How did I become an F1 driver?

However, Mercedes does not limit the engine power once or twice during practice sessions.

So most fans who know Mercedes' urinary properties don't have too much worry about this.

Of course, the world is full of surprises, and it is inevitable that even though they know that Mercedes likes to limit engine power during practice sessions and hide their truest side, the audience who are still worried about Mercedes' results in the race are worried about this.

Since they were worried, they needed a channel to vent, so these people started chatting on Mercedes' social media.

Regarding their worried messages on social media, Mercedes-Benz's external publicity staff were skilled and experienced in handling them and quickly calmed them down.

At the end of the second practice, Qin Miao drove his car back to weigh it. While waiting, Hamilton came to Qin Miao's side.

After shaking hands and hugging the opponent, Hamilton took off his helmet and asked: "How did the first and second practice feel?"

Qin Miao thought for a while: "It's not bad. I tested and adjusted all the data tested on the factory simulator. Now the car basically meets all the expectations for the race. The only problem is that I'm worried about my engine. Something went wrong in the race, but other than that everything is fine.”

Hamilton frowned after hearing Qin Miao's words, and then lowered his voice and said: "I don't know if you have tested at full strength, but I ran at full strength once before the end of the second practice, but the results were not satisfactory."

Qin Miao was a little surprised: "Has the engine been adjusted?"

The meaning of this sentence is to ask Hamilton whether he has limited the power of the engine.

Hamilton shook his head.

After listening, Qin Miao also became a little solemn. Mercedes-Benz's design philosophy seemed to have encountered an acclimatization situation on this track.

"I'll test it during the third practice tomorrow and see how it goes."

Hamilton nodded worriedly.

The two Mercedes drivers returned to the P room after chatting.

Putting down their equipment, Qin Miao and Hamilton went to the interview area together.

On the way, the two of them were looking at their own training parameters like they were checking answers with classmates when they were studying.

This year's two Mercedes drivers have the same driving habits and style, that is, they both like understeer cars, so the difference in their tuning settings is very small. If necessary, the tuning settings between the two can be used from each other. refer to.

Comparing the tuning data with each other, and then explaining the purpose of such adjustments can generally allow the other party to better understand the tuning window of the Mercedes car on this track.

In the post-race interview session, an FIA reporter who has a good relationship with Mercedes was responsible for interviewing Qin Miao.

Since they are acquaintances, the questions asked will naturally not be too tricky, and reporters will not deliberately embarrass Qin Miao by asking questions about team secrets that Qin Miao cannot answer.

The interview session was spent quite comfortably.

However, Qin Miao's work does not end here. He will be very busy during competition week. For example, he helps some self-media people write autographs for their fans, and also takes photos taken by some well-known photographers in the paddock. and signed photo album.

These tasks that can increase Qin Miao's influence invisibly are what Qin Miao needs to do most at this stage.

Qin Miao was busy in the paddock until about [-] o'clock in the evening. After having a meal at the Mercedes team home, Qin Miao returned to the hotel.

After a tiring day, Qin Miao was not in the mood to do anything else after returning to the hotel. After taking a shower, she fell asleep holding her daughter-in-law's fragrant and soft body.

The next day, after getting up and washing up, Qin Miao drank a bottle of health potion.

The whole person was instantly energized.

After simple physical training, Qin Miao came to the paddock. There was a qualifying match today, so Qiu Meng came with him.

However, this time she did not follow Qin Miao to the P room of the team, but watched the game in the VIP area upstairs.

As for the team, before the third practice, there was a tense mood in the team.

The third practice really started, and after Qin Miao's qualifying simulation run, the tense mood in the team became even more serious.

Although Qin Miao came to the first position directly after the qualifying simulation run, Qin Miao's result was slower than Verstappen's fastest lap in yesterday's second practice session.

Moreover, the engine was not in a restricted state when Qin Miao ran this lap. In other words, if Qin Miao really started to run in qualifying, his time would be at most 0.2 seconds faster than his current time.

But just like Mercedes likes to hide its own strength, Red Bull may not be hiding something, and everyone knows that for safety reasons in practice, the drivers will not use their full strength.

After all, this is a street race. If you push it to the limit and crash the car, half of the race will be wasted.

No one can guarantee that if a car crashes today, the car will be repaired during the race tomorrow.

No team will risk their race points.

After receiving this bad news, Toto and Strategy Director James Vincent discussed and unanimously decided to use the towing tactic in the qualifying stage.

Let’s not talk about Q1 and Q2. With Mercedes’ strength, it may not be able to outperform their biggest competitor Red Bull on this track, but it is still no problem to outperform other teams.

However, after Q3, the team arranged towing tactics for the two drivers.

Originally, they could absorb the wake of other drivers, but the success rate of absorbing the wake of other drivers was relatively low and uncontrollable. Considering that Qin Miao also had four new sets of soft tires in reserve, the team considered a After a while, it was decided to let the two drivers pull each other's wake.

After the decision was made, the team began to calculate the timing for the two drivers to release their cars during the qualifying stage.

In the Q3 stage, Qin Miao first created a wake for Hamilton, then returned to the garage and used a new set of soft tires to fly a flying lap with the wake of his teammate.

It's just that before qualifying started, no one could have expected that there would be so many accidents on today's race track.

There is no need to pull the wake in Q1.

In Q1, Stroll gave everyone a good start. When he came out of the corner in T15, his angle was too large and he broke the right front suspension of his car, triggering a red flag.

But Stroll crashed very early, and Qin Miao had just been released at that time.

It's just a pity that Qin Miao's racing car has a new set of soft tires. Although this set of tires has only been run for less than one lap, the grip of this set of tires when running in qualifying is definitely not as strong as the new soft tires.

After waiting in the P room for 15 minutes, the red flag was canceled and Qin Miao was released by the team again.

However, due to Stroll's crash, the race time was shortened a lot, so for safety reasons, most teams released their own drivers immediately.

However, Mercedes still went its own way. When other drivers came to T7, Qin Miao and Hamilton drove onto the track.

After all, it was Q1, and Qin Miao and the team had no intention of going all out.

So Qin Miao used the soft tires that had been used for one lap.

As mentioned before, if you go slower with this set of tires, it’s not unusable. And with this set of tires, you don’t have to worry that the results will prevent Qin Miao from entering Q2.

But something bad happened again. The first flight lap of Q1 was about to be completed, and the finish line was within sight. Qin Miao's car was less than 500 meters away from the finish line.

Qin Miao's results were green in the first timing period, purple in the second timing period, and no obvious mistakes in the third timing period. He was about to cross the line and steadily get a good result entering Q2.

A red flag appeared again on the track. When the camera looked over, it was seen that Giovinazzi had crashed in the exact same place where Stroll had just crashed. Even the angle and position of the damage were very different from Stroll's. not bad.

In street racing, if you crash, a red flag will [-]% appear, regardless of whether your track is wider than Monaco.

Qin Miao was quite happy after crossing the line, but she heard from the TR: "Qin Miao, although I'm sorry, I still want to inform you that because there was a red flag in the second time period, our results for this lap Invalid." After the voice, Qin Miao began to curse in the helmet.

The most important thing is that Qin Miao's soft tire results were completely ruined without any success.

Although he can still run on the track, he is using soft tires after running two exit laps and one flying lap. Even Qin Miao cannot 100% guarantee that he can enter Q2 with this set of tires.

So Qin Miao didn't hesitate much and drove the second set of soft tires in Q1.

In fact, Qin Miao's situation is much better than other drivers. Because of Qin Miao's tire protection ability, after three practice races, Qin Miao always has one or two sets of soft tires left.

This is not because the team deliberately helps Qin Miao save more tires. It is mainly because other people can only measure the data with four sets of tires. Qin Miao often only needs three sets of tires to complete the task.

There are even faint signs that the title of miscarriage master in the paddock is about to be transferred from Perez to Qin Miao.

Since an extra set of tires can be kept, the team will naturally not use them deliberately. It is also good to keep an extra set of tires to prevent problems in the bud.

At this time, someone will say, didn't Toto ask Qin Miao to run a new set of soft tires in the Q3 stage when he saw Qin Miao Provincial Tire?

But you know, it was Q3 in qualifying at that time, and Qin Miao not only had an extra set of soft tires in reserve, he also had two more sets of tires in reserve.

With so many tires, it is basically impossible to use them up in the race, so Toto asked Qin Miao to go up and use up the tires.

So now Qin Miao still has sufficient tire reserves, but it is different for other drivers. Some have even driven their second set of soft tires but have not yet achieved effective results.

In short, although there was a brief yellow flag in the first timing section in the second half of Q1, fortunately there was no red flag on the track to interrupt the race. Qin Miao also relied on the new soft tires to fly in the last two flying laps of Q1. He ran to fourth place which was familiar to his friend Leclerc with 10 points.

"Hey, Qin Miao performed well in Q1 today." It was rare to see Qin Miao in the top five in Q1, so Fei Ge couldn't help but praise him.

Brother Bing also nodded: "This is mainly because Qin Miao's first set of soft tires lost grip during the two red flags in Q2, and then he changed to the second set of soft tires for the last flying lap of Q2, so that's why With such a good result." Zhou Haoran said: "I feel that Qin Miao should be hiding something in this lap. It is possible that Mercedes can't beat Red Bull on this track, but it is abnormal that it can't beat Ferrari in Q1. .”

……

Rearrange the car in the team's P room, refuel, change tires, and replace the engine with new oil.

After these things are almost handled, Q2 will begin.

At the beginning, Qin Miao still drove a new set of soft tires according to his own habits and ran his first flight lap of Q2.

If you have money, you are arrogant.

Qin Miao's performance in this flying lap was not bad. Because he came out early, he was ranked first after crossing the line. However, as the drivers of other teams also completed their first flying laps in Q1 one after another, Qin Miao's position also continued to decline, finally ranking sixth.

No matter what, Qin Miao's result was enough for him to advance to Q3. After all, his result was a full 3 seconds faster than the team's expected Q0.3 cutoff line.

After completing preparations in the P room, Qin Miao was released by the team 2 minutes and 2 seconds before the Q15 stoppage.

In the team's calculations, Qin Miao's tire warm-up plus the period out of the pit area should give Qin Miao 19 seconds before the clock stops when he finally crosses the line.

The margin left is indeed a bit small. It is already Q2 at this time. There are not so many cars on the track, so it is unlikely to encounter traffic problems.

However, just when Qin Miao put on the old tires and prepared to complete his last Q2 flight lap with a relaxed attitude, the red flag appeared again on the track.

When the camera cut away, we saw a McLaren crashing into the guard wall.

The place where the car crashed this time was finally not at T15, but at the right-angle corner of T3.

It can be seen from the replay that the driver of McLaren, Ricciardo, was involved in the accident this time. From the outside, the cause of the problem was that Ricciardo's left front wheel locked up when entering the corner because the front wheel was lost. Due to the lack of grip, the car also lost its ability to turn. Ricciardo entered the corner too fast, so he hit the wall of T3.

Now, there is only one and a half minutes left before the end of Q2, and the other drivers don’t have to run anymore, because after the game restarts, one and a half minutes is not enough for them to complete a circle and start their own flying lap.

Therefore, the Q2 result is the final result of all drivers in the first flying lap of Q2.

Qin Miaoka advanced without any surprises in the sixth position.

Q3, Qin Miao also has two new sets of soft tires. At this stage, Qin Miao will only drive one set of soft tires if possible, and the other set of soft tires will be reserved for the race.

But today's race is special. Qin Miao needs to help Hamilton pull back the slipstream, so Qin Miao and the team want to use these two sets of tires. Anyway, with Qin Miao's tire protection ability, it is unlikely that red, yellow, and red will appear on the field. pit stop strategy.

As for the safety car on the track... Anyway, Qin Miao still has a few sets of used soft tires, so he can use these tires for emergencies when the time comes.

After deciding Qin Miao's next pit stop strategy, the team released Qin Miao and Hamilton.

Because Qin Miao was the one who pulled the slip for Hamilton on the first lap, Qin Miao came out of the pit area first on the track, followed by Hamilton.

But I don't know if it was a coincidence or Ferrari's intention. When Mercedes released the car, the two Ferrari drivers also drove out of the pit area.

Sainz happened to be stuck between Qin Miao and Hamilton.

But it turned out to be just a coincidence. After leaving the pit area and arriving on the track, Ferrari let Hamilton out.

Qin Miao and Hamilton ran two tire warm-up laps before starting to pull the wake normally.

After exiting T16, Qin Miao took the lead to exit the corner and start his own flying circle. Then Hamilton started 3 seconds behind Qin Miao.

According to the team's calculations, this time gap is just enough for Hamilton to catch Qin Miao's wake on the straight, but not enough for Hamilton to catch the turbulence from Qin Miao's car on the curve.

It is worth mentioning that the two Ferrari drivers came behind Hamilton just as Qin Miao and the others were running the second warm-up lap, and caught Hamilton's wake.

So Ferrari's Leclerc came to first place after the first lap of qualifying Q3, even 0.3 seconds faster than Verstappen.

However, neither Qin Miao nor Mercedes cared much about it. After all, everyone knew that Q3 still had a chance to make a flying lap, and sooner or later it would squeeze Leclerc out.

In the end, Mercedes' towing tactic succeeded, but it was only half successful.

Because the gap between the two cars of Qin Miao and Hamilton was a bit too big, although Hamilton caught the wake pulled by Qin Miao in the final straight area, he didn't catch much and the effect was very limited, so in the end By the time the first flying lap of Q3 was completed, Hamilton was only 0.2 seconds behind Leclerc, ranking second.

Qin Miao ranked sixth, in front of Perez and behind Norris.

There will be a period of rest and adjustment between the two flying laps in Q3 of qualifying. However, due to tire reserve issues, the two Toro Rosso drivers did not come out when other teams started to run the first flying lap in Q1. Join in the fun, but wait for the window period after other teams have finished running before coming out to run.

The biggest advantage of this time period is that there are only two Toro Rosso cars on the track, so there are no traffic problems.

The sponsors were also happy to see this scene. After all, there were only two Toro Rosso cars on the track at this time. Who else could the on-site director take pictures of if he didn't hold the camera towards them?
At this time, Gasly suddenly stood up.

Because after he completed his first flying lap, his first time period actually turned purple. Even if he did not continue to turn purple in the second time period, his overall speed was faster than Leclerc, who is currently ranked first. 0.02 seconds.

Although in the final third period, Gasly was still in fourth place after crossing the line because he did not get caught in the wake of other teams like Leclerc.

Qin Miao's original ranking of sixth place dropped one place to seventh due to Gasly's rise.

Oda also moved up one place, surpassing Alonso from tenth to ninth.

After the two young Toro Rosso drivers completed their own flying laps, it was time for other teams to release their drivers for the last flying lap.

On the Mercedes side, Qin Miao put on his last set of new soft tires, and Hamilton had to come out before Qin Miao.

Hamilton didn't play any tricks. Before the start of qualifying, he agreed to pull each other's tail in Q3, so he would not break his promise.

Originally, domestic car fans were somewhat unconvinced when they saw Qin Miao dragging Hamilton's tail. After all, it looked like Hamilton was bullying Qin Miao by relying on his old skills.

If Qin Miao's first flying lap results are better, domestic fans will not say anything, because if it has no impact on the results, it is basically a piece of cake for Qin Miao, and there is no need to help. Nothing is appropriate.

But now Qin Miao is about to fall to eighth place, can they not be anxious?

Fortunately, as the race progressed, they found that Hamilton actually created a wake for Qin Miao, so the fans relaxed a lot.

And I am looking forward to the release of Qin Miao's final results.

With 24 seconds left before the end of the game, Hamilton and Qin Miao crossed the finish line one after another and began their last flying lap of the game.

Sometimes unexpected things happen, just so unexpected.

Qin Miao's last flight lap had just passed T4 when a yellow flag suddenly appeared in the first timing period.

When the camera cut away, we saw that a Little Red Bull had hit the wall of T3.

As this scene appeared, the yellow flag on the track instantly turned into a red flag.

All the commentators who were commentating on this game exclaimed.

"Ouch! Tsunoda! Red flag!"

And at the same time, Sainz, who was following Tsunoda, had no choice but to rush into the buffer zone beside the track because he was blocked by Tsunoda's car at the exit angle after Tsunoda hit the wall.

Fortunately, the car was not damaged and drove out of the buffer zone smoothly.

A dramatic scene occurred. At this time, there were only a little over 20 seconds left before the end of the race. During this time, there was no way for other drivers to complete the last flying lap of Q3.

In other words, the Q3 stage of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix is ​​just like the last one in Monaco, it ends directly after running a flying lap.

And Leclerc once again took a pole position for nothing just like qualifying in Monaco.

The commentators were surprised when they saw Qin Miao's ranking, and then one by one they began to frown.

Because Qin Miao's position means that he has to start from the rear like Monaco.

Although Qin Miao's performance in Monaco was amazing, and his overtaking show in Monaco was unique in the history of F1, Qin Miao's starting position in this game was not as bad as Monaco, and overtaking was not as difficult as Monaco.

But as fans of Qin Miao, both the domestic commentators and the audience sincerely hope that Qin Miao can start at the front.

Whether Qin Miao can gradually overtake him during the race like he did in the last race is another matter. At least with Qin Miao starting in the front row, they will feel a lot more at ease when watching the race.

But contrary to expectations, Qin Miao once again failed to complete the second flying lap of Q3, so he could only count as a guaranteed result.

Soon, the director gave a replay of the cause of Tsunoda's accident.

Coincidentally, the place where Tsunoda had the accident happened to be the place where Ricardo Oga had the accident.

The two even locked the tires in the same position, and both locked the left front wheel.

Even the traces left by Ricardo's impact can be seen on the guard wall at that location. (End of chapter)