How did I become an F1 driver?

It also rained during the national anthem and swearing-in session before the race for the twenty drivers.

But the rain wasn't heavy. It was a light rain that would take two or three minutes to get wet even if you stood in the rain without an umbrella.

Despite this, the drivers still put on semi-wet tires during the preparation phase.

After all, as long as there is a little water on the track, Norris at the last Russian Grand Prix stage will tell you how slippery the track is.

Before the start of the race, Qin Miao's inner emotions were a bit complicated. On the one hand, he was happy that it would be more difficult for Hamilton to catch up with him when it was raining.

Without Qin Miao doing anything, the four Red Bull drivers behind would not have allowed Hamilton to catch up so easily.

On the other hand, I am also worried that I will not perform well in this rain.

After all, Verstappen is behind him. Judging from his and Verstappen's positions in the standings, Verstappen will definitely spare no effort to attack Qin Miao in this game.

But when Qin Miao got into his racing car, the worries in his mind were automatically thrown away by Qin Miao.

Qin Miao couldn't control other things, but Qin Miao knew that if he wanted to get a satisfactory result on this track, all he could control was to do everything he could do as much as possible.

After some preparation, Reyes also explained to Qin Miao again the weather conditions and wind direction on the track, as well as some details that Qin Miao needed to pay attention to.

After Qin Miao went through Reyes' words in his mind, he gave Reyes a thumbs up to indicate that he understood.

Then the engineers of all the teams on the track evacuated to both sides of the track, and the race was about to begin.

As the two green lights came on, Qin Miao drove his car away from his grid.

Due to the accumulation of rain, Qin Miao had just started running, and the water mist raised by Qin Miao's rear wheel had already affected Verstappen's line of sight behind him.
And not long after Qin Miao started, he also received another piece of news from the team that I don’t know whether it’s good or bad.

"Qin Miao, according to the forecast of the meteorological department, this rain may last for the entire game." There was also some worry in Franky's tone.

"I know." Qin Miao replied.

However, at this time, Qin Miao actually did not have the same worries as Franky.

No matter how many tangled thoughts Qin Miao had in his heart before the start of the race, as long as he sat in the cockpit of the racing car, all the negative emotions in Qin Miao's heart would always be dispelled by a sense of security.

It's like returning to the mother's arms, the swaddling clothes of childhood.

Qin Miao, who was not focused on anything else, finished the warm-up lap of the Turkish Grand Prix and stopped at his position.

As the pursuit vehicle from behind took position.

Five red lights come on and off.

The moment the five red lights went out, Qin Miao ejected and started.

Surprisingly, under the dibuff of rain, Qin Miao started surprisingly well.

Verstappen, who was behind Qin Miao, had a decent start, while Leclerc, who was behind Qin Miao, started slightly better than Verstappen, but he couldn't be as fast as Qin Miao.

Therefore, Qin Miao did not feel too much pressure after this start. During the process of arriving at T1, Qin Miao only occasionally glanced at his rearview mirror to determine the positions of the two drivers behind him who were threatening him. Other than that, most of the focus is on the track in front of you.

Thanks to most of his attention being on the track, Qin Miao quickly opened up the time gap with Verstappen behind him after finishing the first timing section.

"It's a good start, keep up the good work." After the start, Franky's encouragement sounded in Qin Miao's TR.

"Copy that, continue to pay attention to the weather conditions for me." Qin Miao asked after answering.

"I will inform you as soon as possible if there is any situation." Franky replied.

Although he didn't know if the Red Bull behind him was in any trouble, after starting, Qin Miao felt that Verstappen behind him was obviously not as fast as himself.

So after just one lap, Qin Miao, who was pushing hard, opened up a gap of more than one second behind Verstappen.

However, in Qin Miao's view, a 1 second time gap is not safe enough, so Qin Miao continues to expand the time gap between himself and Verstappen.

After the first lap, the time gap between Qin Miao and Verstappen behind him came to 1 seconds.

Without any interference, Qin Miao's rain fighting ability is actually barely noticeable. After all, the system forcibly gave him so many points. At least Qin Miao's single lap speed will not be too slow.

Hamilton had already reached ninth place at this time, rising two places directly from the start.

The two drivers Hamilton overtook were Alonso and Vettel.

Alonso collided with Gasly after exiting Turn 1 at the start. The car skidded off the track and turned 360 degrees.

The collision was solely the fault of Toro Rosso driver Gasly, who was given a five-second penalty after the subsequent FIA investigation.

However, compared with Alonso, this penalty is actually not too severe.

Readers who have raced in F1 know that if a Formula One car skids at the starting stage or makes a mistake of running off the track, the position will really be lost.

By the time Alonso rearranged his car and returned to the track, Alonso, who started from fifth place, had dropped to No. 18.

One number is no longer enough to describe Alonso's track accident.

There was no such accident for Vettel. Hamilton directly overtook Vettel in front of him. This overtaking relied on pure racing performance, and there is nothing to elaborate on.

After completing the start without any surprises, Qin Miao began his cruising, and during the cruising he continued to widen the time gap between him and Verstappen behind him.

Not only was Qin Miao surprised that he was faster than Verstappen in the rain battle, Red Bull and Mercedes were also surprised by this.

Red Bull was immediately in a mess, and began to hurriedly check whether there was anything wrong with Verstappen's car.

But they don't know what people on Mercedes' side they can find out. Anyway, they are very happy to see that Verstappen can't catch up with Qin Miao.

At the beginning of the game, they were worried about Qin Miao, but now it seems that this worry is completely unnecessary.

On the fifth lap, the time gap between Qin Miao and Verstappen behind him came to 5 seconds.

After reaching this time gap, Qin Miao did not continue to widen the time gap with Verstappen.

Although the team has told Qin Miao that according to the meteorological department's calculations, it may rain for the entire race.

However, the team's weather department did not say that the rain would definitely last the whole race, so the track conditions may improve later.

In order to cope with the changes in the track environment near the end, Qin Miao still hopes that his semi-wet tires will last longer, so after there is no threat from Verstappen behind him, Qin Miao enters the tire protection cruise model.

Control your lap time around 1:35.700, and the speed fluctuation will not exceed ±0.1 seconds.

Verstappen has wanted to get closer to Qin Miao several times. After all, there is still a points gap between Qin Miao and Verstappen, and the two also need to work hard for the first driver's championship in their careers. .

But Verstappen only caught up with Qin Miao on the ninth lap, but after getting here, Verstappen couldn't do anything, because when he caught up here, the team reminded Verstappen of his The tires have overheated, and if they continue to run like this, the life of the tires will be much shorter than the team calculated.

In the end, Verstappen had no choice but to slow down again and wanted to keep running within 1.5 seconds behind Qin Miao.

But Qin Miao obviously couldn't give Verstappen a chance to attack him, so Qin Miao quickly widened the gap.

Although Verstappen continued to try to attack Qin Miao in the follow-up, Qin Miao could always speed up a little before Verstappen caught up with him, so the time gap between the two changed. But neither of them had a real fight until the end of the game.

Therefore, the director basically didn't show any shots of these two people in this game. The director's shots were always focused on Hamilton who was constantly pursuing forward.

After all, compared to the two drivers who were running boring laps in front, Hamilton's overtaking show at the back was obviously more interesting.

It is worth mentioning that by the time the race came to the 10th lap, Sainz, who was punished to start at the end of the team for changing the engine, had already caught up with No. 11.

This pursuit speed is not unpleasant.

At this time, Hamilton had reached seventh place and began to chase Norris in front of him.

On the 11th lap of the starting straight, Hamilton completed his overtake of Norris. Norris didn't even defend Hamilton at the time.

Perhaps he is aware of the gap in strength and vehicle performance between himself and Hamilton, and there is no obvious conflict of interest between the two in terms of points, so it is understandable that Norris chose to protect his tires instead of defending Hamilton.

After Hamilton passed Norris in front of him, he was only 4 seconds behind Gasly in front.

In these 4 seconds, Hamilton ran a flying lap alone without any impact.

After this lap, Hamilton's data showed that he was 1.5 seconds faster than Qin Miao's lap.

After learning about Hamilton's pursuit speed, the three commentators from Five Star Sports were really shocked.

But they soon felt at ease. After all, there was Gasly, Perez, Leclerc, Verstappen and Qin Miao in front of Hamilton.

Since Qin Miao joined Mercedes-Benz, there has never been a moment like this for the three commentators from Five-Star Sports. They hope that the Red Bull drivers can defeat Hamilton.

On lap 15, Hamilton passed Gasly in front of him.

This overtaking was purely about crushing the performance of the car, there is nothing to say.After passing Gasly, Perez was 7 seconds ahead of Hamilton.

On the 17th lap, because he was constantly chasing the driver in front of him, Hamilton basically ran without reservation for these 17 laps.

As a result, Hamilton's tires deteriorated in advance, and the tread patterns on the inside of Hamilton's semi-weather tires were completely worn away.

On Qin Miao's side, the tires are still in good condition, the tread has become shallower, but they still have good drainage performance.

On the 20th lap, Verstappen behind Qin Miao finally chose to give up attacking Qin Miao.

Can't catch up, really can't catch up.

Moreover, Qin Miao's speed was still the speed Qin Miao ran with some reservations. Leclerc behind him was pulled by Verstappen to 9 seconds, but Verstappen still couldn't catch up with Qin Miao.

Once Verstappen enters the 1.5-second warning zone behind Qin Miao, Qin Miao will speed up a little, widening the gap to 2 seconds.

So at this time, the time gap between the two people was fixed at about 2.5 seconds, and the overall speed of the two people dropped.

On lap 22, Norris took the lead in blowing the horn to pit for tire changes. In the pit area, Norris put on a brand new set of semi-wet tires.

McLaren was probably betting that it would rain like this during the main race, so they called Norris in early, and then there was 11 seconds of clean air in front of Norris.

On lap 28, Frankie asked Qin Miao as usual: "How is the condition of the tires?"

From this angle, Qin Miao could just see the tread of his right front wheel. After taking a quick glance, Qin Miao made the fastest lap and replied: "Not bad, the tire should last for a while longer."

"Okay, please continue to protect the tires. If possible, your set of tires may be used until the end of the race."

Franky's words surprised Qin Miao: "Can we finish running directly?"

"Yes, but we will also make adjustments at any time according to the situation on the field. If anything happens, I will inform you as soon as possible."

Among the FIA ​​rules, there is no clear requirement that drivers must stop for a tire change when it rains.

As long as there are no taboos in the law, the same is true for the F1 rules formulated by the FIA.

Otherwise, there wouldn’t be so many team engineers studying the rules set by the FIA ​​day and night, just to be able to exploit loopholes in the rules.

The chat between Qin Miao and Franky was just played by the director. When the slow motion of the scene showed Qin Miao's racing tires, it was obvious that there was still a tire on the tire platform of Qin Miao's right front wheel. The existence of tattoos.

"Qin Miao's tire protection ability is really powerful." Looking at the tread patterns on Qin Miao's tires, Brother Bing sighed with emotion.

"It has been 28 laps, and Qin Miao's right front wheel has some signs of wear, but the tread is much shallower." Fei Ge also nodded.

On lap 30, Perez stayed behind for 15 laps, while Hamilton was still behind Perez.

Of course, it's not that Hamilton didn't attack Perez. The main reason was that Hamilton was shortening the time gap between himself and Perez in the previous period.

At this time, Hamilton's tire grip was no longer so strong. Like other drivers, the tread pattern of Hamilton's semi-rain tires had been worn away. At this time, Hamilton had begun to treat his semi-rain tires as a newer tire. Soft slick tires are in use.

Although there were traffic lanes on many corners on the track at this time, most areas were still covered by rain, so Hamilton's speed could not increase.

Instead, it was Qin Miao, who had already widened the time gap between himself and Verstappen to 5.2 seconds.

Everyone was wondering at this moment why Verstappen, whose average lap time on dry roads was 0.2 seconds faster than Qin Miao's per lap, was beaten by Qin Miao in rain battles where Qin Miao was not good at it. ?
On lap 33, Hamilton finally came behind Perez and began to try to attack Perez.

The director also focused the camera on these two drivers.

On lap 35, after two laps of chasing, Hamilton finally found an opportunity to attack Perez, and staged a wonderful wheel-to-wheel attack and defense battle for the audience in the third timing period.

This round-to-round offensive and defensive battle was the only relatively exciting offense and defense in this game.

The two fought for 4 corners before finally deciding the winner.

In the end, Perez relied on his resolute defense and several crossovers to defend Hamilton's offense.

After all, after driving in the paddock for so many years, Perez, despite his talent, cannot compare with talented players like Qin Miao.

But Perez definitely has enough game experience.

Although he was still a little uncomfortable with the overly sensitive front direction of the Red Bull Racing car, Perez's rich racing experience allowed Perez to make the most correct choice in the most suitable place.

Perez eventually defended Hamilton's attack.

It is worth mentioning that when the two were attacking and defending, Perez was once squeezed to the entrance of the pit lane by Hamilton.

On lap 37, after Red Bull discovered that Verstappen really couldn't catch up with Qin Miao, they called Verstappen in through Team TR.

If he continues to use old tires to follow Qin Miao, Verstappen will only be able to finish second in this race.

But at this time, Perez and Hamilton were in a constant struggle, so the time gap between the two and Leclerc in front had reached 20 seconds.

At this time, after Verstappen came out to change tires in close combat, he could get stuck in front of Perez, and after pitting to change tires, there would be a large area of ​​clean air in front of Verstappen.

After Verstappen came out of the pits, he fell just in front of Perez and behind Leclerc.

At this time, all the pressure came to Mei Ben and Qin Miao.

At this time, an option was placed in front of the Mercedes team strategy team staff. Verstappen behind Qin Miao pitted. Does Qin Miao also need to pit together?
They only had one lap to consider the issue and make a decision before Qin Miao pitted on the next lap.

The good news is that because of the time advantage Qin Miao created before pitting, both the Mercedes team and Qin Miao will be more calm when faced with the choice.

After all, even if he pits, Qin Miao will still have a time advantage over Verstappen when he comes out.

The Mercedes team is actually more inclined to let Qin Miao pit for tire changes.

Although Qin Miao's tires are now in good condition, and the most severely worn right front wheel has just shown signs of flattening, the team still feels that it is safer for Qin Miao to stop and change tires.

However, Qin Miao is a driver after all, and his feeling about driving a car is sometimes more correct than the team's judgment, so the team still consulted Qin Miao's intentions.

"Do you want to come in?"

Qin Miao felt that he could finish the race directly, but he really didn't know whether he should pit.

So Qin Miao told the truth: "If there is no rule in the race that requires one stop even in rainy conditions, I feel that I can run the entire race with this set of tires.

But if you guys want me to come in now I won't say no. "

After Frankie heard Qin Miao's words, he knew that Qin Miao wanted them to help Qin Miao make a decision, so Frankie quickly chatted with the staff of the team's strategy team and got a reply from the strategy team. Afterwards, French said in the team TR: "Okay, BOX, pit in the next lap."

"Ok."

On lap 38, Qin Miao chose to pit and put on brand new semi-weather tires.

After coming out, Qin Miao fell behind Leclerc and in front of Verstappen.

After all, Qin Miao and Verstappen pitted one after the other. No matter how unfavorable Verstappen was, he would never be able to catch up with Qin Miao's 5-second gap in just one lap.

Perez helped Verstappen block Hamilton behind him, and also helped Qin Miao.

But Red Bull couldn't do anything because Verstappen was too slow today.

After Qin Miao came out, he was 6 seconds behind Leclerc and 4.5 seconds behind Verstappen, which was a relatively comfortable position.

Now what Qin Miao needs to study is whether Leclerc in front of him will choose to pit. If Leclerc wants to finish the race with his current set of semi-wet tires, how can Qin Miao surpass the opponent.

Qin Miao's lap speed is guaranteed in the rain, but his overtaking ability is really average. Qin Miao doesn't dare to guarantee that he will be able to overtake Leclerc in front of him.

Of course, there are still twenty laps to go before the end of the race. If Leclerc really doesn't pit, Qin Miao still has a long time and opportunity to try to surpass Leclerc.

It is worth mentioning that on the same lap as Qin Miao pitted, Vettel also chose to pit.

But unlike other drivers who pitted for semi-wet tires, Vettel pitted for medium tires.

So it was foreseeable that Vettel started to slip after coming out of the pit area.

Although there were already traffic lanes on many corners on the track at this time, it was different from what the Martin team expected. Although there were already traffic lanes on the track, Vettel, who was using hard tires, drove the car up and it was still very slippery. , there is no grip at all on the driving line.

Of course, for Martin Racing, this is just a gamble.

But they lost the bet.

But the Martin team, which lost the bet, sounded the alarm to all other teams that the track conditions at this time did not allow them to use dry tires.

Like the Martin Racing Team, many teams that saw obvious traffic lanes on the track and wanted their drivers to pit and put on dry-terrain tires immediately gave up their unrealistic thoughts. (End of chapter)