How did I become an F1 driver?

Chapter 241 Chapter 239: Five Star Poisonous Milk

Saturday, the start of practice three and qualifying.

The sun is still shining on Saturday, and the flow of today’s day is similar to Friday’s.

Go to the paddock for breakfast before eight o'clock, start the team meeting at nine twenty, meet with the engineers at ten o'clock, start resting at eleven o'clock and start preparing for the third practice at 11:30.

Qin Miao's third practice was mainly to test his qualifying speed, but the final results of the third practice were not ideal for Qin Miao.

I don’t know if it was due to the new chassis, but the stability of the car at the limit was a bit poor, so Qin Miao wasn’t fast enough in the qualifying simulator.

After the third practice, the news was submitted to the team's engineers and the engineers at the factory, but the specific solution will not be known until qualifying starts.

Soon, the time came to three o'clock in the afternoon local time, which was the time when qualifying started.

In the Q1 stage, Qin Miao was mainly testing the team’s adjustments to the car’s chassis.

The final result was good. Qin Miao regained his speed in Q1 of qualifying.

In the end, Qin Miao advanced to Q1 in seventh place in Q2.

The audience has gradually become accustomed to Qin Miao's qualifying style of not trying his best until the last lap of Q3.

Although some people complained that Qin Miao's running method was not safe and could easily roll over.

But at least so far, Qin Miao has not suffered any major losses due to his running method.

Soon, Q2 Qin Miao also advanced successfully in fifth place.

In fact, considering the strength of Mercedes' car and Qin Miao's strength, it is abnormal for him not to advance smoothly.

It is worth mentioning in Q2 that the fastest lap times achieved by the two Red Bull drivers, Verstappen and Perez, were achieved on soft tires.

Qin Miao and Hamilton used medium tires.

In other words, in tomorrow's race, Red Bull has the idea of ​​​​preparing to start Mercedes-Benz at the starting stage.

Q3, Qin Miao had two new sets of soft tires in the Q3 stage, but still retained three new sets of hard, medium and soft tires in the main race.

Although Qin Miao planned to start with medium tires, his strong tire protection ability still gave Qin Miao an extra set of medium tires. During the practice session, he only used one set of medium tires.

Qin Miao really likes to plan ahead when it comes to tires.

On the first lap of Q3, Gasly was the first person to run.

After that came two Red Bulls and two Alpines, and then two Mercedes.

Although the Hungaroring track is relatively short and it is not very convenient to overtake and let go of cars on the track, it is Q3 after all. There are not many cars on the track, and Qin Miao also came out with other drivers, so Q3’s first place Qin Miao did not encounter any slow traffic during this flying circle.

After running the first flying lap of Q3, Qin Miao's score temporarily reached fourth, behind Perez, with a gap of 0.1 seconds between the two.

Regarding Qin Miao's position, his fans are very calm and don't think there is anything strange about it.

That’s the good thing about being a fan of Qin Miao. Until the last minute of qualifying, you never know what Qin Miao’s true single lap speed is.

Naturally, I will always have expectations for Qin Miao's single lap speed.

After running the first flying lap, Qin Miao returned to the garage. Qin Miao asked Frankie to help him call up Verstappen's flying lap just now, while comparing it with his own flying lap on the screen on the other side of him.

However, due to the rush of time, the two scenes that Frankie called up were just two videos. He just pressed the play button together. There was a slight difference in the timeline, but it did not affect Qin Miao's level of riders.

He mainly wanted to see how Verstappen ran this lap and whether there was any difference from his own.

After watching Verstappen's video, Qin Miao looked at his teammate's.

Verstappen's video just now was an intercepted broadcast, while the old man's video was taken directly from the car and showed Qin Miao the memory card.

After comparing the driving styles of the two top drivers, Qin Miao's time between two flying laps was completely used up.

There were about two minutes and 3 seconds left before Q40 stopped the clock, and Qin Miao was released by Franky.

However, the last flying lap of Q3 had just begun. All the drivers, including Qin Miao, found that the track environment had deteriorated and the grip had dropped significantly.

It should be caused by the drop in track temperature.

So you can see from the live broadcast that after Hamilton and Verstappen started their last lap, both of them were painted yellow in the first timing period.

Although Verstappen had a green color in the second timing period, his speed was still not as fast as Hamilton's normal second timing period.

Hamilton was even simpler. After the last flying lap of Q3, there were three sections of yellow. Although Verstappen was green in the last two timing sections, his speed was still 0.4 seconds slower than Hamilton, so he finally crossed the line. After that, he was still ranked second.

Qin Miao was more miserable, even though Qin Miao brushed three segments of green in the last timing segment, which was 0.2 seconds faster than his first lap.

But after he finished running, his ranking remained unchanged, because Perez finished this lap 1 seconds faster than his first flying lap.

Amid the lamentations of the three commentators, Qin Miao's qualifying match ended in No. 4.

Because of this, the starting order of the top ten drivers in the race is as follows:

Pole position: Hamilton: 1 minute 15 seconds 419
P2: Verstappen +0.412
P3: Perez +1.002
P4: Qin Miao +1.012
P5: Gasly +1.064
P6: Norris +1.070
P7: Leclerc +1.077
P8: Aokang +1.234
P9: Alonso +1.296
P10: Vettel+1.331
To be honest, this is the first time Qin Miao has suffered such a loss, and it can be regarded as a lesson in memory.

"It doesn't matter, it's not a big problem. We believe in Qin Miao. Considering Qin Miao's tire protection ability and long-distance ability in the race, as long as it doesn't rain during the race, Qin Miao will definitely have a lot to do in this race!" Fei Ge said at the end of qualifying. The last stage before that was said with great conviction.

As soon as Brother Fei finished speaking, Qin Miao, who was taking the car to the maintenance area, shivered, feeling that something bad had happened.

Brother Bing also nodded in agreement: "Qin Miao's offensive ability is indeed the best in the paddock. Although the Hungaroring is one of the most difficult overtaking tracks this season, second only to Monaco, Qin Miao's performance in Monaco The scene of overtaking is still echoing in my mind at this moment, and I think viewers can look forward to Qin Miao’s overtaking scene in tomorrow’s race.”

Zhou Haoran picked up a data sheet and said: "It may be a little unreasonable to say it, but this is the second time since Qin Miao entered F1 that he did not enter the top three in qualifying."

After Zhou Haoran's reminder, Brother Bing and Brother Fei suddenly realized that Qin Miao, like Yuki Tsunoda and Mick Schumacher, were only freshmen in the first grade, but such a freshman was actually already on the field. To be able to perform like this.

Because they gradually got used to Qin Miao's presence, they had unknowingly separated Qin Miao from the term "new driver".

But the main reason is because Qin Miao's performance on the field is so eye-catching, and they can't blame them.

...After qualifying, Qin Miao parked his car in the maintenance area at the entrance of the maintenance area.

After getting out of the car and turning around and pressing the steering wheel back, Leclerc came over and blocked Qin Miao's shoulder.

"Why are you here? Oh, I know you didn't make the top three."

Qin Miao had reinstalled his steering wheel on the car at this time, and he did not need to worry about the follow-up matters, so he followed Leclerc's strength and was weighed by him.

While taking off his gloves and helmet, Qin Miao explained helplessly: "In the last lap of Q3, I felt that the track got a little colder, the grip decreased slightly, and the speed couldn't be increased, so the speed was not as fast as the first. The lap was so fast.

Speaking of which, have you encountered the same problem? "

Leclerc shrugged: "Of course, but the track characteristics of the Hungaroring are not in line with our Ferrari. I can't get up to speed at all. I can enter Q3 purely because I am lucky, so I have been mentally prepared for a long time." , but seriously, I’m happy to see you here.”

Qin Miao rolled his eyes, and Leclerc could see where he learned his bad habit of not being too big.

"Go, go, don't let me find a chance to run in front of you on the track. When the time comes, it will be better for me to be with you. I'll just write my name backwards."

Leclerc snorted: "Your W12 is so fast, can it slow down and deliberately block me?"

Qin Miao thought the same thing. The W12 was so much faster than this year's Ferrari SF21. Basically, after four laps, the taillights of the W21 were no longer visible on the SF12.

"Too……"

The two just chatted and completed the post-race weigh-in and driver interview together.

Although this is only the second time Qin Miao has gone through this process, someone has taken care of it after all.

During the post-match interview, many reporters waved to Qin Miao after seeing him, wanting to interview Qin Miao.

This Chinese driver is a rare visitor to the FIA ​​interview booth. After learning that Qin Miao did not enter the top three in qualifying, the reporter here prepared a lot of questions for Qin Miao.

But even if they were specially prepared, the questions they asked were nothing new. They were just about why the game ended up in this position, and whether it was possible to regain their position in the main game.

Qin Miao chose an old man who seemed to have a nice face to accept his interview.

After completing the routine tasks, Qin Miao's work for this week is considered completed.

Even after finishing the interview and leaving the paddock, Qin Miao felt that finishing fourth was pretty good.

There is no need to attend the hour-long post-match press conference after the game. You can just sneak away after the interview.

So Qin Miao got off work more than half an hour earlier than usual.

We returned to the hotel at 04:30 in the afternoon.

Qin Miao didn't even turn on the computer in the hotel. She idled her head for a while, and then went to bed at ten o'clock.

Nothing to say all night, Sunday is the day the main race begins.

The good mood of the day starts with seeing the rainy sky.

When Qin Miao got up, washed up, and habitually opened the curtains of her hotel room to check the weather, the scenery outside the window gave Qin Miao a hard blow.

There was a cloud outside the window at this time, and fine raindrops fell from the sky. Although the raindrops drove away some of the summer heat, for Qin Miao, rainy days were life-threatening.

Looking at the rain outside the window, Qin Miao scratched his hair irritably, then reluctantly put on his clothes and went out.

On the way to the paddock, all Qin Miao could do was keep praying that the rain would stop soon or become lighter.

Perhaps Qin Miao's prayer had an effect. By the time Qin Miao arrived in the paddock, the rain had really stopped.

However, the dark clouds did not dissipate. They were still surrounding the track and it could rain again at any time.

After Qin Miao finished breakfast and came to the team's home, he asked his colleagues in the meteorological department and found out that there was no possibility of the weather clearing up in a short time, and there would even be a high probability of rain during the race.

Although it was raining, the pre-race driver parade was not canceled, but the cars the drivers were sitting in were changed from the original convertibles to cars with canopies.

After the driver's parade, they ate some high-calorie food to replenish energy, rested for another 10 minutes, and then began to prepare for the main race.

At two o'clock in the afternoon, Qin Miao put on his equipment and came to the track.

Although it wasn't raining at this time, the sky was still overcast and the track was a little wet.

However, considering that this track may rain at any time, each team moved out the rain shelters of the racing cars and set them up on the racing cars.

Qin Miao's racing car is no exception.

After completing the final task of listening to the national anthem of the venue where the event was held before the game, Qin Miao returned to his car.

After chatting with Reyes about the situation of his car, the amount of fuel and settings they prepared for his car, it was almost time for the start of the race after confirming that everything was correct.

Qin Miao took the opportunity to put on his equipment and got into the racing car.

At the beginning it was nothing, but as the time got closer and closer to the start of the race, raindrops gradually began to fall from the sky.

Fortunately, there were still more than ten minutes before the start of the race. Seeing the drizzle falling in the sky again, each team, which had been preparing for a long time, put on semi-wet tires for their drivers.

Qin Miao just watched helplessly as the medium tires on his car were replaced by semi-wet tires.

I let out a long sigh, but thinking on the bright side, at least Red Bull's original tire tactics were useless, and the tire preparations of all drivers in all teams were back to the same level.

After new tires were put on and all team members were evacuated, the warm-up lap began.

After a brief run, Qin Miao found that it was only lightly raining in the first and second timing periods, but the rain in the third timing period was heavier, which was considered moderate rain.

Seeing this situation, Qin Miao didn't want to overtake now and get on the podium. The top priority was to keep his current position after the start.

When the tire warm-up lap came back and the drivers all parked in their respective positions again, the ground that was a little dry because of the car blocking it was completely soaked.

Qin Miao also slowly parked his car in his starting grid.

(End of this chapter)