How did I become an F1 driver?

Chapter 314 317: The second red flag

On Red Bull's side, Horner's smile could hardly be suppressed, and Marco on the side did not hide his inner emotions at all, his old face was wrinkled with laughter.

Verstappen looked at the two Mercedes behind him and smiled happily, even feeling excited inside.

The leading position, this is the leading position in the street race!

When the three commentators from Five Star Sports analyzed this red flag and the results of the three drivers in the overall standings, their voices were inevitably filled with frustration.

Qin Miao was a little helpless after getting out of the car. Why did everything go smoothly, but the red flag was raised.

But Qin Miao is willing to accept this fact.

After all, things have already happened, and it is impossible for the tournament to cancel this red flag.

After getting off the car, Qin Miao did not leave the track, but walked from the exit of the pit area to the P room of the Mercedes team at the entrance of the pit area.

Qin Miao knew that he had to actively seek change.

If he did nothing and continued step by step according to the situation of this game, Qin Miao knew that he might be stuck in the third position.

Although Qin Miao is confident that he can surpass Verstappen in the next race, Qin Miao doesn't know if there will be any unexpected surprises on the track later.

So after Qin Miao returned to the team's P room, she asked strategy director James Vincent for a copy of the team's strategy options.

After some reference, Qin Miao finally decided to change a set of tires during the red flag period.

Just switch to medium tires.

As mentioned before, Qin Miao usually leaves three new sets of tires for himself before the start of the race. Even if Qin Miao starts this race with medium tires, Qin Miao will still have a new set of tires in his reserve. of medium tires.

So Qin Miao still had new tires to use when changing tires at this time.

After the red flag, it will be a static start. Hamilton no longer has new medium tires. Verstappen will also change to hard tires after coming in. Therefore, Verstappen will most likely finish this race on a set of hard tires. Contest.

In other words, the only way Qin Miao can improve his position with a high probability at this time is to start.

Knowing that Qin Miao wanted to start with a new set of medium tires, the team naturally had no objection.

But after Qin Miao decided to start with this set of tires, James Vincent still asked a bit more: "After changing to the medium tires, will you have to make another stop? I will let the strategy department help you calculate it. one time."

Qin Miao narrowed his eyes slightly: "If nothing else happens, I won't enter."

After saying that, Qin Miao left the P room of the team,

Only Toto and others were left with faces full of surprise and surprise.

We agree that you, Qin Miao, are very good at protecting tires. You have indeed performed exceptionally well in protecting tires. For example, you ran the entire race with a set of white tires. Even that set of tires is still at Pirelli’s headquarters. Collected.

Although the Jeddah track is not serious about tire wear, it is also a super high-speed track second only to Silverstone. No matter how good your tire protection ability is, Qin Miao can only finish the race on hard tires. For the next 35 laps, it was impossible to finish the race on medium tires.

However, Qin Miao was not very clear about Toto's inner doubts, and of course he wouldn't care.

Although Qin Miao also knew that it would be difficult to complete the remaining miles of this race with medium tires, if he did not do this, Qin Miao felt that after this race, his leading position in the driver's overall standings would be completely eliminated. Hamilton surpassed.

Regardless of the final result of his approach, at least Qin Miao's tactical choices are different from those of Hamilton and Verstappen.

If something unexpected happens again on the field, Qin Miao will have a high probability of profiting from it.

By this time, Reyes and the others had learned about Qin Miao's new tire selection through the team's TR.

Because of the tires, they had already pulled up to Qin Miao's car, so after Qin Miao came back, they had helped Qin Miao change to a brand new set of medium tires.

After finding a place to sit down, he took out an energy bar from Barber's bag and took the water bottle into his hand. Qin Miao was in a daze while eating, waiting for the game to restart.

During this time, the photographer also showed Qin Miao the broadcast footage. After all, this time Hongqi asked who was the unluckiest and suffered the most losses among the three drivers who might compete for the championship, it was really Qin Miao.

Qin Miao was a little annoyed now, seeing the photographer almost sticking the camera in his face to take pictures of himself.

Angrily, he pushed the photographer's camera away a little further.

Then Qin Miao thought of what Alyssa said to him.

Facing the live camera, it is best not to do anything excessive or too intense. After all, the camera is the eyes of the audience looking at you.

Qin Miao may also feel that her action of pushing away the camera lens is a bit excessive.

After thinking about it, Qin Miao opened an unopened energy bar in his hand and handed it to the camera.

[Thank you, I won’t eat it]

[Come on, show off my mouth]

[Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu Qn Miao still brings me food when he is so miserable, he is so gentle]

[Thank you, I don’t want it, but please be sure to throw that energy bar you ate into my mouth]

[I'm thirsty, Qin Miao, give me a sip from your water glass]

[Does anyone want the wrapper of the energy bar in Qin Miao’s hand? I ate it if no one wanted it. 】

[Those upstairs, you guys are really outrageous]

[Are all Qin Miao’s fans so abstract? 】

Five-star sports here.

Originally, the three commentators had been discussing how Qin Miao could turn defeat into victory in the next game and move his ranking up a few places.

There was no lack of worry about Qin Miao's final result in this game.

However, while chatting and broadcasting, Qin Miao's behavior of handing energy bars to the camera appeared.

Brother Bing smiled, and then said: "It can be seen that this sudden red flag did not cause Qin Miao too much trouble. At least Qin Miao still has the confidence to joke now."

After hearing Brother Bing's words, the two commentators also laughed and echoed.

……

As time goes by, the red flag is about to end and the race is about to restart.

Qin Miao put on his helmet again, put on his racing suit, and returned to his racing car.

After returning to the car, I carefully put on my gloves and fixed my steering wheel.

Soon, with the withdrawal of Reyes and the others, the game will restart.

Verstappen in front drove out of the maintenance area, and Qin Miao also drove his car to keep up with Hamilton.

Just when everyone thought that the warm-up lap of this race would proceed normally, it would not be until after the start that the three of them would start the real battle.     The top three riders started to act like monsters during the warm-up lap.

Verstappen ran the warm-up lap normally, and then Hamilton deliberately began to slow down significantly after Verstappen passed a blind corner.

Qin Miao, on the other hand, started to slow down significantly after Hamilton slowed down and passed the blind bend.

Qin Miao also learned this method of cooling the tires of the car in front from Hamilton.

Hamilton dug a hole to bury himself.

Then the audience saw a strange scene on the field. The distance between the first-place Verstappen and the second-place Hamilton was at least twenty or thirty meters by Hamilton.

There is also more than ten meters between Qin Miao, who is in third place, and Hamilton, who is in second place.

After all, Qin Miao was relatively honest and did not directly push to the extreme distance like Hamilton.

At the same time, Qin Miao did not forget to keep twisting left and right to heat up the tires of his car.

And during this process, because Hamilton and Qin Miao were too far apart, Verstappen kept complaining in the team TR, almost scolding him.

Hamilton also criticized this: "Why is Qin Miao so far away from me?"

But when you think about the distance between Hamilton and Verstappen at this time, what Hamilton said is somewhat darkly humorous.

But in fact, apart from being a bit unethical, Hamilton and Qin Miao's approach does not violate the tire warm-up lap rules set by the FIA, as long as the distance from the car in front does not exceed 10 car bodies.

Afterwards, these three people naturally pulled wildly on the track.

They were all slowing down, but due to the unexpected nature of the blind curve, in the end, Hamilton and Qin Miao were still at least 3 seconds slower than the driver in front before stopping at their own position.

Before Qin Miao's car was about to stop at his position, Qin Miao suddenly braked once and then kicked the floor.

Such an operation would cause the tires of Qin Miao's racing car to spin briefly.

This is a method of trading tire life for initial tire temperature.

Compared with the first two drivers, Qin Miao's only advantage at this time is his medium tires, so it is necessary to heat the tires of the car to a suitable temperature.

With the last Latifi in position, the countdown to the second start of the game began.

The five red lights light up one by one, and then the five red lights go out together, and the game starts again!

Qin Miao's start was amazing, very fast, but Verstappen, who was ranked first in front of Qin Miao, started obviously slowly.

Hamilton, who ranked second, started much faster than Verstappen, but not as fast as Qin Miao.

So when I saw the field, after just 100 meters of running, Hamilton was running side by side with Verstappen, and at this time, Qin Miao's front wheel also came to the position of Verstappen's right rear wheel, and he was still moving forward. Shorten the distance to Verstappen.

When they reached the T1 braking point, the three cars were lined up side by side on the track. Qin Miao was on the outside, Verstappen was in the middle, and Hamilton was on the inside.

When entering the corner, Hamilton was the furthest ahead, followed by Qin Miao, and the slowest was naturally Verstappen.

But Verstappen obviously doesn't want to give up the ranking he gained by chance. He knows how important this position is to him.

So we can see that Verstappen did not reduce the speed of his car to a safe threshold after passing the T1 braking point.

Therefore, the audience can clearly see that because of this operation, Verstappen directly passed Qin Miao, who had already braked 10 meters late to enter the corner, and was directly ahead of him when entering the corner. Hamilton entered the corner with half the car's body lifted.

Because Hamilton knew he had the right to the line, he did not give up the line even if he noticed that Verstappen braked too late.

And when Verstappen braked so late, he basically couldn't return to the normal route. Therefore, it can be considered that after Verstappen found out that he had lost his position, he did not have any intention to move himself at all. The idea of ​​giving up his current position, he had the idea from the beginning that he would not hesitate to rush off the track in order to keep his current position.

So you can see that Verstappen, who entered the corner side by side with Hamilton, drove the car directly past the outside shoulder of T2 due to his own speed.

Also because the route Verstappen took did not require slowing down, after crossing the shoulder, Verstappen inserted directly in front of Hamilton.

It can be regarded as temporarily keeping his position.

But Verstappen suddenly came out, which also caused Hamilton's rhythm to be a bit chaotic. As a result, Hamilton missed the best exit route in front of him.

Then T1 profited from Verstappen's operation and surpassed Qin Miao's O'Connell, who used Hamilton to give up the opportunity of the best exit line, surpassed Hamilton and came to second place.

And Qin Miao also lost two positions and went to fourth because of Verstappen's unparalleled operation.

After all, when Qin Miao was about to slow down and enter the corner, Verstappen drove directly from the side of Qin Miao. In order not to hit Verstappen when entering the corner, Qin Miao directly missed his own turn-in time.

It was at this time that O'Connell picked up the wallet.

Qin Miao was a little irritated at the moment. He started faster than Hamilton and Verstappen twice, but because the T1 of the Jeddah track was too close to the starting point, his two good starts were so criticized. wasted.

What is rare is that after being surpassed by Verstappen and Ocon, Hamilton did not complain in the team TR.

On the contrary, Qin Miao was dissatisfied in the team TR and said: "Verstappen should be punished, he cut into the corner directly! And blocked my entry line!"

"Okay, Qin Miao, don't be impatient, the team will fight for you." French replied: "Our suggestion is to try to keep up with the current Hamilton. Verstappen may need to give up his position. "

While Frankie was communicating with Qin Miao, Toto from Mercedes-Benz Racing Team had already begun to contact the FIA ​​race stewards via radio.

On the other side, Red Bull is also contacting the FIA ​​to fight for it.

There was no reason for Verstappen to overtake this time, and it was only a matter of time before he was punished.

What Red Bull is fighting for now is not for the FIA ​​not to punish Verstappen. Their purpose in contacting the FIA ​​is just to get Verstappen to return a position and just return behind Hamilton, instead of penalizing him in third place.

Mercedes' demands are completely opposite to Red Bull's. What Mercedes wants is to directly send Verstappen to third place, preferably directly to the pit lane and stop for five seconds.

However, the people from the two teams who contacted the FIA ​​had just set off, and before they even walked out of the team's P room, another burst of smoke and dust rose from the track, and Perez collided with Leclerc.

After being hit, Perez's Red Bull car spun directly to the left, and the front nose directly hit the track barrier, and the entire nose broke off on the spot.

The yellow flag was shown immediately, but within half a minute, the yellow flag turned into a red flag.

PS. Cough, fever, and dizziness.

This is yesterday's manuscript. I can't write it today, so there is no tomorrow. I'd like to ask for leave in advance. I'm really sorry.

Guangdong suddenly dropped from 27 degrees to 13 degrees yesterday. I still wore less clothes. I'm sorry.

I also hope that everyone will protect themselves and wear more clothes.

I'm so sorry.

(End of this chapter)