How did I become an F1 driver?

Chapter 164 Chapter 162: Safety Car
After Qin Miao parked the car, Reyes and the others, who had been waiting at Qin Miao's grid for a long time, jacked up Qin Miao's car with two jacks.

At the same time, the old soft tires on Qin Miao's car were removed, replaced with the set of soft tires that Qin Miao ran the fastest lap in Q2, and wrapped with a thermal blanket.

The tactic Qin Miao chose today is red-white one-stop. In fact, the Sakhir track is not friendly to tires, and it is one of the tracks with the highest tire wear throughout the year.

However, whether it is the winter test or the three practice sessions of the Bahrain Grand Prix, Qin Miao's tire consumption data is amazingly good, and the data will not lie, so Mercedes' strategists have prepared a set of such tires for Qin Miao. tactics.

At the same time, Qin Miao brought enough fuel for 60 laps according to his own usage habits.

At this time, someone will ask, the race only has 57 laps, won’t the fuel you bring for these 3 extra laps cause too much damage to the speed and tires?

However, Qin Miao's fuel consumption rate is calculated according to Qin Miao's consumption while driving. If the fuel in Qin Miao's racing car is replaced with Hamilton's, then Qin Miao's tank of fuel is only enough for Hamilton to run 52 laps.

After all, the 8% reduction in fuel consumption is here, and the data will not be joking with you, as much as there is.

It can be said that Qin Miao's car is currently the lightest car among the 20 cars ready to start.

In addition, the tire formula for this race is the familiar C2C3C4.

After checking some settings on his steering wheel, Qin Miao got out of the car.

After all, there is still about half an hour before the start of the race. Although it took more than an hour to lie down in the car during the race, the car was always in motion at that time, and the lateral G force was often greater than gravity. The body is also often thrown back and forth by the G force in the monocoque, basically there will be no discomfort that will occur when the body does not move for a long time, but it is different when waiting on the grid.

After staying in this state for a long time, the buttocks will really feel numb.

After getting off the car, Barber handed Qin Miao a bottle of water, and in order not to disturb the work of the technicians, Qin Miao ran to the side of the track with a water glass and waited.

It is worth mentioning that although the current epidemic situation is not optimistic, many spectators entered the paddock during the main race of the Bahrain Grand Prix.

When Qin Miao was leaning against the guardrail of the track and waiting for his vehicle to be ready, many spectators holding national flags waved Qin Miao's big head cards and national flags in their hands, and greeted Qin Miao.

Qin Miao naturally saw them too, but at this time Qin Miao needed to prepare for the competition, and didn't have any extra thoughts to interact with his fans. While shaking his legs, he waved to them, which was regarded as a greeting up.

Ten minutes later, Reyes, the team's chief mechanic, gave Qin Miao a thumbs-up, saying that all the preparations and review of the car had been completed, and he could enter the car and wait for the start of the race.

Qin Miao also stopped shaking her legs, stood up and stretched her limbs, took a sip of health care potion from Barber's thermos, and then came to her racing car.

It was still the same familiar process. After putting on the equipment, Qin Miao entered the racing car.

"Radio test..."

"Radio test... the sound is very clear." Qin Miao replied, and then said, "Frankie?"

"I'm here, what's wrong?"

"Come and listen to a song."

There was a pause on the other side of the radio, and it took about 2 minutes for Frankie's voice to come over: "Okay, no problem, is it still the playlist you listened to in F2?"

"right……"

Soon, Jay Chou's singing sounded again. Qin Miao slightly pulled down her goggles, lowered her eyes, rested her hands on her chest, and quietly listened to the singing from her earphones.

About 7 minutes later, the singing in Qin Miao's TR stopped, and a voice came from the earphones: "The race is about to start, and the team technicians are preparing to withdraw."

These words were heard in the team's public TR, so apart from Qin Miao, his crew members and Hamilton's crew members also heard it.

After receiving the instructions, the technicians untied the insulation blankets on Qin Miao's four tires, and at the same time put Qin Miao's racing car down, and quickly came to both sides of the track.

As the time of the Rolex at the top of the track came to the hour, Verstappen, who was in the front row, drove out of his seat first, and Qin Miao also pressed the clutch after seeing Verstappen going out. button to drive the car out of its own position.

It is normal to run a tire warm-up lap for 2 minutes in F5, but the speed of F1 is too fast. Stapan completed the warm-up lap and parked the car in his own grid, with only about two and a half minutes in between.

What is worth mentioning during the tire warm-up lap is that after Verstappen came to the starting straight, Qin Miao and Hamilton both lowered their speed at the same time.

From the screen, it is obvious that there are at least a dozen cars quickly vacated between Verstappen and Qin Miao.

When Verstappen reacted and wanted to slow down his speed, it was too late, and he was about to reach his grid position.

There is no other way but to suffer from this dumb loss.

At this time, some people will be puzzled. It is obvious that Qin Miao, who is second in line, just pushed the car down. Why is it that Verstappen is at a disadvantage?

This has to be said about the hot-melt tires of F1 racing cars. This kind of tires can only have enough grip when they are at a suitable working temperature.

The FIA ​​also stipulates that the start of F1 starts after all the cars have parked in their own grid.

There is a gap of at least 30 seconds between when the driver on pole stops on his grid and when the last driver stops on his grid.

And this 30 seconds is enough for the tires of the racing car to fully cool down.

Qin Miao and Hamilton received the team's order to press the car in order to stop on the grid later than Verstappen, so that their tires can have stronger grip than Verstappen.

But what they didn't expect was that they had just finished this trick and stopped on their own grid. In the TR, it was heard that the car of Red Bull's No. 2 driver Perez stopped between T12 and T13 location news.

Although Perez restarted his car in the end, he was fined to start from the pit lane because he stopped on the track during the preparation stage.

And the warm-up lap has to be run again.

After all, it took a while for Perez to restart his car, and the tires of all the cars were almost cold during this time.

Soon, Perez returned to the exit of the maintenance area, while Qin Miao and the others ran a warm-up lap again.

After coming back, because Verstappen was already prepared, Qin Miao and Hamilton did not play the little routine just now.

It is to warm up your tires normally during the tire warm-up lap, so as to ensure that your tires can be adjusted to the best working temperature during the starting straight.

When he parked his car in the grid, Qin Miao's car was slightly aligned with the outer line of T1, that is, the front of the car was more to the left.

This is because the starting side of Qin Miao is the dirty side, and the grip is not as good as that of Hamilton and Verstappen, so Qin Miao is ready to quickly turn to the other side after getting ready to start.

Adjusting the angle of his racing car in advance can also ensure that Qin Miao does not need to adjust his direction when starting, so he does not have to worry about losing traction.

After parking his car in the grid, he waited for about half a minute before the drivers behind him parked their cars in the grid again one after another.

Soon, the starting lights came on.

Qin Miao adjusted the gear of her racing car to N gear, then stepped on 1/5 of the accelerator to keep the speed of her engine at about 11000 rpm, put her right hand on the clutch button of her steering wheel, and pre-pressed it a little .

The clutch button of Mercedes has a special design, which is divided into two pressing strokes, just like the trigger of a pistol.

The first stage is the pre-start state, you can press it normally, but you will feel a certain resistance after pressing it to a certain extent, this is the second stage, and then you only need to press it a little harder to start the car.

The setting of this force is very delicate, and it is difficult to accidentally touch it, but the reaction speed after pressing it is very fast.

A steering wheel of 35 US dollars, the main funds are not only used to adapt to the driver's hand shape, but also spent on these small ingenuities that make the players more comfortable to use.

Soon, all five red lights came on.

Qin Miao clenched the steering wheel in her hands, staring at the five red lights above through the goggles in front of her.

Five red lights go out and the race begins.

Qin Miao pressed the clutch button on his steering wheel when the red light went out, the clutch and the engine gear instantly engaged, and the strong traction force was instantly transmitted to the rear wheel of Qin Miao's racing car through the clutch.

Then the rear wheel of the car spins on the edge of the extreme grip with the ground, pushing the car forward crazily.

Qin Miao's body endured a thrust of 2.4 G in just this instant.

After completing these operations, Qin Miao gradually deepened the accelerator pedal instinctively, looked at Verstappen on his left from the corner of his vision, and at the same time turned on the button of the ERS overtaking mode on his racing car.

"Five red lights off! The 2021 F1 Grand Prix has begun!"

"Hamilton's start was so beautiful. After the start, he completed wheel-to-wheel with his teammate Qin Miao!"

"But the next T1 is a right turn. Can Qin Miao stay on the inside line and keep her position?"

Qin Miao on the field actually knew that her start this time could only be regarded as quite satisfactory, not good, but not bad.

And today's wind is east wind, the wind speed is not slow, it just blows towards the starting straight.

In this way, Qin Miao and Verstappen faced more resistance when they started than the car behind them, so neither of them started too fast today.

After entering T1, because of the width of the track and Qin Miao firmly defending his inside line, Hamilton gave up this attack in order to have a faster exit speed in T2.

"Entering T1, Hamilton gave up this attack, and Qin Miao temporarily kept his position."

"Although Qin Miao's start was not as good as Hamilton's, he defended his position with good defense and positioning. So far, the start and starting order of the top four drivers have not changed much."

Ten seconds later, Verstappen had arrived at T4 and was about to enter the corner, while Qin Miao and Hamilton followed closely behind him.

And at this moment, a burst of smoke and dust suddenly rose from the rear of the car formation.

In the camera of the director, a white figure suddenly jumped out from the car formation.

"Crash! There should be a serious crash!"

"I saw it. Is it a white racing car? Is it a Haas or a Toro Rosso?"

When the commentators were exclaiming, the game showed a yellow flag.

But at present, only the yellow flag appeared in the first stage, so the race continues.

What Qin Miao can do now is to try her best to keep up with the rhythm of Verstappen in front of her, keeping the gap within one second and not being opened by the opponent.

Hamilton, behind Qin Miao, felt a little uncomfortable at this time, because Leclerc, who was ranked fourth, had already approached him and was preparing to attack him.

But soon, Hamilton, who defended Leclerc and attacked twice, breathed a sigh of relief.

Because of the car accident just now, the race will convert the yellow flag into a safety car.

Qin Miao stopped after just half a lap.

When she slowed down and followed Verstappen in front, Qin Miao asked curiously in the TR: "What happened?"

Frankie quickly replied: "Ma Zeping just rushed off the track..."

After all, he was promoted to F1 in the same season as Ma Zeping, so Qin Miao asked again with concern: "Did you get into a car accident with someone?"

"I don't know, the competition is still investigating, and I will give you an answer as soon as I have the result."

After a while, Qin Miao, who was twisting left and right, heard the reply from Frankie in the team TR: "Ma Zeping made a mistake and ran off the track in T3."

Qin Miao was stunned for a while before realizing that Frankie's words meant that Ma Zeping made a mistake and rushed out of the track.

Thinking of this, Qin Miao unconsciously blurted out: "6."

"what?"

"It's nothing."

After Qin Miao finished speaking, she realized that her TR had not been turned off yet.

Unfortunately, during the safety car period, the broadcaster could not show much to the audience.

It's basically the team's TR, and the car that's turning left and right to warm up the tires.

And Qin Miao's TR is quite interesting, so it was released by the director.

Originally, Qin Miao was still speaking English, but the three commentators from Five Star Sports quietly waited for Qin Miao's team TR to finish. They were also very curious about what Qin Miao would say to his team members.

Until Qin Miao said the last Chinese "6", the three commentators couldn't help laughing.

After laughing, Zhou Haoran explained: "The general meaning is that Qin Miao asked why the team showed the yellow flag. The team said that Ma Zeping had a car accident, and then Qin Miao asked Ma Zeping if he had collided with someone? The team said it was his own mistake, and finally Qin Miao's answer, I don't think I need to translate it..."

(End of this chapter)