How did I become an F1 driver?

Chapter 224 Chapter 222: Red Bull’s courage
And it is worth mentioning that after Verstappen made a mistake entering T1, in the P room of the Red Bull Racing Team, Horner just clapped his hands and was a little irritated, but he was not too anxious.

But as Qin Miao also took advantage of the situation and surpassed Verstappen, Horner was really anxious.

During the director's replay, the audience saw Horner holding the microphone of his headset and saying something, while frowning and trotting from the team's P room to the command podium, probably preparing to give the team's order.

When Mercedes replaced Bottas this season, Horner and Red Bull were quite happy. After all, after Bottas left, Red Bull had one less big worry.

But after Qin Miao actually appeared on the field, Horner discovered the goodness of Bottas.

Although Bottas' single lap speed and qualifying results are indeed impressive, in the race stage, Bottas' offensive and defensive capabilities are indeed average, and can even be said to be a bit weak.

Qin Miao is different. His qualifying speed may not be as fast as Bottas, but it is still considered first-class. At the same time, Qin Miao's long-distance rhythm in the race is very good, but Qin Miao's most outstanding ability is tire protection. , offense and defense.

After seeing Qin Miao's performance on the field, Horner also understood why Qin Miao was favored by Toto.

And I also regret that I was not so determined when I chose Qin Miao. I believe Marco feels the same as Horner now.

Precisely because Horner knew how powerful Qin Miao was, after seeing Verstappen being surpassed by Qin Miao, Horner immediately ordered Verstappen to surpass Qin Miao in the shortest possible time, and could not get into too much trouble with him. A long struggle.

But this is not something you can solve with just one word.

Verstappen also knows that Qin Miao is his biggest obstacle on the road to winning this game, but it is really difficult to surpass him.

But Pan Zi is Pan Zi after all. Although it was very hard, he still passed Qin Miao with DRS on the sixth lap.

But after he passed Qin Miao, Hamilton in front had already opened up for more than three seconds.

At the same time, Qin Miao was still clinging to Verstappen's back, putting pressure on Verstappen from time to time.

On the other side, Perez was protecting the tires from the beginning, and his main focus was on accumulating power, so he was gradually pulled away by the three people in front.

On lap 15 of the race, the gap between Hamilton and Verstappen was narrowed to 1.9 seconds, while Qin Miao was still in the DRS area behind Verstappen, and his tires were in better condition than Verstappen, although his speed was A little slower than Verstappen, but relying on the two DRS on the track, he was still able to barely keep up with Verstappen's pace and not be pulled away by him.

Perez, who was trying to protect his miscarriage, had been pulled away by Qin Miao for 7 seconds.

And these 7 seconds were the distance that Perez was able to pull away when he realized something was wrong and began to pursue Qin Miao without any protection.

If he keeps it, the gap will be even bigger.

At this time, Red Bull was in a headache because of Verstappen's pit stop.

Verstappen has Hamilton in front of him and Qin Miao in the back, but his teammate Perez can't play any role.

At this time, whether Verstappen was pitting first or behind, Mercedes had corresponding strategies and could easily handle Verstappen.

On lap No. 18, while Red Bull was waiting anxiously, Mercedes finally took the lead and Hamilton pitted, while Qin Miao was still hanging behind Verstappen, and the pressure became more and more intense.

It's hard to believe that after running for so long, Qin Miao's tires still have enough grip, and his speed hasn't slowed down much.

On lap No. 19, considering the possibility that Hamilton would gradually widen the gap with Verstappen after putting on new hard tires, and the constant harassment from Qin Miao behind him, Red Bull could only passively Verstappen was chosen to pit first.

And at this point in time, the new hard tires are already faster than the old medium tires.

If Verstappen pits later, it will be difficult for him to win the championship in this race.

After Verstappen came out, he was still behind Hamilton, and Hamilton even slightly opened the gap with the cars behind him. This was mainly due to Qin Miao's tireless harassment and pressure from behind Verstappen.

After the No. 1 drivers of the two major teams came into the pits, only the No. 2 drivers of the two teams were left at the front of the track to hold on for the title of tire masters.

On lap 20, after the tire temperature came up, Verstappen started to take action against Hamilton.

There is a speed gap between Mercedes and Red Bull, but it is not big and the drivers can make up for it with their own strength.

The only uncomfortable thing is that when following the driver in front into a corner, the car behind will reduce its own downforce by up to 50% due to the turbulence emitted by the car in front.

So in a short period of time, all Verstappen could do was follow Hamilton and put pressure on him, but there were basically no overtaking opportunities that could be found.

Four laps into No. 20, Qin Miao had already pulled away from Perez for more than 10 seconds.

There is no way, using the same tires, Qin Miao's tire wear rate is much slower than that of Perez. The later in the game, the more obvious the speed gap between the two sides becomes.

Seeing this, Perez stopped insisting and chose to pit on this lap to change tires.

However, when it came out, it fell 18 seconds behind Hamilton and Verstappen, and the gap was not small.

On the fifth lap of No. 20, Qin Miao was also called in by the team to change tires.

But what surprised everyone was that what Qin Miao put on after entering was a set of soft tires.

Qin Miao became the only driver to use soft tires in the main stage of this game.

The main reason is that after Qin Miao ran for so long, the team calculated based on Qin Miao's tire wear curve and found that there was room for maneuver when stopping at yellow, red, and yellow.

Even the yellow, red, and yellow stops are faster than the one stop. The only problem that needs to be faced is that after the pit stop, when passing the driver in front, he cannot pass, and he is stuck by the opponent, causing his tires to miss the best position. working window.

However, judging from Qin Miao's offensive ability in the last two games, the team chose to believe in Qin Miao.

I also believe that Qin Miao can shoulder the responsibility.

After Perez pitted, the team asked Qin Miao, and Qin Miao didn't have much opinion on the team's tactics, so since the team asked, he pitted to change tires according to the team's ideas.

Then the audience saw Qin Miao's yellow change to red.

After seeing this scene, the commentator directly asserted: "Qin Miao will have two stops in this game!"

After coming out, Qin Miao fell more than 7 seconds behind Verstappen.

Then everyone looked at Qin Miao like a monster and began to chase Verstappen and Hamilton at a speed of 1.6 seconds per lap.

The tires are good, the racing settings are perfect, and there is no dirty air. This is only Qin Miao's normal driving speed.The only thing I need to worry about now is how many laps this set of soft tires can last.

Exactly 4 laps later, on lap 20 of No. 0.5, Qin Miao arrived [-] seconds behind Verstappen.

Verstappen really felt sick when he saw Qin Miao appearing behind him.

Why are you here again?
Qin Miao didn't leave much time for Verstappen to think. In just one lap, Verstappen, who had been putting pressure on Hamilton just now, was overtaken by Qin Miao.

Moreover, the place where Qin Miao surpassed Verstappen was not in the DRS area, but in the long curve of T11. Qin Miao relied on the stronger tire grip and mechanical grip of his car to directly force on the outside when cornering. Eat Verstappen.

Qin Miao's overtaking purely relying on the car's grip showed that Verstappen had no temper at all.

Seeing Qin Miao passing directly from outside him, Verstappen was still a little unwilling to ask in the team's TR: "How many laps have Qin Miao's tires been used? Why does he still have such strong grip now?"

Red Bull was also confused. The normal grip of the medium tires began to reach the cliff point after 25 laps. Qin Miao's medium tires ran [-] laps and the speed was only slightly slower than other drivers' new hard tires.

Now they have replaced soft tires. Normally, the durability of soft tires in Paul Ricard is only five or six laps, but Qin Miao's tire life has always been a mystery. Who knows how Qin Miao can outperform normal drivers? Use as many turns as you want.

Knowing that his teammates and he were not running the same strategy, Qin Miao passed Verstappen and came behind Hamilton. Hamilton chose to let Qin Miao pass when passing through the DRS area on the straightaway.

After passing Hamilton with DRS, neither of them lost much speed.

Qin Miao then ran four more laps on the track to lap 33. In these three laps, Qin Miao's speed was not as fast as when he was chasing Verstappen, but he was still one second faster than them every lap.

After these three laps, Qin Miao felt that his set of soft tires could no longer hold up and was about to enter the cliff point, so Qin Miao pitted during this lap.

In fact, after Verstappen found that he could not overtake Hamilton with the same tires, he came up with the idea of ​​pitting and replacing with old medium tires to try to overtake Hamilton.

But the variable Qin Miao is here. If Verstappen pits and Qin Miao also pits, Qin Miao will definitely block in front of Verstappen.

However, if he does not pit, the possibility of Verstappen overtaking Hamilton will become less and less as time goes by.

When faced with such a situation that requires change, Red Bull always tends to adopt a more risky but profitable game strategy.

Red Bull is not like Mercedes, they don't have team or driver championships, they are always challengers.

Therefore, they are obviously more willing to fight in this final stage than die slowly.

So when Qin Miao chose to pit, Red Bull also made the same choice to let Verstappen pit.

After Qin Miao came out of the pits, he put on a set of medium tires that had been running for five laps, while Verstappen was wearing a set of medium tires that had been running for seven laps.

However, these laps were all run during the practice session, and the degree of tire wear is different from the laps at the beginning of the race.

Because the tire wear of the vehicle is greater at the beginning of the race. After all, the car is full of fuel at that time, so its weight is naturally greater, and the tire wear is greater.

Now that the fuel in the two cars is basically half gone, the car is lighter and the load is naturally smaller.

So if converted, Qin Miao's tires that ran for five laps were actually worn in just over two laps, compared to Verstappen's four laps.

Naturally, you can last longer on the track.

After coming out, Qin Miao began to chase the two drivers in front, while Verstappen kept following Qin Miao looking for opportunities.

No. 30 Five laps later, Qin Miao surpassed Perez.

Perez originally wanted to defend Qin Miao, but it was relatively easy to overtake on the Paul Ricard circuit, not to mention that Qin Miao was using new medium tires at this time, and Perez Used old hard tires.

Therefore, Qin Miao's desire to overtake Perez is just a matter of DRS.

After overtaking Perez, Qin Miao began to chase Hamilton, who was 13 seconds ahead of him. At this time, there were still [-] laps to go before the end of the race.

The speed at which Qin Miao chases Hamilton is 1.9 seconds per lap, and the speed at which Verstappen chases Qin Miao is 0.2 seconds per lap.

Of course, the pursuit speed of the two of them cannot always be so fast. This track consumes a lot of tires, so the gap becomes smaller towards the back.

However, Red Bull and Mercedes were willing to let the two drivers come in to change tires, which must be because they had calculated before letting the drivers in that by the end of the race, the medium tires would still be faster than Hamilton's hard tires.

In terms of Qin Miao's defensive ability, Verstappen's pursuit speed of 0.2 seconds per lap is not stressful at all.

But after experiencing the taste of winning the championship, Qin Miao gradually began to long for the highest podium again.

Naturally, Hamilton put pressure on the team in the team TR and wanted Qin Miao to help him defend Verstappen.

Regardless of the relationship outside the field, Hamilton will not talk about emotions with anyone on the field. There are only winners and losers here.

If Qin Miao is replaced by Bottas, then Hamilton will not need to remind him, and the team will take the initiative to make this request to Bottas.

But this is Qin Miao, a driver who is younger than Hamilton, but his strength is not much different, and he has higher growth potential.

Although no one inside Mercedes has said it, Toto clearly knows that Qin Miao is the guarantee of Mercedes' future competitiveness after Hamilton retires.

Therefore, the team will naturally not convey such team instructions to Qin Miao at this time.

However, they couldn't refuse Hamilton's request in front of him, so they comforted Hamilton during the TR and told him not to think so much and just run at his own pace.

No. 40 nine laps after fourteen laps.

Qin Miao finally arrived in the DRS area behind Hamilton, while Verstappen was in the DRS area behind Qin Miao.

Verstappen himself also knew that although it was not impossible to overtake Qin Miao, it would waste a lot of time chasing Hamilton.

And judging from Qin Miao's intentions, he also wanted to chase Hamilton. Verstappen simply stayed behind Qin Miao to protect his pregnancy. After he caught up with Hamilton, he stood up and started attacking. On the one hand, this protected On the other hand, it also avoids wasting time and tires fighting with Qin Miao on the track.

And now it's time for Verstappen to take action.

(End of this chapter)