How did I become an F1 driver?

Chapter 267 270: The gain outweighs the loss

Soon, the warm-up lap of the sprint race began.

Qin Miao used brand new soft tires in this race.

The track temperature today is 40°, and coupled with the characteristics of the Monza track, this race will be very taxing on racing tires.

However, Mercedes has full confidence in the durability of Qin Miao's soft tires.

And Qin Miao was not the only driver to choose soft tires, such as Norris, Alonso, and Ocon. Like Qin Miao, these drivers also chose soft tires to start.

Before the start of this race, basically all the teams told their drivers: the ranking is not important, just bring the car back safely.

The drivers also know that compared to today’s sprint qualifying, tomorrow’s race is obviously more important.

Therefore, most drivers have already decided before the start of the race that this race will be conservative.

You can have no grades, but you can't make mistakes.

Soon, the warm-up lap was over and all the drivers returned to their positions.

Five red lights go out and the race begins.

At the beginning of the race, Hamilton didn't get off to a very good start and was overtaken directly by Verstappen behind him.

Qin Miao's starting speed is also faster than Hamilton's, and even Qin Miao's starting speed is faster than Verstappen.

But because Hamilton was in front of Qin Miao in the starting stage.

In order to avoid Hamilton Qin Miao who made a wrong start in front of him, most of the car's tire grip was used to avoid steering after starting.

So when Qin Miao, who originally started a little faster than Verstappen, came to the T1 heavy braking area in Monza, he just came in front of Hamilton and could not pose any threat to Verstappen in front of him. .

After exiting the corner, Qin Miao came to second place and Verstappen was first.

After getting out of T2, Qin Miao had time to look at his rearview mirror.

To Qin Miao's surprise, what appeared in his rearview mirror was not Hamilton, but a McLaren.

This wrong start caused Hamilton quite a lot of trouble.

With no rhythm at all, Hamilton dropped to sixth right away from the start, which was in front of the two Ferraris.

Thanks to Gasly, who had been performing well in the previous games, when entering T1, his right front nose slightly collided with Ricciardo's right rear wheel in front.

As a result, the front nose cone of the car fell off and it rushed off the track and retired. Hamilton moved into a position. Otherwise, Hamilton's mistake in starting this time would have caused him even greater losses.

On Gasly's side, the left side where the car's nose cone connected to the front nose wing was completely broken.

The entire left wing of the nose started to rub against the ground directly.

The key is that because the cockpit of an F1 car sits high, the driver cannot see the state of the front nose of his car.

So with the front nose being dragged along the ground, Gasly continued to accelerate his car, traveling a total of more than 500 meters forward.

It was not until the speed of the car reached 270 kilometers per hour that the front nose of the Gasly car finally could not withstand the increasing pull of ground friction and completely separated from the front nose of the car.

As a result, the entire nose of Gasly's car was involved in the chassis of Gasly's car, causing the little Toro Rosso to bounce up.

At this time, it happened to be T3, a long right-turn corner. Gasly's car took off because it lost traction on the ground, so the car plunged directly into the buffer zone.

But because Gasly was too fast, he could control the posture of the car even though he swung the steering wheel in the buffer zone.

However, due to the excessive speed and insufficient grip in the buffer zone, Gasly's swing of the steering wheel could only change the posture of the car, but it could not bring the car back from out of control.

So in order to reduce the loss, Gasly hurriedly corrected his steering wheel posture.

In the end, the front left suspension of Gasly's car hit the barrier.

Fortunately, after Gasly's adjustments, the impact was not serious, but the left suspension was destined to be scrapped.

Therefore, Gasly's retirement after this collision has become a certainty.

A yellow flag appeared on the track on the spot, and then the yellow flag turned into a safety car.

In addition to Gasly's accident, Kubica and Yuki Tsunoda at the end of the team also collided.

Yuki Tsunoda performed a standard American interception for Kubica.Fortunately, there were no problems with the cars of the two drivers. Although Kubica got stuck in the gravel, he still struggled to get out of the gravel with his car.

After that, the safety car was used for a total of three laps.

After the safety car led for three laps, the overhead indicator light went out, indicating that the race should continue.

Although this race was a bit tasteless for the drivers, in Verstappen's view, every point he could chase Qin Miao was worth a point, so Verstappen also tried his best to press the car in the starting stage.

Soon, as the safety car left the field, Verstappen held the car for a while and then suddenly started to start.

Qin Miao was naturally the first to keep up with Verstappen's pace. It can be said that Qin Miao is quite competitive in the field of starting.

After all, he is young. Compared with those older riders, Qin Miao's reaction speed is naturally much faster.

However, even though Verstappen was only one car length away from him after the start, due to the characteristics of the Monza track, the rear wing angles of all teams' cars were very small.

Therefore, the effect of the wake effect provided by the car in front to the driver behind is limited. In short, even if there is a wake from the car in front, the proximity rate between drivers on the straight is still very low. .

At the same time, the DRS efficiency at the Monza track is also very low. After all, the rear wing angle of the car is very small, and even if DRS is turned on, the drag reduction can be very limited.

So even though Qin Miao was not pulled away by Verstappen after the start, and Qin Miao followed Verstappen after exiting the corner, Qin Miao still did not complete the challenge for Verstappen all the way to T1 in Monza. Stapan's transcendence.

Even the outside tap was not done, it only reached half the distance of the car behind Verstappen and entered the braking point.

After all, for everyone, this game is just a sprint qualifying match.

Therefore, Qin Miao did not attack Verstappen in the rest of the game.

Although Ricciardo behind Qin Miao wanted to go to a higher level, McLaren could only sigh in the face of Mercedes' car.

When the race came to the fifth lap, Qin Miao got rid of Ricciardo behind him for 5 seconds.

Everyone can distinguish the priority, which is to bring the car back safely.

If in this race, like Gasly who has already retired, he crashes and retires instead of getting a ranking, then the gain outweighs the loss.

This is an unacceptable loss for both the driver and the team.

After all, even if Gasly's car was repaired after his crash, the parts reinstalled on the car would not be installed in the same position and angle as his previous car parts.

Also because it was different before, the feedback the car gave to the driver when driving at high speed was also different.

Due to the false delay, Gasly's racing training was completely useless after the crash.

In tomorrow's race, even if Gasly still performs well in recent games, he will not be able to show his true strength due to the disorder in car tuning.

In addition, Toro Rosso also has to pay a repair fee for this.

Although it is named Red Bull, the budget of the Little Toro Rosso team is not comparable to that of the Big Red Bull, and life is also tight.

Therefore, no one competed too hard with other drivers in the rest of the race.

Even overtaking is done only when conditions permit.

Everyone wants to get their car safely back to the garage.

The race is almost over here. At least if the top few riders don't fight to the death, their rankings won't change much.

Finally, sprint qualifying at Monza came to an end.

Verstappen started second and took home the championship, gaining three points.

Qin Miao was second and gained two points.

Ricciardo finished third and gained a point.

The next rankings are:
4: Norris
5: Hamilton

6: Leclerc

7: Sainz
8: Giovinazzi
9: Perez
10: Stroll

ps. I went to have my teeth extracted. Sorry, I only have so much today.

(End of this chapter)