How did I become an F1 driver?

Chapter 303 Chapter 306: Eight crowns! (6K, 414 more updates)

The moment he heard Frankie say that the virtual safety car appeared, Qin Miao's heart moved, there is a chance!
I was feeling helpless after giving up my position, but my fighting spirit suddenly rekindled in my heart.

"Box! Box!"

At this time, Qin Miao was just two turns away from the entrance to the pit area. After hearing the team's instructions, Qin Miao took advantage of the situation and chose to stop for tire changes.

Although Qin Miao didn't know why the virtual safety car suddenly appeared on the track, after Qin Miao entered the pit area and put on a brand new set of hard tires, FOM gave Qin Miao the pit stop to help Qin Miao. Saved 11 seconds of pop-ups.

But in fact, this virtual safety car only lasted less than 10 seconds. The location of the debris on the track was very close to the entrance of the track. It only took about 6 seconds until Matthew left the track after cleaning up. Matthew The virtual safety car was canceled shortly after leaving the track.
Therefore, the advantages that this virtual safety car brings to Qin Miao are not as many as those given by FOM.

When Qin Miao came out, he happened to be 1.5 seconds behind Hamilton.

After passing Hamilton, the time gap between Hamilton and Verstappen that Qin Miao had in those seven laps was all recovered just because of this virtual safety car pit stop.

But in fact, Qin Miao only gained a 4-second advantage.

Of course, we can't blame FOM's prediction department. After all, they didn't expect the virtual safety car to end so soon. If the virtual safety car lasted longer, Qin Miao could indeed overturn Verstappen and Hamilton directly.

But Qin Miao is already very satisfied with his current position.

The most important thing is that Qin Miao's tires at this time are newer than those of Verstappen and Hamilton.

After No. 30 finished his second lap, Qin Miao was somewhat pleased to find that his speed was now the same as Hamilton's after putting on hard tires.

At the end of this lap, I was not pulled away by Hamilton.

It is possible that he was much faster after switching to hard tires. Of course, it is not ruled out that Hamilton was not used to hard tires and his speed became slower.

Although Hamilton and Qin Miao were both slowed by the turbulence of the car in front of him at this time, at least this shows that Qin Miao is no longer behind Hamilton and he will have the opportunity to attack Hamilton in the next game.

Moreover, with Qin Miao's noble behavior of letting his teammates pass, if Qin Miao's speed was faster than Hamilton's, Hamilton did not choose to let Qin Miao pass on the field but continued to fight with Qin Miao on the field.

Then after this game, Hamilton will definitely have more controversy.

Of course, none of this has happened yet.

Qin Miao's current idea is very simple. Follow Hamilton and wait for Hamilton to fight with Verstappen, while he waits for opportunities behind him.

Judging from the relationship between the three of them at this time, Verstappen will definitely do his best to defend against Hamilton's attack.

When the two of them defend with all their strength, they will get more or less angry.

When the time comes to run off the track, crash, lose rhythm, anything is possible.

Judging from Hamilton's performance during this race weekend, Hamilton has a great possibility of overtaking Verstappen, and Qin Miao can catch Verstappen's rhythm disorder the moment Hamilton overtakes Verstappen. opportunity, take advantage of the situation and take advantage of the situation.

After that, Hamilton would have to struggle to keep up with his own offense.

Should he let himself go and face his own iron wall, or should he just ignore it and defend himself with all his strength?

Qin Miao is still looking forward to this.

So after coming out, Qin Miao kept following Hamilton within the range of 1.3 to 1.7 seconds, constantly putting pressure on Hamilton, but he did not really threaten Hamilton with his attacks, nor did he use his skills to improve Hamilton.

Qin Miao knew that their top priority now was to surpass Verstappen. He could not give Hamilton any strength to distract him from himself, as long as he knew that there was someone behind him watching him all the time.

On the ninth lap of No. 30, Hamilton was still 1.1 seconds behind Verstappen. Verstappen was not slow either. Verstappen also showed superb defensive skills in the face of Hamilton's attack. Hamilton was not allowed to enter the DRS area behind him.

Qin Miao was not in a hurry, since the game was just over halfway.

However, Qin Miao knew that if time dragged on, Hamilton might have to choose the second stop.

At that time, I may have to give in to the car again...

But just as Qin Miao was thinking about these issues, Verstappen directly chose to stop first.

Not only Qin Miao, but also Hamilton was a little surprised when he saw the Red Bull suddenly changed lanes and headed towards the pit area.

After all, he had just discussed the possibility of two stops with his track engineer in the team's TR, and Verstappen directly chose to pit.

After Qin Miao saw Verstappen pitting, his mind changed and he began to slow down to protect tires.

This run is a long distance, and I still have a chance to win!

Although this chance is still relatively slim, after all, Qin Miao's tires may not be able to hold up after running a long distance until the later stages of the race.

But you have to give it a try. If it works, Qin Miao will be much safer in the standings.

While Qin Miao was slowing down, Hamilton began to speed up regardless of tire wear. It is not difficult to guess what Hamilton was thinking. He wanted to take advantage of the car's performance to overcut during Verstappen's pit stop. Verstappen.

So Hamilton stayed on the track for three more laps, and No. 40 chose to pit at the end of three laps.

It's just that Mercedes underestimated Red Bull's speed.

When Hamilton came out, Hamilton was three seconds behind Verstappen. You must know that before Verstappen came into the pits, Hamilton was 1.1 seconds behind Verstappen.

It can be said that during this pit stop, apart from gaining three more laps of tire wear, Hamilton did not gain any other benefits.

However, Mercedes has other ideas. After all, after Verstappen pitted, Qin Miao and French discussed the possibility of finishing the race without stopping.

The team also agreed with Qin Miao's tactical choice.

Therefore, after Verstappen caught up with Qin Miao late in the game, Qin Miao could help Hamilton defend Verstappen to a certain extent.

Of course, it is not ruled out that Qin Miao can directly pull out a DRS high-speed rail behind him, and then directly take home the championship himself.

But this all depends on the driver's performance on the track.

At the end of the sixth lap of No. 40, it took only three laps after coming out of the pit area for Hamilton to catch up to the DRS area behind Verstappen. On the same lap of the starting straight, he directly used the advantage of the car to The time gap between the two shortened to 0.6 seconds.

Although No. 40 came to the same starting straight after seven laps, the time gap between Hamilton and Verstappen came to 0.8 seconds, and this attack ultimately only caused the gap between Hamilton and Verstappen. The time gap was shortened from 0.8 seconds to 0.3 seconds.

But on the same lap, when they exited T3 and came to the next DRS area, the time gap between Hamilton and Verstappen was still 0.3 seconds.

So in this DRS zone, Hamilton has the ability to launch an attack and the opportunity to surpass Verstappen.

Verstappen also understood very well. After seeing the time gap between Hamilton and himself, he immediately chose to take the inside line before the braking point, brake late, and directly squeezed Hamilton off the track in T4 by relying on line rights. .

Of course, the price is that he rushes out with him.

But this can be regarded as Verstappen's signature defensive style.

It was different from the way Qin Miao and Hamilton fought in a way that ended at the end, and although it was fierce, it still left some room for the other party.

Verstappen wished he could just let Hamilton die, after all, the original 51G is still fresh in his mind.

Both the audience and the commentators are already used to Verstappen's defensive style.

Because he was squeezed off the track by Verstappen, Hamilton took a wider route to return to the track. Hamilton's speed was also affected as a result, and the attack naturally failed.

Qin Miao on the other side happened to pass a live broadcast screen for the audience, and accidentally saw this fight.

At this moment, Qin Miao happened to be in a state where there was no slow car in front and no car chasing him behind.

Because we need to protect the tires and the speed is not very fast, we basically leave a certain margin for our tires every time we turn.

So Qin Miao was very relaxed at the moment, and even had time to watch the screen, so after seeing this scene, he directly said in the team TR: "Verstappen's defense is really too much. He can't always defend like this." Hamilton!”

Frankie happened to be in cruising mode because of Qin Miao at the moment and was watching the fight between Hamilton and Verstappen.

But after hearing Qin Miao's comment, he reacted instantly: "How do you know? Focus on the game, don't look around."

Should he be called a professional track engineer? The moment he heard Qin Miao's voice during the race, Franky came back from his distracted state.

"Ok."

Qin Miao spread his hands and continued his cruise.

But one thing is for sure, Qin Miao would really like to see these two fighting.

Because since the two of them started fighting, the time gap that had been shortened by the two of them has now begun to gradually widen. This is undoubtedly great news for Qin Miao.

However, after this attack and defense, Hamilton did not immediately start the second attack, but began to charge his car.

Verstappen also regained his rhythm and started setting his own lap times.

The time gap between Qin Miao and the two began to shorten again.On the lap, Hamilton regained Verstappen's DRS, but he did not rush to attack Verstappen. Instead, he relied on DRS to gradually shorten the distance between him and Verstappen, waiting for the next opportunity to attack.

In the second lap, the time gap between Verstappen and Qin Miao came to 10 seconds, and there were still [-] laps to go before the end of the race.

Three laps later, Hamilton was still in the DRS zone behind Verstappen, but Hamilton still didn't have enough distance to launch an attack on Verstappen.

Seven laps later, Verstappen was 7 seconds behind Qin Miao.

If he continues running at this pace, Verstappen will catch up with Qin Miao in the seventh lap of No. 60.

Of course, this is only the best situation for Qin Miao, because as time goes by, Qin Miao's speed will become slower and slower, so Verstappen's speed in catching up with Qin Miao in the later period will definitely be faster than expected. .

At the same time, eight laps later, Hamilton finally launched another attack behind Verstappen.

However, the distance before T1 was not enough for Hamilton to catch up to a position that threatened Verstappen, and before T4, Verstappen used the dragon to slow down Hamilton's approach to him.

Amid the lamentations of the Brazilian audience, Hamilton's attack failed again.

But this attack also brought Hamilton close to the position 0.4 seconds behind Verstappen. After the third timing period, the two came to the starting straight again and exited T1. Hamilton was 0.2 seconds behind Verstappen in front of him. There are only [-] seconds left.

After that, the two of them exited T3 and came to another straight road.

After exiting T3, Hamilton was only 0.3 seconds away from Verstappen in front of him.

Verstappen failed to shake Hamilton off in the three corners of T1, T2 and T3.

Therefore, on the long straight from T3 to T4 where DRS can be turned on, Hamilton easily completed his overtaking of Verstappen.

Verstappen didn't draw a dragon this time. Hamilton was too close. With the DRS bonus, drawing a dragon at this time has lost its meaning.

Verstappen's resistance was just to stand on the inside line. When Hamilton passed him from the outside line, Verstappen deliberately squeezed Hamilton on the outside line in an attempt to disrupt Hamilton's rhythm.

Verstappen naturally hopes that after Hamilton sees his actions, he will release the accelerator or apply the brakes.

But both of them are old foxes, one more sophisticated than the other.

Verstappen's actions did not affect Hamilton at all. Hamilton didn't even hide, he just passed Verstappen straight past.

In the end, Verstappen could only watch Hamilton's car go away. After Hamilton completely surpassed him, he returned to the driving line. All this was completed before the braking point of T4.

Since then, Hamilton started from tenth and reached second after 59 laps.

On Lap No. 60, without the influence of the turbulence of Verstappen's car, Hamilton opened up a gap of 1 second in half a lap, and by the time he passed the starting straight of the same lap, this time gap had already arrived. Arrived at 1.6 seconds.

It can be seen that on this track, which is Red Bull's traditional advantage, Mercedes is surprisingly fast.

But because of this, when he just passed Verstappen, Hamilton was 8 seconds behind Qin Miao in front of him, and when No. 60 lap, Hamilton was 7 seconds behind Qin Miao.

This happened to be the effect after Qin Miao took a sip of Norris' wake and DRS before the DRS detection point in this lap.

In the second lap of No. 60, the time gap between Qin Miao and Hamilton was only 5.8 seconds.

Finally, five laps after No. 60, Hamilton came to the DRS area behind Qin Miao.

When he saw Hamilton in his rearview mirror for the first time in this game, Qin Miao was motivated.

After all, Qin Miao was not as good as Hamilton at that time. Qin Miao's tires at that time had an absolute advantage compared to Hamilton's now. Although it was easier to overtake at Interlagos, Qin Miao still had the confidence to defend Hamilton's attack.

But now seeing Hamilton in the rearview mirror again, Qin Miao felt helpless.

And after seeing how close Hamilton was to him, Qin Miao knew that he might not be able to defend Hamilton's attack in the next six laps.

Normally speaking, with Qin Miao's tire protection ability, Huang and Bai's stop would definitely be enough for Qin Miao to run the entire race.

However, Qin Miao pitted a little too early in this race, and the wear resistance of hard tires on this track is not much greater than that of medium tires.

So Qin Miao's tires at this moment are only enough for Qin Miao to run the entire race, but if he wants to defend Hamilton, Qin Miao's tires will definitely reach the cliff point before the end of the race.

As long as Qin Miao pitted three laps late when using medium tires, Qin Miao would not be in the same trouble as he is now, but there is no way, the opportunity of the safety car is indeed rare.

In such a situation, no matter who replaces the car, they will immediately stop and put on new tires.

But now that the matter has come to this, all Qin Miao can do is do his best and obey fate.

It's just that sometimes you can't defend if you want to.

Qin Miao really tried his best in the next few laps, using defensive skills and braking late on the inside to squeeze Hamilton off the track.

Qin Miao used all kinds of methods. Really, Qin Miao was just about to knock Hamilton out.

But despite this, Qin Miao only lasted three laps under Hamilton's attack.

But there is one thing to say, the Brazilian audience was the happiest in this game, because they not only saw the battle between Hamilton and Verstappen, but also saw the three-lap battle between Qin Miao and Hamilton.

In the end, Hamilton completed his overtaking of Qin Miao on the nine-lap straightaway.

At that time, it was because Qin Miao's rear wheel grip decreased and he gave a little more fuel after exiting the corner, so the rear wheel skidded. Qin Miao reacted immediately, counterattacked and loosened the accelerator a little.

But Hamilton caught Qin Miao's tiny flaw and used the wake and subsequent DRS to finally overtake Qin Miao on the outside of the straightaway.

After seeing this scene, the audience burst into violent cheers just like when they saw Hamilton passing Verstappen.

Looking at Hamilton walking away, Qin Miao sighed helplessly and began to slow down to dissipate heat from the car, while also charging the car.

Although there were still two laps left before the end of the race, Verstappen had already caught up to the position two seconds behind Qin Miao during the struggle between Qin Miao and Hamilton.

Another bad news is that Qin Miao's tires have passed the cliff point at this time, and the tire grip began to decline rapidly.

If nothing else, whether Qin Miao can defend Verstappen's attack in the last two laps will determine whether Qin Miao can keep his second place and the team championship in this game.

But Verstappen was also in trouble at the moment and couldn't tell.

Red Bull also encountered many problems in this game. Compared with Mercedes, the biggest problem of Red Bull in this game is that their training is problematic.

Moreover, Red Bull has also invested more research and development expenses into the development of ground-effect racing cars for next season. Therefore, in this game, Red Bull did not bring a major upgrade that is crucial to improving vehicle performance like Mercedes.

So it can be clearly seen that Verstappen's speed is actually a bit slow.

Moreover, the team heard that Hamilton and his track engineer were discussing the second-stop strategy and called Verstappen back to the pit area in advance. Therefore, Verstappen ran three laps longer than Hamilton on tires.

And Verstappen had been fighting with Hamilton for so many laps on the track, so Verstappen's tires could no longer hold up.

Relying on the time when Qin Miao and Hamilton were fighting, taking the opportunity to get close behind the two was almost the limit of what Verstappen could do at this time.

So in the last two laps, all Verstappen could do was stay 1.5 seconds behind Qin Miao and put pressure on Qin Miao.

Trying to make Qin Miao make a mistake.

But Qin Miao finally withstood the pressure from Verstappen, steadily controlled his car and completed the last two laps.

Finally, amid the carnival of the Brazilian audience, the carnival of the Mercedes team, and the carnival of the Mercedes fans, the Brazilian Grand Prix came to an end.

Hamilton and Qin Miao crossed the line one after another and took home one or two.

A yellow and red P plate protruded from the guardrail of the Mercedes team podium.

It says Hamilton P1 and Qin Miao P2 respectively.

This move is somewhat of a show off. Did you see it? This is Mercedes!This is the Mercedes driver!

After Hamilton and Qin Miao crossed the line, Mercedes won the constructors' championship half a race ahead of schedule. This was the Mercedes team's eighth constructors' championship, tying McLaren's record of eight championships.

At the same time, this is also the second time that Mercedes-Benz has won the team championship in advance in Brazil after 2018.

All this is due to Qin Miao, a rookie driver, whose performance this season is no less than that of the No. 1 driver.

"Lewis, we are the constructors' world champion! That's it! Well done! You ran a great race in this race!" After crossing the line, under the care of fireworks on both sides of the track, Hamilton's team TR shouted. Praise for Hamilton from his track engineer.

"Hahaha! Let'sgoooooo! Thank you everyone, without your efforts, we would not have achieved such a great achievement. This championship belongs to everyone in the Mercedes team!"

On the other side, Franky also immediately sent congratulations to Qin Miao: "Qin Miao! We are the champions! Champions! Damn champions! Well done in this game! You did a damn good job! "

But compared with Hamilton's experienced track engineer, French, the track engineer who entered F1 with Qin Miao, was obviously a little excited and incoherent.

(End of this chapter)