is F1? Among the eight billion people in the world, only twenty people on the field can handle the speed. Without some talent, it is impossible to become one of them. Among them, some have overwhelming talent, some have mediocre talent, and some have only talent that can hardly be called talent.
Verstappen is a well-deserved genius, winning almost every race without suspense. About three years ago, F1 entered his era. Most of the time, he sat comfortably in the driver's seat, running lap after lap somewhat lonely until the finish line. As for what happened behind him, it had nothing to do with him.
And Zhou Guanyu's idol Alonso is currently the only 40-year-old racing driver in the paddock. Despite this, his movements and mentality are almost the same as when he defeated Schumacher at the age of 24. Strangely enough, few of his friends regard Alonso as their idol. On the contrary, as time goes by, their attitude towards him has unexpectedly changed a little. Alonso is neither a racing king nor a created god, but he has become the person who has stayed on the track the longest. To be honest, who wouldn't envy this divorced single man who can still race with young people on the track at the age of 40, and if he is lucky, he can often stand on the podium and taste the champagne.
When it comes to luck, it should not be underestimated just like strength, especially in this cruel sports competition, drivers who are favored always have a better chance of winning. For example, when playing at home, some people have an intuition that I don’t have. Mazepin predicted the rain in the 2021 Sochi station, changed to the correct tires before everyone else, and finally finished the race decently. As a result, the Russians who were implicated in the war were forced to withdraw from F1 the following year, ending the job arranged by their father.
When it comes to bad luck, no one is more unlucky than Ricciardo. Since he took the initiative to part ways with Renault in 2019 and joined McLaren, he has been cursed, with one bad thing after another, the only exception being Imola in Italy, where he won the championship. For a moment, everyone thought that the old Ricciardo was really coming back.
Unexpectedly, he lost his seat at McLaren the following year and was replaced by a talented driver from his hometown. After a year of rest, Red Bull offered Ricciardo an olive branch, but not long after his return, he broke his hand at the Dutch Grand Prix.
After the start of the new season, Ricciardo, whose performance has always been below expectations, was given an ultimatum by Marko: If you don't drive well in the next race, I will replace you with a newcomer.
The next race was actually in Shanghai. Ricciardo had a chance, but in the end he was rear-ended by Stroll behind him for no apparent reason and was eliminated. The Australian, who always smiles, became depressed. His career as a racing driver seemed to be covered by a layer of cloth, and where he would go next was a mystery. However, he was also a genius who was highly expected ten years ago.
Watching F1 in person is very different from watching it on TV. Especially compared to the previous grass ticket, when I could only see one corner, the view from the main stand is much wider. But if you ask me how fast the F1 is, I don't know. Of course, it is fleeting compared to the speed of other things. I can only understand that it is undoubtedly approaching the limit of the body and the car from the exhaustion of the driver's breath after taking off the helmet and the fatigue after concentrating. However, I have no sense of reality. All we have is a vague impression of "a group of geniuses looking for that 0.01 second on the edge of the limit".
Zhou Guanyu is not the fastest driver on the field. In a sport where the quality of the car accounts for 70%, his car cannot help him win the championship. Even finishing the race requires more luck than expected. Presumably, a considerable number of people who support Zhou Guanyu went to watch the race with trepidation. Considering various factors, F1 gave Zhou Guanyu a green light. As long as he can finish the race smoothly, he can stop on the starting grid like the top three and enjoy the cheers of the fans.
After the last lap, Zhou Guanyu jumped out of the car, took off his helmet and headgear, and raised his arms with his remaining strength to enjoy the cheers from the stands. He was extremely happy. According to relevant statistics, more than 200,000 people came to watch the three-day F1 race. The sound of 200,000 people was like a tsunami, which made F1 reporter Will Buxton unable to stand. He said he had never heard such a sound before.
But what are these 200,000 people cheering for? Is it really for one person? Perhaps we are shouting so hard because we project our fighting spirit onto these players. After all, since Zhou Guanyu entered F1, there have been constant attacks that he was made with money.
After walking a few steps out of the cockpit, Zhou Guanyu squatted down and covered his face with his hands. A later camera captured his slightly red eyes after he stood up, and we knew that he had cried. The racers in the paddock and their fathers are by no means ordinary people. You can even say that F1 is a game for the rich. Even if you lose your position as a racer, you can still go home and inherit the family business. But for every young person in it, the burden he needs to bear in order to prove himself is ultimately only related to him personally, and has nothing to do with how much money he makes. At that moment, I really felt this.
This moment was later forwarded countless times. The day after the race, Zhou Guanyu posted this photo on his social media account and wrote: A DAY TO REMEMBER FOREVER. In the past ten years, he said that he only cried twice. The first time was when he knew he had finally become an F1 driver, and the second time was on April 21.
On the day after the qualifying race, I still went to watch "Chinese Driver Zhou Guanyu". As expected, there were only me and a boy and a girl in the theater at 10 pm. The movie itself was unremarkable, but there was an insignificant detail in it that brought back some memories for me.
Before Zhou Guanyu became an F1 driver, his mother always accompanied him to races in Europe. She said that there were no fixed seats for spectators in European karting races, so if you wanted to watch the race, you could just sit down and watch wherever you liked on the dirt slope. She always sat down on the next slope after watching the fierce battle at Turn 1 to watch the rest of the race.
I remembered the experience of buying the cheapest grass ticket to watch F1 during my vacation when I was studying in the UK. Grass tickets in Europe are not limited to regions, but are based on first come first served. Our viewing equipment is just two things: a bath towel that can be spread on the grass slope, and a plastic telescope bought at the Transport Museum near Covent Garden in London. This is enough to spend a comfortable weekend.
Later, I lost touch with the people who had watched the races with me at Silverstone in England and the Hungaroring in Hungary on the dirt slopes. Somehow I remembered this at that time, A DAY TO REMEMBER FOREVER, right?
It was a time that I recall countless times and feel it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that I miss so much.
