How did I become an F1 driver?

Chapter 296 Chapter 299: Finished running a set of hard tires? (6K, 1420 more updates)

But worth mentioning.

On lap 24, Qin Miao had just completed his overtaking of Kimi.

Hamilton was already almost 9 seconds ahead of Verstappen.

Red Bull's trust in Verstappen was duly rewarded. They did not trust the wrong person, and Verstappen really defeated Hamilton.

After the safety car was withdrawn and Verstappen started, until now, Verstappen has not given Hamilton any chance to attack him.

At this time, Hamilton also complained in the team TR with some annoyance: "Red Bull is much faster than us in this game."

It sounded like he was complaining, but in fact Hamilton was putting pressure on the team.

What kind of crappy car did you give me?Why can't Verstappen catch up?
It's not just Hamilton who feels overwhelmed at this time. In addition to the Mercedes staff who are paying attention to Qin Miao, everyone else watching Verstappen running further and further away has the same feeling as Hamilton at this time. Unreal feeling.

After all, in the qualifying session yesterday, the two Red Bulls were running like B.

Who would have thought that in the race, Verstappen opened up Hamilton by 9 seconds in just 2.2 laps, and Perez could follow Hamilton [-] seconds behind and continue to put pressure on Hamilton and Mercedes' strategy team.

However, Qin Miao didn't know how anxious the team was. At this time, Qin Miao was quite relaxed.

It’s hard to tell how fast Qin Miao is in this game, but Qin Miao is really chopping things up all the way, except for Giovinazzi and Ricca who lined up behind Qin Miao after coming out of the pit area. In addition, every driver behind Qin Miao was passed by Qin Miao.

At least it proves that Qin Miao's speed in this game is definitely impressive.

On lap 31, Qin Miao completed his overtake of Vettel.

In this overtaking, it took Qin Miao 5 laps to catch up with Vettel, and another two laps to overtake Vettel.

After this overtaking was completed, Qin Miao reached the seventh position.

And 11 seconds ahead of him is Sainz.

After seeing this time gap, the three commentators from Five Star Sports breathed a sigh of relief.

In this race, Qin Miao passed one driver from time to time, and passed another driver from time to time.

Even putting aside his role as a commentator, purely from the perspective of a car fan, they were really pleased with Qin Miao's performance.

But as a commentator, I have to say a paragraph every time Qin Miao overtakes, which is really tiring.

This feeling of pain and joy can finally come to an end.

Now that Qin Miao has finally reached a window period where there are no slower cars or other drivers blocking him, Qin Miao can run a long distance comfortably and find ways to cool down his tires and engine.

But on lap 31, Leclerc chose to pit.

After Leclerc came out, he fell directly to 10th, behind Alonso.

Because of this, Qin Miao's ranking moved up to sixth place.

However, at this time, except for Hamilton and Qin Miao, no other driver in front of Leclerc entered the pit. Moreover, Qin Miao's pit stop was also done before the start of the race, so he was bound to have to make another pit stop.

Therefore, Ferrari feels that Leclerc's original fifth place can still be maintained.

The pit stops of Hamilton and Leclerc also completely opened the pit stop window for the front row drivers.

On lap 32, Gasly, who was ranked third after Hamilton pitted, came out and ranked eighth.

It is worth mentioning that Zhou Haoran, who had been paying attention to Qin Miao's lap time, suddenly let out a sigh, and then said: "The speed of Leclerc's new white tire in this lap was actually 33 laps faster than Qin Miao's old white tire. The speed is the same?!”

"Ah? Is Qin Miao so fast now?" Brother Bing and Brother Fei were a little surprised after hearing Zhou Haoran's words.

"Well, even Qin Miao was 0.1 seconds faster than Leclerc."

"Let's look at it again. It must have been the first lap. Leclerc's tires did not reach the appropriate operating temperature."

……

On lap 34, Verstappen came into the pits, which took 2.2 seconds. After coming out, he fell into second place, in front of Hamilton and behind Perez.

In this race, Verstappen was too fast, not only leaving Hamilton behind, but also his teammates.

On the 37th lap, Qin Miao caught up to the position 8 seconds behind Sainz. After 6 laps, he chased for 3 seconds and slowed down obviously. Behind Qin Miao was Gasly, who was originally ranked fourth. Sli is 4 seconds away from Qin Miao.

Although Qin Miao's position is already in front of Gasly at this time, and according to the data provided by the FIA, Qin Miao's speed is the same as Gasly's.

But no one at Red Bull was worried about this, because everyone felt that Qin Miao would not be able to run the entire race on the hard tires, and he would definitely have to stop for a tire change.
-
So Red Bull is just waiting for Qin Miao's pit stop.

As soon as Qin Miao enters the station, Red Bull will be ready to put pressure on Qin Miao.

On the 40th lap, Qin Miao's speed began to drop, but to be honest, it didn't drop much.

However, Qin Miao's fatigue was also noticed by Gasly behind Qin Miao, and he began to shorten the time gap between himself and Qin Miao.

At the same time, Perez chose to pit, put on hard tires, and came out 4 seconds ahead of Sainz.

On lap 43, the time gap between Qin Miao and Sainz in front came to 3 seconds.

At this time, Qin Miao's tires began to fail uncontrollably, and the condition of Sainz's tires in front of Qin Miao was naturally the same.

Even because Sainz was using medium tires, his degree of depletion was naturally more severe than Qin Miao's, so Qin Miao could still slowly but steadily shorten the time gap with Sainz.

At this time, the team also discovered that Qin Miao's lap speed began to decline, so they asked in the team's TR: "Qin Miao, how is the condition of the tires?"

"I feel it's ok."

"Okay, keep it up."

These words seemed to be just an ordinary exchange between the driver and the track engineer. In fact, the team was asking Qin Miao if he was ready to pit for new tires.

But Qin Miao refused.

Mei Ben naturally knew Qin Miao's ability to protect her pregnancy, so she believed Qin Miao's words.

At the same time, they also guessed what Qin Miao was thinking. They thought that Qin Miao might want to pit around lap 51 and put on soft tires directly.

Red Bull also had doubts, but in theory the soft tires could last around 20 laps at the Rodriguez Brothers circuit.

But Qin Miao will definitely have to overtake the driver in front of him after falling behind Leclerc, so the consumption of soft tires will be very large. Red Bull does not have to worry about Qin Miao being able to surpass Gasly in this game.

In the P room of the Red Bull Racing Team, Marco even smiled and said to Horner: "This young man Qin Miao does have some strength and talent, but sometimes his decisions are too arbitrary."

Horner on the side also nodded in agreement with Marco's point of view.

At the same time, Sainz finally chose to pit for tire changes.

The tire change time is 2.3 seconds. Although the circus often performs repairs, there is one thing to say. When not performing repairs, Ferrari is still worthy of their name and so many years of F1 history.

After coming out, Sainz was 6.8 seconds behind teammate Leclerc, ranking seventh, and Ricciardo was 7 seconds behind.

In other words, if Qin Miao also pits at this time, he will be ranked in front of Ricciardo after coming out, which is Sainz's seventh place at this time.

In 43 laps, Qin Miao chased from 17th at the end of the team to 7th, catching up to 43 positions in 10 laps.

Although Qin Miao's final ranking in this game stopped at 7th, no one would say that Qin Miao's performance in this game was not good enough, but neither Qin Miao nor everyone at Mercedes felt that this was enough.

After Sainz pitted, many people thought that Mercedes would let Qin Miao pit too to prevent themselves from being pulled too far by Sainz. However, what surprised them was that Qin Miao did not. He didn't do that and continued on the track.

At this time, Qin Miao was 11 seconds ahead of Perez and 6.5 seconds behind Gasly, ranking fourth.

On lap 51, just when everyone thought Qin Miao would pit, Qin Miao chose to stay on the track and the time gap between him and Gasly that was still shrinking stopped. The gap between people even remains the same.

As for Perez in front of Qin Miao?

If you can't catch up, you really can't catch up.

On lap 55, the time gap between Qin Miao and Gasly was still 6 seconds, and the commentator was a little uneasy now.

"Qin Miao...is he planning to finish the race with a set of white tires?" Brother Bing saw Qin Miao who had not yet entered the station, and his eyes were filled with absurdity.

"Actually, this time has passed the best pit stop window. I feel that Mercedes really wants Qin Miao to run the entire race on white tires, but white tires shouldn't last that long, right?" Fei Brother is also confused.

"According to the tire data provided by Pirelli, this set of white tires can run up to 60 laps. After 60 laps, the tire's grip will drop significantly." Zhou Haoran said: "At this time, this set of white tires on Qin Miao's tires will Already done 54 laps on white tires?" But Brother Bing quickly found another focus: "How is Qin Miao's speed now?"

After hearing this, Zhou Haoran lowered his head and glanced at the data on the laptop in front of him, and then said in a strange voice: "The speed has begun to decline, but compared to Gasly, Qin Miao is only about 0.2 seconds slower per lap."

After hearing this, the two commentators in the Five-Star Sports Studio were silent for a while.

After a while, Brother Fei asked quietly: "Does Qin Miao really want to run on a white tire? It's impossible, right?"

What the commentators didn't know was that the Mercedes team actually asked Qin Miao on lap 53 if he needed to come in and change a set of soft tires or something like that. According to the team's strategy team's calculations, Qin Miao would pit at this time. Qin Miao changed to soft tires and no matter how he overtook in subsequent races, he did not need to worry about tire wear.

But Qin Miao still used the same reason: "The tire condition feels pretty good. I think I can continue to persist on the track."

After all, the steering wheel is in Qin Miao's hands. Even if the team has an idea, if Qin Miao doesn't cooperate, they can only watch.

Moreover, the speed that Qin Miao showed at this time was indeed as Qin Miao himself said, it was competitive to a certain extent.

……

As time went by, when the race came to lap 56, Qin Miao was more than 28 seconds slower than Perez in front of him.

Although it looks quite desperate, after the accident at the start, the battle for the podium in this game has nothing to do with Qin Miao. The key now is whether Qin Miao can keep his fourth position.

When Toro Rosso realized something was wrong, they immediately gave Gasly an order: "Qin Miao is very likely to finish this race on a set of hard tires. Speed ​​up, speed up now!"

Gasly was originally wondering why his ranking was still fifth and not back to his original fourth position as the game was almost over.

After hearing the team's reminder, Gasly reacted belatedly, "What?"Qin Miao hasn't entered the station yet?

At this time, Gasly had no time to think about why Qin Miao's tires were so durable. Realizing that his position was not guaranteed, all Gasly could do was to accelerate with all his strength in an attempt to catch up before the end of the race with only 15 laps left. Qin Miao, and regained his position under Qin Miao's defense.

In addition to Gasly, Leclerc and Sainz behind Leclerc also received instructions from the team immediately: "Qin Miao probably wants to run the entire race directly on a set of white tires, start accelerating, and strive to win the race. Surpass Qin Miao before the end."

Naturally, Qin Miao noticed the unusual movement of the driver behind him immediately, and the team also gave Qin Miao a timely reminder.

But Qin Miao was quite helpless at the moment. His tires were indeed unable to hold up. Although Qin Miao was confident that he could finish the race directly with this set of tires, Qin Miao really couldn't take advantage of this set of tires. Out of more speed.

Being able to maintain the current speed is the limit of what Qin Miao can do at this time.

And strictly speaking, Qin Miao shouldn't expect that a set of hard tires that have already been run for 55 laps can bring him more speed.

On lap 59, the time gap between Gasly and Qin Miao increased from 6.5 seconds to 4.5 seconds.

After 61 laps, this gap shortened to 3.7 seconds.

65 laps, 2.2 seconds.

Just when everyone at Red Bull thought that Gasly could continue to catch up with Qin Miao and get back Qin Miao's position across the line before the end of the game.

Gasly found that his pace of catching up with Qin Miao involuntarily began to slow down.

At this time, Gasly has entered a distance that will be affected by the turbulence stirred up by Qin Miao's car. At the end of the second timing period and the entire third timing period, Gasly can no longer do anything like this. He was approaching Qin Miao as quickly as he was without the influence of turbulence from the car in front.

However, in the first period of time, Gasly was still able to shorten the time gap between himself and Qin Miao visibly.

Lap 68. After 3 laps, Gasly finally reached the position 1.5 seconds behind Qin Miao.

But at this time, Gasly encountered many problems. Due to the turbulence of the car in front, the radiator pressure increased sharply. The pursuit all the way caused Gasly's engine to overheat.

Moreover, the ERS battery had been used up, and coupled with the impact of the turbulence of Qin Miao's car, Gasly was a little surprised to find that after catching up to the position 1.7 seconds behind Qin Miao, he could no longer get closer to Qin Miao.

In the first timing period, Qin Miao's car was not very effective in using the wake to get close to Qin Miao for about 1.2 seconds. In the second and third timing periods, Qin Miao would rely on the Mercedes car to compare with the Toro Rosso. The car's stronger mechanical grip pushed Gasly away again.

In short, the two of them were completely embarrassed now.

Gasly, who was stuck behind Qin Miao, was also a little anxious. After all, there were only three laps left before the end of the game, so Gasly asked in the team TR in a very angry tone: "What happened? Why does Qin Miao still have speed? How fast is he? "

Not to mention Gasly, Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull, even the FIA ​​race stewards, Pirelli staff, the audience watching the game, the on-site director, and the commentators from various countries were all a little confused. force.

They all have the same doubts as Gasly, why can Qin Miao's tires continue to run?
It has been 68 laps now. Qin Miao's hard tires have been run for 67 laps. How come his tires still have grip?

At this time, on the podium of the Red Bull Racing Team, Horner and Marco looked at each other.

They never imagined that they would be in such a situation now. When they recalled their shameless words just now, they both felt as if they had been slapped in the face by the No. 66 driver on the field.

On lap 70, Gasly looked at the 1.7-second time gap between himself and Qin Miao with some despair, his eyes full of unwillingness and confusion.

What kind of monster is the Chinese driver in front of me? Why can he run for so long on white tires?

In the last two laps, it can be said that Gasly used all his strength, applying pressure, attacking, feinting, and chasing with the full strength of DRS.

But the Mercedes in front seemed like it didn't see its own movements. Before it posed a real threat to the opponent, it ran at its normal pace.

In these two laps, Gasly really didn't find any opportunity to attack Qin Miao.

By the time Verstappen crossed the line at the end of lap 71, the time gap between Qin Miao and Gasly behind him was still 1.4 seconds.

When Qin Miao crossed the finish line, Gasly behind him could only barely catch up to the DRS area behind Qin Miao.

Finally, the game is over.

Verstappen won the championship, Hamilton was second, and Perez, who was racing at home, was third.

Although the absolute highlight of this game was Qin Miao, there is no denying that this game was a huge victory for Red Bull.

Verstappen was extremely fast today and was far away from Hamilton at the beginning of the race.

It can be said that Verstappen dominated the race from the moment he overtook Hamilton at the first corner of the first lap.

After Red Bull brought back the first and third points, Verstappen further widened the points gap between himself and Hamilton in the standings, and narrowed the points gap between himself and Qin Miao. If Weiss in the next game Tappan can still perform like this, and Verstappen can directly reach the top of the standings.

After Qin Miao crossed the line, the team also sent encouragement to Qin Miao.

"Well done Qin Miao, a genius performance, the tires are well protected." Although Qin Miao's feat of running the entire race directly on a set of hard tires is incredible, Qin Miao was able to learn from the tone of French and the others. Frustration could be heard in it.

This is not incomprehensible, even Qin Miao has the same emotion.

After all, Qin Miao was ranked second in the starting stage. In the end, finishing fourth not only failed to meet the team's expectations before the start of the race, but also made Qin Miao feel very uncomfortable.

And if Qin Miao had not had the accident in this race, as long as Qin Miao and Hamilton cooperated well enough in this race and stopped Verstappen, Mercedes would have been able to defend the constructors' championship in advance in this race. .

But Verstappen's performance today, coupled with Qin Miao's car accident, ultimately led to the failure of the Mercedes team's plan to defend the title today.

Naturally, everyone on the team side will not be too happy.

After all, the earlier they win the championship, the more bonuses the team staff will receive.

Because of this, Qin Miao was a little uninterested after the race. After all, he was in second place before the race started. No matter how hard he went, he could still get a podium, but he didn't expect that he would have to change tires without pitting in the end. Finished 2th with a super long stunt.

Hamilton on the other side was in a similar state to Qin Miao. Red Bull was so fast in this game that Hamilton felt deeply powerless.

So after the race, Hamilton complained for a while in the team TR: "The balance of the car is really bad. The car does not accelerate enough after exiting the corner. The downforce in the corner is not as good as Verstappen. I can only watch." As he pulled me away, I also tried to attack, but once I entered the area where there was turbulence for 3 seconds behind Verstappen, the speed of my car would drop significantly. In addition, the tires of my car were also severely degraded. …”

This may be the so-called survivor bias. When he won the race, in Hamilton's eyes, these shortcomings of the W12 were the characteristics of the car.

As long as you can win the race and the car is fast enough, then all problems will not be a problem.

But once he loses the race and is not as good as Verstappen, then all the flaws in the car will become unacceptable shortcomings.

Fortunately, Qin Miao's communication channel is separate. He can only hear the communication between Franchi, Toto and other Mercedes team leaders. Hamilton's complaints and negative emotions will not be transmitted to Qin Miao.

After the race, Hamilton and the top three drivers went to the T13 corner surrounded by fans to participate in the final awards and post-race interviews.

Qin Miao, like all other drivers, drove his car back to the pit area.

It is worth mentioning that Perez is the first Mexican driver in history to reach the podium at home in Mexico.

Therefore, you can imagine how happy and excited the Mexican fans were after the game.

When Perez crossed the line, the cheers could be heard clearly even with a helmet on and sound-isolating headphones in his ears.

(End of this chapter)