How did I become an F1 driver?

Chapter 313 316: Unexpected red flag (6K, plus update 1114)

In the first timing section, Verstappen directly painted purple. In fact, this is normal. After all, the first timing section is the section with the most corners at the Jeddah Circuit, and Red Bull Racing is famous for its ability to handle medium and high-speed corners. Speed ​​advantage.

Soon, Verstappen finished the second timing segment and finished purple again.

Verstappen's results in the first two time periods were already 0.3 seconds faster than Hamilton's.

Now Mercedes is starting to get a little anxious, because if it continues to run like this, there is a great possibility that Verstappen will eventually win the qualifying championship in this race.

But Mei Ben's hanging heart was soon relieved.

At the beginning of the third time period, Verstappen's rhythm was still the same as his first and second time period, very good and very fast.

After seeing the purple in those two sections, the three commentators from Five Star Sports all agreed: "That's no problem. Verstappen's speed is too fast, at least 0.2 seconds faster than Hamilton."

As soon as he finished speaking, the broadcast screen came to Verstappen's last corner in the third timing section, which was T27, the slowest corner on the entire track.

Then we saw Verstappen in the picture slipping his rear wheel after exiting the corner.

It may be that the working temperature of the rear wheels has dropped, or it may be other reasons. In short, Verstappen, who has always been very fast in this flying lap, made a mistake in this corner.

After exiting the corner, the rear wheel lost grip and drifted.

There is no buffer zone on the track in Jeddah. After the T27 turns out, the right shoulder is completely next to the guard wall.

So the right rear wheel of Verstappen's car spun out of control and hit the wall of the track firmly.

Although the impact was not serious, the car suffered no structural damage.

But Verstappen still punctured the right rear wheel of his car.

You must know that F1 is a sport where every second counts. Originally, this mistake would have completely ruined Verstappen's excellent results in the two timing periods before this lap.

Now that the tire has punctured, Verstappen's performance in this flying lap is directly invalid.

After the exclamation, the three commentators from Five Star Sports said they felt sorry for Verstappen, but if you watch in the studio, you will find that the corners of their mouths are raised at this time.

The smile on the corner of his mouth was like an AK, and he couldn't suppress it no matter how hard he tried.

As for Red Bull, they were originally full of hope and looked in disbelief after seeing Verstappen crash. Horner also sighed helplessly, while Marco covered his face with his hands.

Mercedes, who were a little nervous at first, breathed a long sigh of relief after seeing Verstappen's crash, followed by a burst of laughter.

Although the P room of the Mercedes team is next to the P room of the Red Bull team, their laughter at this time can also be heard by the staff in the P room of the Red Bull team next door.

But they didn't care at all. It could even be said that their laughter was specifically for the group of people next door.

Because of the characteristics of the Jeddah track, as long as there is an accident on the track, a yellow flag will 100% occur.

Not to mention that Verstappen parked his car directly on the track at this time.

Therefore, the drivers behind Verstappen who had not completed the last flying lap were unlucky, and the results of this flying lap were directly invalid.

After Verstappen's result was cancelled, naturally, the two Mercedes drivers took the front row in tomorrow's race.

Hamilton started from pole position, Qin Miao was second.

So the starting sequence for tomorrow’s race is as follows:

1: Hamilton

2: Qin Miao

3: Verstappen

4: Leclerc

5: Perez

6: Gasly

7: Norris

8: Tsunoda

9: O'Connell

10: Giovinazzi

Qin Miao was relieved to know that Verstappen finally retired from the race due to a crash.

Although this race is based on the speed shown by Verstappen in the qualifying stage, Red Bull does have a lot to offer in terms of single lap speed.

However, according to the data from the practice session, Mercedes' car has many advantages in the long distance of the race.

Therefore, Qin Miao feels that the only trouble he needs to face in tomorrow's race is Hamilton.

After the race, Verstappen still had to walk here for a while, but Qin Miao and Hamilton had already pushed their cars from the pit area to the track.

After a brief celebration, the post-match interview began.

The post-race interview at this time was more of a warm-up for tomorrow's race, so the answers given by the two Mercedes drivers in the post-race interview were relatively bland.

In the post-race interview period, the only thing worth looking forward to is Verstappen's interview.

Verstappen is also well-known as an interview wizard.

So Verstappen didn't say much in the interview. The general meaning was that he didn't hit the apex in T27, and he didn't know why the left front wheel locked up.

But at that time, Verstappen did not want to waste the time advantage he gained in the first and second timing periods, so after exiting the corner, Verstappen did not let go of this lap, but prepared to continue accelerating.

Then what the audience saw was that Verstappen immediately lost control of the car after accelerating. The right rear wheel of the car hit the wall. The car finally stopped on the track and the last flying lap was cancelled.

In any case, Verstappen's mistake is good news for Mercedes.

I believe that given the starting abilities of the two drivers Qin Miao and Hamilton, they will be able to maintain first and second place after the start of the Jeddah Circuit.

Next, we will see how fast the two drivers are in the main race at the Jeddah Circuit.

Of course, Qin Miao is in a competitive relationship with Hamilton at this time, so Toto's only doubt now is what to do if Qin Miao and Hamilton get into a fight during the game.

After the race, Qin Miao returned to the P room of the team to complete his post-race review work. He also attended a post-race meeting and participated in interviews with several media before leaving.

After finishing his work, Qin Miao did not leave the paddock. Instead, he put on a mask, sunglasses and hat, then changed out of his Mercedes uniform and put on his daily clothes.

Then we strolled all the way to the F2 team's preparation area.

There are not only F1 races in the paddock this week, but also F2 back-up races.

It's just that this is the first time that an F1 race has been held, and it's also the first time that an F2 race has been held here, so Qin Miao had not been here when he started F2 that year.

However, the terrain environment in the F2 team preparation area is not complicated. Qin Miao soon found the temporary P room of the UNI-Virtuosi Racin team invested by Zhou Guanyu and his family.

The F1 competition also has a certain reference value for F2 drivers.

After all, this is one of their best future employment goals, so although the F2 race is over at this time, the F2 drivers did not leave the paddock, but watched the F1 qualifying live broadcast with their own team's engineers. .

Therefore, when Qin Miao swaggered into the temporary P room of the UNI-Virtuosi Racin team, he saw Zhou Guanyu, who was also wearing casual clothes, and the staff of the UNI-Virtuosi Racin team gathered together to project the video on a tablet computer. The footage analyzes Verstappen's crash.

It was also because these people were immersed in work at this time and did not notice that Qin Miao had walked in from the front door.

So Qin Miao deliberately slowed down and then sneaked up behind Zhou Guanyu.

Then suddenly he yelled in Zhou Guanyu's ear: "oi!" At the same time, he reached out and patted Zhou Guanyu's shoulder hard.

"Fuck!"

Zhou Guanyu, who was unprepared, was naturally startled by Qin Miao's sudden shout.

When he turned around and saw that it was Qin Miao, Zhou Guanyu punched Qin Miao angrily.

"***, I'm scared to death."

Qin Miao didn't care. After taking the chair handed over by a UNI-Virtuosi Racin staff member, Qin Miao sat down next to Zhou Guanyu.

"I heard that you were injured during the sprint race today?"

In today's F2 race, Zhou Guanyu started in fourth place, and then on the second lap of the start, he was knocked into last place due to a track accident. Although Zhou Guanyu climbed up several places due to the appearance of the safety car in the end, the F4 drivers After all, he was driving a regulated car, so in the end, even though Zhou Guanyu tried his best, he didn't get a single point.

Qin Miao came here mainly to laugh at Zhou Guanyu.

comfort? No, this season Zhou Guanyu has 2 points more than second place Piastri in the F21 standings.

Although it cannot be said to be far ahead, Zhou Guanyu is indeed one of the favorites to win the F2 championship this season.

As long as Zhou Guanyu makes no mistakes in the last two races, he can win the final F2 championship even if he finishes behind Piastri.

In this way, F2 will have another champion from China.

"Why don't you mention something? Why are you talking about such a disappointing topic when we meet?" Zhou Guanyu said angrily.

……

I stayed at UNI-Virtuosi Racin for more than ten minutes and chatted with Zhou Guanyu for a while.

Before leaving, Zhou Guanyu showed Qin Miao the replay of the accident. This was a completely normal track accident, and there was nothing to say.

However, before leaving, Qin Miao still pointed out some details that Zhou Guanyu had discovered while running the track in the past two days.

For example, which places on the track are bumpy and what methods can be used to avoid these bumps.

The FIA's penalty for that corner is very lenient, and you can take a little more curb.

Finally, he watched Zhou Guanyu's car video, and finally Qin Miao returned to his hotel.

There was nothing to say all night, and the next day was Sunday, the day when the main race started.

Although the race only started in the evening, the two Mercedes drivers, Qin Miao and Hamilton, still arrived in the paddock in the morning.

They still have a lot of work to complete, but fortunately most of their work is concentrated in the morning. Although there is also some work in the afternoon, it is only a small part. After about an hour and a half of busy work in the afternoon, the period until the start of the race is the time for the drivers to rest and prepare before the race.

However, Qin Miao did not stay in the P room of the team during this period, but went to the viewing area above the paddock.

He mainly came to watch Zhou Guanyu's F2 race.

Zhou Guanyu should have had a different understanding and feeling after being prompted by Qin Miao yesterday. Today's speed on the track was indeed much faster than yesterday.

Although he didn't finish the race as the winner, he still managed to get on the podium.

In this game, Zhou Guanyu's biggest rival Piastri did not perform well, so after the game, the points gap between Zhou Guanyu and Piastri widened from 21 points to 25 points.

After the F2 race ended, the Matthews cleaned up the tire rubber on the track a little, and after the F2 teams also removed their belongings, the F1 race was about to begin.

When Qin Miao appeared in the broadcast footage again, Qin Miao had already put on his racing suit and was sitting under the protective wall beside the track waiting for the start of the race.

Qin Miao was not sitting alone on the side of the track. Leclerc also sat with him in the same action.

The two of them would chat from time to time. Judging from their demeanor, the two of them were quite happily chatting.

After another twenty minutes, Qin Miao said goodbye to Leclerc and returned to his car.

At this time, the team engineers on the track were gradually evacuating.

After connecting all the equipment, Qin Miao heard Franky's final instructions to him from the TR: "Today's air temperature is 27 degrees, and the track temperature is 30 degrees, which is slightly lower than yesterday. Pay attention to your tires later in the game. Temperature and north wind of 3M/s will have an impact, but not much. You just need to pay attention to T13 and T27 when cornering."

"Okay." After Franky's rambling ended, Qin Miao only responded with one word. This was considered a normal way of communication between the two.

Soon, all staff on the track were evacuated.

Qin Miao and the others also started the tire warm-up lap.

Mercedes encountered the problem of tires heating up relatively slowly in this race, and this problem was even more serious during yesterday's qualifying session.

Therefore, during the warm-up lap, it can be clearly seen that the two drivers Qin Miao and Hamilton twisted the cars to a particularly large extent during the warm-up lap before the start of the race.

Two minutes later, as all the staff on the track evacuated, Qin Miao and the others returned to their own grid positions.

As Ma Zeping parked his car, the medical vehicle behind him was in place, the green flag waved, and the five red lights began to light up one by one.

While Qin Miao slowly revved up his engine, he glanced at Hamilton in front of him on the right, and also looked at Verstappen behind him through the rearview mirror.

These two are their biggest competitors in this game, and whether they can start well this time is directly related to the final result of this game.

All five red lights are on.

The speed of Qin Miao's racing engine is also constant at the most appropriate position. The clutch button has been pressed, waiting for the moment when the red light goes out.

"Five red lights off! The race begins!"

The moment the five red lights went out, Qin Miao released his finger on the clutch, and the car suddenly started.

"Qin Miao! Qin Miao started very well this time!"

"The speed is obviously faster than Hamilton. Qin Miao's starting position happens to be on the inside. After the start, does Qin Miao have a chance to surpass Hamilton?"

At Five Star Sports, the three commentators were originally discussing what might have happened if Qin Miao started well enough.

But the picture that appeared in front of them made them forget everything they just said for a moment. At this time, they only had one thought in their hearts, and that was that Qin Miao should run faster and faster to surpass Hamilton!

On the track, Qin Miao did start faster than Hamilton.

Although there are many full-throttle sections on the track in Jeddah, there is not much room for drivers to overtake.

Moreover, the distance from the grid to the braking point of T1 is not too long, so Qin Miao was not able to overtake Hamilton at this place, and was not even able to line up with Hamilton.

It was just that the right front wheel was aimed at Hamilton's left rear wheel.

In this position, Qin Miao has no line rights when entering the corner.

And it seems that although Hamilton left some room for Qin Miao to exit the corner, he had no intention of giving up his position.

If he continued to squeeze in, a car accident would inevitably occur, so Qin Miao finally returned the position to Hamilton when exiting the corner.

This was Qin Miao's proactive concession, so this concession was somewhat controllable.

When he came to T1, Qin Miao did not give Verstappen behind him a chance to attack him.

After this start, the top three riders did not make any too drastic moves, and there were no changes in rankings. Everyone entered T1 smoothly.

No one expected that the start on the Jeddah circuit would be so smooth.

"Oh, it's a pity. Qin Miao did have a good start this time, but not that good. When he entered the corner, he found that the position was not enough. Qin Miao still slightly relaxed his foot on the accelerator and took the initiative to let go." Brother Bing explained with great regret. .

Fei Ge said: "Actually, Qin Miao's choice is also right. Now Qin Miao is waiting for an opportunity, an opportunity for Hamilton and Verstappen to make mistakes, so Qin Miao's top priority at this time is indeed to protect himself. And my own racing car.”

……

On the track, while the Five Star Sports commentators were chatting, Qin Miao and the others had already completed the entire first timing segment.

To be honest, Qin Miao was actually a little annoyed that he didn't grasp that start.

But with Verstappen behind him, Qin Miao did not dare to have too many violent driving behaviors with Hamilton.

If there is an inextricable fight with Hamilton and Verstappen comes from behind, this is what neither Qin Miao nor Hamilton want to see.

Next, there was no position change among the top drivers. Even after DRS was turned on, Qin Miao could only linger 1.4 seconds behind Hamilton.

Verstappen was almost the same, he could only follow Qin Miao, and he also couldn't enter the DRS area behind Qin Miao.

One thing is that Qin Miao felt that Hamilton was taking advantage of the difficulty of overtaking on this track to suppress himself and Verstappen behind him.

As for the fact that Leclerc, who was still fourth on the fifth lap, was 3 seconds behind Verstappen in front of him...

This can only be said that Mercedes and Red Bull racing cars are too fast.

On lap 9, the time gap between the top three drivers remained unchanged, and the time gap between Leclerc and Verstappen had reached 5 seconds.

At this time, Qin Miao was already thinking about whether he needed to pit later and change to a set of soft tires directly after pitting.

Although this track is difficult to heat up the tires after the end of the race, and the working temperature of the soft tires is higher than the medium and hard tires, which is a bit troublesome.

But Qin Miao was confident that he could raise the soft tires to a suitable working temperature within two laps.

Just when I started to think about it, the race came to the 10th lap and it didn't take a while.

Then there were yellow flags on the track.

Qin Miao's thoughts all turned into fantasy.

This yellow flag appeared in the second timing segment.

When the broadcast camera cut away, a Haas was seen embedded in the parapet.

The rear wheel was crooked, the entire rear wing was broken, and even the hood was knocked off.

Soon, as the ranking on the left changed, everyone realized that the driver who had the accident here was Mick Schumacher.

After confirming that Mick had an accident and that the guard wall had been knocked crooked and needed to be repaired, the safety car was dispatched.

Now the problem is handed over to Mercedes and Red Bull.

Do you want to pit during this safety car period? What tires should I change after a pit stop?

The team discussed quickly. After a while, Qin Miao received Franky's TR: "BOX! BOX!"

In fact, Qin Miao didn't want to pit. After all, the race had just started for 10 laps, and the safety car was likely to appear again.

Moreover, my medium tires can last at least ten more laps, so pitting at this time is really unnecessary.

However, after thinking about it, Qin Miao finally gave up the idea of ​​making other suggestions, slowed down honestly, followed Hamilton, and pitted with him to change to hard tires.

Because of the safety car, Qin Miao and Hamilton also opened a wide enough distance from the car behind them before pitting.

And it was also because the two drivers, Leclerc and Perez, also chose to pit.

Therefore, after coming out of the pit, the two people fell behind Verstappen who had not pitted, and did not lose too much position.

Qin Miao was third, Hamilton second and Verstappen first.

Behind Qin Miao was Ocon, who, like Verstappen, did not pit.

Then, just when all the cars were ready to wait for the safety car to end and resume the race, the safety car was brought in for three laps.

Matthew, who was on the side of the track, looked at the crooked barrier and took out his walkie-talkie to tell the competition: "It will take at least 5 minutes to repair the barrier."

Then on the 13th lap, the race meeting sent out a red flag.

Qin Miao, Hamilton, and all the drivers who chose to pit for tire changes during the safety car period had a big question mark in their minds after seeing this red flag.

If there was going to be a red flag, then why on earth would you let the safety car drive for three laps?

Qin Miao even cursed in his helmet without driving the team TR: "Maxi, WCNMLGJB!"

Hamilton's team TR directly sent a telegram: "Dududududu~"

But because Hamilton's telegram was a bit too gentle, FOM did not release this conversation.

(End of this chapter)