How did I become an F1 driver?

Chapter 292 Chapter 295: Mexico Qualifying

"Then I hope that one day you can enter F2, challenge the race record I set in F2, and refresh it."

When Qin Miao said this, Qiu Meng quietly poked Qin Miao in the back.

Don’t you have any idea of ​​the specific components of F2?
Saying this at this time will not only fail to encourage Arthur, but may very well damage his self-confidence.

After all, Qin Miao's results in F2, let alone those in the racing industry, felt outrageous to outsiders.

Fortunately, Arthur inherited his brother's naivety and did not find it difficult to fulfill Qin Miao's expectations for him. Instead, he swore and patted his chest and promised: "I will definitely do it!"

After a brief chat, Qin Miao took Qiu Meng into Leclerc's home.

"You came so early?" Leclerc was still packing his things at this time, and looked very surprised when he saw these two people.

Qin Miao shrugged, and took some dried fruits from the plate of dried fruits in Leclerc's house without any courtesy at all. He ate them and said while eating: "The main reason is that Qiu Meng has a habit of being a little early, and I usually like to get stuck."

Leclerc nodded clearly: "Treat this place as your own home and find a place to sit. It will take a while for me to clean up."

Qin Miao showed the dried fruit in her hand, which meant that she was not polite to you at all.

After a while, Arthur came back and came to Qin Miao's side.

Because of Qin Miao's age, Qin Miao has become somewhat desensitized to the fact that people much older than him are his fans.

And putting aside his relationship with Leclerc, Arthur is just an ordinary young man who can drive an F3 car and has a certain amount of racing talent.

Therefore, after the initial shock, Qin Miao was able to correct his mentality and start chatting calmly with Leclerc's brother Arthur.

However, although Qin Miao seemed very relaxed at this time, Arthur was still a little overly excited after meeting his idol.

He was a little stumbling when he spoke: "Qin Miao, can I...can I take a photo with you?"

Naturally, Qin Miao would not refuse the request for photos and autographs with Arthur.

Because Qin Miao and the others started waiting at Leclerc's house after they came over, Leclerc packed up his things much faster.

The three of them went out at nine fifty.

After all, he was going to work this time. Since Arthur still had training tasks, he naturally couldn't go to Mexico with Qin Miao and the others.

There was naturally laughter and laughter on the road. Qin Miao and Leclerc could always find something to talk about when they were together. Even if they stopped chatting, they could pull Qiu Meng over and the three of them could have a table to play Landlord.

Not to mention, Leclerc got an extra XBOX on his plane and downloaded a lot of games after Qin Miao flirted with him on the plane.

So Qin Miao didn't feel bored all the way to Mexico.

After landing, Qin Miao separated from Leclerc.

After their plane landed in Mexico, they entered the work area.

In the next period of time, both of them have their own work to be busy with, and they don't work in the same place, so separation is inevitable.

There is a branch of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel near the Mexican track, and this hotel is one of Mercedes' sponsors, so Qin Miao and the others stayed in this hotel throughout the team's race week.

After landing, Qin Miao didn't start doing anything. Instead, he found Barber immediately. The two went to the hotel's own gym to start adaptive exercises.

As mentioned before, the altitude of Mexico City is a problem. Although Qin Miao will not feel out of breath here due to her strong physical fitness, it is a fact that the air here is thinner than other tracks.

Although you can't feel it, such an environment will have some impact on the driver's body.

Qin Miao needs to adapt to this high-altitude climate on Wednesday and Thursday, and naturally needs the guidance of a professional like Barber.

So Qin Miao didn't take any rest all day on Wednesday, and spent all his time adapting to the local climate.

On Thursday, Qin Miao's work began.

I walked the track in the morning, had something to eat and rested for a while at noon, and then started adaptive training again.

Qin Miao rejected the team's filming plan on Thursday afternoon. According to Qin Miao's agreement with the team, it will be fine for him not to participate in any media and sponsor activities throughout the next season.

Friday, the start of the Mexican Grand Prix.

Mexico is in the southern part of North America and is almost in the same time zone as the United States, so the race time in Mexico is still relatively dark for European and Asian car fans.

In China, the first practice started at 11:6 in the morning on November 1th, and the second practice went directly to 30:5 in the morning.

Therefore, there were very few domestic fans who stayed up late to watch the race during the first and second practice stages.

However, there were many fans who arrived during the first and second practice sessions. Mexicans are still quite concerned about the F1 competition, not to mention that Mexican driver Perez is in the Red Bull Racing Team.

And based on the performance of Red Bull Racing, Perez is expected to be on the podium in this race.

So for today's Grand Prix, Mexican fans are very enthusiastic.

Therefore, on Friday alone, the number of Mexican fans who arrived at the event reached 15.

That's just the number of fans on Friday.

During the first practice session, Qin Miao and Hamilton started complaining about the state of the track the first lap they took to the track.

The track at this time was too dirty. The organizers did not clean the track surface properly at all. The driving line was full of dust, gravel, grass and other debris.

When the car is running on it, you can clearly feel that the rear wheel of the car is slipping, even if the tire temperature rises.

This state lasted throughout the first and second practices.

Of course, as the practice session entered the later stages of the second practice, the track conditions did improve, and all the drivers achieved faster results than their own in the first practice.

In Mexico, a track that is not friendly to the characteristics of Mercedes-Benz cars, the two Mercedes drivers unexpectedly took first and second place in the first and second practice sessions.

The time gap between Qin Miao and Hamilton is not big, only 0.131 seconds.

However, the results of the practice session can only be used as a reference. In this practice session, the two Mercedes drivers, Qin Miao and Hamilton, can be said to have no reservations, while the two Red Bull drivers, Bao Qi, hid something.

After the first and second practice sessions, both Qin Miao and Hamilton also completed the actual machine testing of the new cooling system.

The result was naturally satisfactory. The team found no signs of overheating in the engine throughout the process, and the heat dissipation efficiency was better than expected. In the long-distance race of the race, Mercedes' car may benefit from this.

But apart from that, both Qin Miao and Hamilton encountered a lot of problems.

Although the team set up high downforce settings for their cars, when running on the track, both of them reported that the car's downforce was insufficient.At the same time, the tires of the racing car are also prone to overheating, there are problems with the balance and consistency of the racing car, the DRS efficiency is not high, the brake temperature is too high, etc.

To be honest, before the race started, no one in the Mercedes team would have thought that they would encounter so many problems after the race started.

All the technicians and engineers in the first and second training are hurriedly working on solving these problems.

Qin Miao and Hamilton were not free during the two-and-a-half-hour break between the first and second practices. They were pulled by the team's strategy team to discuss the specific reasons for the problem, and they were asked to come up with an appropriate solution.

But fortunately, the Mercedes-Benz team's technical background is rich enough. Most of these problems were solved on Friday. It is not impossible for other problems to be solved in a practice session on Saturday.

Saturday.

More Mexican fans came to watch the race on Saturday than on Friday.

Officials reported that 20 fans arrived at the event on Saturday.

Yesterday, there were only a few fans sitting in some remote stands, but today all the stands were filled with local Mexican fans.

Moreover, most of the fans in the stands were wearing the black uniforms of the Red Bull Racing team. Ferrari fans, the largest number of fans, did not see many in this game.

In the third practice session on Saturday, Qin Miao and Hamilton completed the final debugging of the car and solved all the problems that were discovered and undiscovered.

However, what surprised Qin Miao and Hamilton, the two Mercedes drivers, was that Red Bull in the third practice stage seemed to have suddenly awakened and became extremely fast.

At the end of the third practice, the average time difference between the two Red Bulls and the two Mercedes came to 0.6 seconds.

This time gap left everyone at Mercedes confused for a moment.

"How did these gangsters escape?" This doubt lingered in the minds of everyone at Mercedes-Benz, but no one at Mercedes-Benz felt panic or trouble.

Soon, the third practice session ended, and after a two-hour break, it was time for qualifying for the Mexican Grand Prix.

This game is still handled by three commentators from Five Star Sports.

In the Q1 qualifying session, Qin Miao and Hamilton didn't even finish their first flying lap when a red flag appeared on the track.

The reason was that Stroll's car spun during the exit stage. The car was completely smashed and the car stopped directly behind the starting grid. It was a serious obstruction to traffic and made it difficult to evacuate, so the competition had no choice but to Send out red flags.

20 minutes later, as the wreckage of Stroll's car was cleared and the car was towed away by a crane, Q1 started again.

But when the drivers came out of the pit area, there were only 1 minutes left before the end of Q10, and there were still many drivers who had not achieved Q1 results at this time.

So everyone knows that at this time, they must get on the track quickly and run a valid result first no matter what.

Due to the tight schedule and heavy tasks, plus 20 cars racing on the track, it is easy for traffic problems to occur and lead to a decrease in qualifying lap times.

Therefore, at Qin Miao's initiative, the team took the lead in releasing Qin Miao from the pit area.

Q1的 6:19秒，秦淼完成了自己第一个飞行圈，成绩 1:16.991。

After this result came out, Qin Miao's ranking reached second place.

After finishing this lap, Qin Miao returned to the P room of the team. Qin Miao did not go out for the entire Q1 because it was not necessary.

This result is enough to send Qin Miao into Q2.

In the end, when the clock stopped in Q1, Qin Miao advanced to Q2 in the fourth position, without any surprises.

Qin Miao's teammate Hamilton also entered Q2 with the first flying lap.

After resting and adjusting in the pit area for 10 minutes, Qin Miao slightly increased the angle of his front nose before driving his car onto the track.

It is true that the car's tuning settings cannot be adjusted during the qualifying stage, but these restrictions do not include adjusting the angle of the car's front nose.

The main reason why Qin Miao did this was because he was going to run on medium tires in Q2. The grip of medium tires is naturally much worse than that of soft tires.

Qin Miao naturally needs to make up for the lost downforce from other places. If it is difficult to adjust other places, he can only do it from the front nose.

Q2 will start soon.

Verstappen brought his time to 1:16.483 on the first lap.

Hamilton soon responded with a time of 1:16.499.

Although Hamilton is not as fast as Verstappen, the time difference between the two is only 0.016 seconds, which is almost nothing.

Half a minute later, Qin Miao also completed his first flight lap in Q2 with a time of 1:16.583, which was exactly 0.1 seconds slower than Verstappen.

After this lap, Qin Miao ranked third.

After the journey was over, Qin Miao immediately slowed down the speed of his car and brought the car safely back to the P room.

Qin Miao's results are similar to those he ran in the Q1 stage, and can also allow him to directly advance to the next round.

However, Qin Miao did not choose to stop running after getting a result that ensured the next round like Q1.

But when Qin Miao came out, the tires were wearing a set of soft tires that had been run for several laps.

Qin Miao was completely using the remaining time to run long-distance tests.

See how the soft tire performs at speed after excessive wear.

In the end, Qin Miao advanced to Q2 with fourth place in Q3, without any surprises.

At the beginning of Q3, Mercedes' strategy team explained to Qin Miao and Hamilton that they planned to let the two drivers pull into each other's wake.

Of course, the team has said that it will not interfere with the internal competition between Qin Miao and Hamilton, but when it comes to internal issues, beating Red Bull is obviously a higher priority for Mercedes.

Therefore, the team hopes that Qin Miao and Hamilton will each create a wake for the other in Q3.

This can effectively gain an advantage in the qualifying stage, and the race stage will naturally be easier to run.

Qin Miao naturally had no objection, and Hamilton nodded in agreement after thinking for a while.

After all, the starting straight of the Rodriguez Brothers Circuit is very long. Although the wake effect here is not obvious due to the thin air, in qualifying, the effect of the wake is still there, and it can more or less provide relief to those behind. The car provides a little speed.

(End of this chapter)