How did I become an F1 driver?

261: Defense gate, activated! (Free 45)

In this race, Verstappen's momentum was very strong. In the first lap, because there was no turbulence from the car in front, he opened up 1.8 seconds behind Hamilton on the first lap.

Qin Miao followed Hamilton 1.4 seconds behind.

Just like Hamilton couldn't keep up with Verstappen ahead, Qin Miao couldn't keep up with Hamilton ahead.

After all, Qin Miao was using medium tires, so it was understandable that he couldn't keep up with the car in front.

With the end of the first lap, the entire car formation was completely sorted out, and all drivers lined up to pass the monitoring points on the track.

On the third lap, when Verstappen crossed the line, he directly set the fastest lap of the entire race. Not long after, the director also gave comparative data. Verstappen lapped faster than Hamilton at Zandvoort. It was 0.391 seconds faster than Qin Miao’s single lap, which was 0.919 seconds faster.

The gap between the top three drivers is quickly widening.

For Qin Miao, the bad news was that he could not keep up with the two drivers ahead of him on the medium tires. The good news was that on the fifth lap, Qin Miao had more than 3 seconds of clean air in front of him.

There is a 3-second difference between Hamilton's car and the turbulence of Hamilton's car having the least impact on the aerodynamic layout of Qin Miao's car.

Another good news is that although Qin Miao was using medium tires, Gasly, who was using soft tires behind him, was also pulled away by Qin Miao by more than 2 seconds within four laps.

The riders behind could not put any pressure on Qin Miao.

Only four laps into the race, Qin Miao turned on the cruise mode.

In fact, if the two Ferraris behind Gasly were not blocked by Gasly, they would indeed pose a threat to Qin Miao.

At least there wouldn't be a tire gap, and Qin Miao would be separated by more than two seconds within four laps.

But it’s still a common problem. This season’s cars are too difficult to follow. When following the car in front through a corner within one second, the car behind will lose 60% of the downforce of the aerodynamic components. Especially in Zandvoort, it is more than one car. A track that is curved and difficult to overtake.

In short, although the starting advantage was not realized at the start, at least the result after the start was satisfactory to Qin Miao and the Mercedes team.

From this point on, the team began to pay attention to the gap between Hamilton and Verstappen in front, and began to help Hamilton calculate when he could try to pit and under cut Verstappen in front.

At this time, Hamilton can safely try the under cut boldly. After all, there is a defensive gate Qin Miao behind him to protect him.

If Red Bull doesn't want Verstappen to see the rear of Qin Miao's car after exiting the station, all he can do is let Verstappen take advantage of the fact that he still has the tire advantage to put a gap between himself and Qin Miao. The gap should be widened to more than 20 seconds or less than 10 seconds, so that Verstappen will not fall behind Qin Miao's car after entering the pits.

So now that the race started, Red Bull asked Verstappen to speed up in the TR, while Frankie asked Qin Miao to run his own pace. As for reminding Qin Miao to keep himself in line with Verstappen in front of him, The gap between them should be kept within 20 seconds?
There is no need to mention it at all, because Qin Miao's speed is not that slow, and Verstappen's soft tires cannot last that long.

The most important thing is that there is Hamilton behind Verstappen who is constantly putting pressure on him, and he has to muster a certain amount of energy to pay attention to the gap between Hamilton's car and himself.After that, the excitement between the drivers at the front of the race disappeared in a short time, and the only thing worth watching was Perez at the rear constantly overtaking the drivers in front of him.

Although it is quite interesting to watch the Mars rover hoist the Earth's rover, this is actually what it should be. It can even be said that if Perez, driving a Red Bull, had not passed Latifi, Mick Schumacher and the like, this would not have been possible. normal.

On lap No. 12, the gap between Qin Miao and Verstappen ahead has been widened to 10 seconds, while the gap between Hamilton and Verstappen is still within 2 seconds.

It is almost a position that will not be affected by the wake of Verstappen's car, but is always a threat to Verstappen.

"Isn't the gap between Qin Miao and Verstappen widening too fast? Does Qin Miao still have a chance to compete for the championship in this game?" Fei Ge asked with some worry after seeing the situation on the field at this time. : "Mercedes won't just give up on Qin Miao just to let Qin Miao help Hamilton stop Verstappen for a while, right?"

"No." Zhou Haoran didn't even lower his head to look at the real-time tire data on the laptop in front of him. As one of Qin Miao's fans, Zhou Haoran knew how many sets of tires Qin Miao still had after the qualifying session yesterday. reserves, so after Brother Fei asked, he explained directly: "Qin Miao also has a new set of red tires. Mercedes should be preparing to stop Qin Miao in yellow and red, waiting for Qin Miao to come into the station to change tires. By then, the gap between Gasly and Qin Miao behind should be more than 20 seconds. By then, Qin Miao, who is lightly loaded with fuel and using soft tires, has the possibility of catching up with Hamilton and Verstappen."

"Yes, and based on Qin Miao's strength on both offense and defense, it is not impossible for Qin Miao to beat these two to win the championship in the final stage." Brother Bing finally interjected.

On lap 20, the good news for Mercedes came.

The soft tires of the two drivers in front began to fail and their speed slowed down significantly. According to the data given by the pilot, the remaining tires of the soft tires of the two drivers in front were only 30% on average.

The tire wear of Qin Miao at the rear was just over 55%, and as the tires of the two drivers in front began to degrade, Qin Miao was faster than the two drivers in front of him every lap starting from the 18th lap, and as he continued to As more and more laps are run on the track, the speed of this pursuit becomes faster and faster.

"Okay! Qin Miao's speed has increased!" Fei Ge raised his arms and shouted.

On lap 21, the Mercedes team called Hamilton back, whose tires had begun to deteriorate, and prepared to let Hamilton pit and try to undercut Verstappen.

After Hamilton put on the medium tires and came out, he fell 15 seconds behind Qin Miao.

As for Red Bull, Verstappen naturally responds to changes by staying the same. Since you, Hamilton, have pitted, I will pit with you.

As for Qin Miao?

The gap between Verstappen and Qin Miao is now 10 seconds. Verstappen will fall about 10 seconds behind Qin Miao after pitting.

As long as Qin Miao doesn't really give up chasing the championship and directly slows down to stop Verstappen, Verstappen will have at least 10 seconds of clean air.

When Verstappen relied on these 10 seconds of clean air to catch up with Qin Miao, Qin Miao's tires had almost deteriorated, and he had to stop Verstappen for three laps at most before he had to pit.

Therefore, Red Bull’s pit stop pressure is not high at this time.

(End of this chapter)