How did I become an F1 driver?

Chapter 320 323: Abu Dhabi Practice Match

It is worth mentioning that while Qin Miao was fishing at UNI-Virtuosi Racin, Qiu Meng secretly ran from Monaco to Abu Dhabi.

After all, it was the last game. Although after the end of the year, various endorsement contracts came one after another, Qin Miao's agency was also very busy.

But compared to Qin Miao's first world championship, endorsements and other things are secondary.

Then when the girl came to the team home, she was a little surprised not to find Qin Miao here.

After some inquiries, the people at Mei Ben didn't know where Qin Miao had gone. After all, they also had their own work and couldn't keep an eye on Qin Miao.

In the end, Qiu Meng saw Qin Miao appearing on the podium of the UNI-Virtuosi Racin team through the screen in the team home that was broadcasting the F2 practice match, wearing a Mercedes uniform that was incompatible with the UNI-Virtuosi Racin team staff.

After knowing what Qin Miao was doing, Qiu Meng did not go to find Qin Miao. Instead, she honestly opened Qin Miao's laptop in the team home and started to deal with the work at hand.

Qin Miao stayed at the podium of the UNI-Virtuosi Racin team until the end of the F2 practice session.

After the F2 practice session, he did not immediately go to the F1 practice session. Qin Miao continued to stay at UNI-Virtuosi Racin for more than half an hour, chatting with Zhou Guanyu about his feelings about this track.

"What should I say? Is this track easy to run? What parts do you think are worth mentioning?"

Zhou Guanyu had just gotten off his racing car, holding his helmet in one hand and wiping his face with a towel in the other.

"I haven't compared it with others, so I can't say, but I feel that this track is still very comfortable to run on. After changing some low-speed corners, the overall running is very smooth." At this point, Zhou Guanyu paused: " But I feel that the modified track will still consume more tires, but this is just my feeling, and I can’t guarantee whether it is really like what I said.”

Qin Miao nodded clearly, looked at Zhou Guanyu and the staff of UNI-Virtuosi Racin, and after analyzing Zhou Guanyu's performance in the practice session, Qin Miao left the F2 station.

However, before leaving, Qin Miao asked Zhou Guanyu for a copy of the in-car video of his practice session.

Because Zhou Guanyu owns shares in the UNI-Virtuosi Racin team, UNI-Virtuosi Racin has no reason to refuse Qin Miao's request.

Moreover, the vehicle video can be found on the F2 official website. Compared with the vehicle video Qin Miao obtained from UNI-Virtuosi Racin, compared with the vehicle video on the F2 official website, the video provided by the UNI-Virtuosi Racin team is only of higher definition. , the frame rate is higher, and there is no F2 watermark.

Apart from being much more comfortable to watch, there are no other essential differences, so there is no possibility of leaking the video to Qin Miao.

After returning to the team home, Qin Miao was somewhat surprised to find Qiu Meng in his lounge.

At this time, Qiu Meng was sitting in her seat, lowering her head and operating something on the laptop she brought over. She didn't notice that Qin Miao had opened the door and walked in.

To be honest, the moment he saw this girl, Qin Miao's inner anxiety eased a little.

"When did you come?" Qin Miao asked curiously, "Why didn't you tell me?"

Qiu Meng looked up and saw that it was Qin Miao. She showed a bright smile. Then she lowered her head again and started operating on the computer: "The plane landed this morning. I wanted to give you a surprise, so I I didn’t tell you in advance, but you are back now, so there should be no surprises.”

Qin Miao saw Qiu Meng just answering his own question without raising his head, so he asked curiously: "What are you doing?"

"Handling several endorsement contracts."

"Didn't you help me get a brokerage company? Can't they handle it?" Qin Miao nodded and sat down next to Qiu Meng.

"They can indeed handle it, but they can't make the final decision. They can only help me screen the intended contracts. The final decision is still in my hands."

"Thank you for your hard work, come and give me a hug."

After Qiu Meng heard Qin Miao's words, she did not immediately withdraw her attention from the computer. Instead, she did some quick operations and pressed Enter to handle all the work at hand.

Then Qiu Meng was like a Kamen Rider wearing a transformation belt, and her whole temperament changed, from the strong woman just now to the soft girl Qin Miao was familiar with.

"Here we come~" She threw herself into Qin Miao's arms with a smile.

……

In the afternoon, the time when practice starts.

By the time Qin Miao appeared in the broadcast, it was already the last half-minute countdown to the start of the first practice.

At this time, Qin Miao appeared at the exit of the pit area driving his car with a brand new set of hard tires.

The tire formulas given by Pirelli for this week's race are C3-C5, the softest of the three tires.

It can be seen that from Pirelli's perspective, this track does not consume too much racing tires.

There was basically no wind during the first practice period, and the track temperature was 41°C, which was considered to be more suitable weather for racing.

As with the previous two races in the Middle East, qualifying and the race will take place in the evening.

Therefore, Qin Miao in the first practice stage was more familiar with the layout of the track.

This process will be very fast. After all, Qin Miao has already thoroughly explored this track on the simulator. This stage is just to confirm Qin Miao's inner thoughts.

Compared with Qin Miao, who was already waiting at the entrance of the pit area before the practice session started, Hamilton came out of the team's P room at least a minute later.

Soon, Qin Miao completed the first tire warm-up lap and began today's long-distance test.

Although Qin Miao encountered two slow cars in this long-distance test, the average speed still exceeded the long-distance expectations set by the team for Qin Miao before the start of the first practice.

Of course, Qin Miao's average score just crossed the line.

But this is not incomprehensible. After all, Qin Miao was getting familiar with the track in the first two laps, testing the cornering envelope of the hard tires on this track, and testing the cornering limits of the car.

As Qin Miao becomes more familiar with this track, his speed will naturally become faster and faster.

After that, Qin Miao tested the speed of the medium tires and soft tires under the command of the team. After completing these two tests, the practice time was over.

I don’t know why, but Qin Miao’s work progress during the first practice stage was quite fast, and he almost completed the goal set by the team during the first practice stage more than ten minutes ahead of schedule.

However, Qin Miao did not waste the extra ten minutes. After putting on an old set of hard tires, Qin Miao went up and ran the fastest lap.

Of course, it is Qin Miao’s current fastest lap.

Then as time passed, F2 qualifying began.

Qin Miao didn't go to watch Zhou Guanyu's game this time.

Because the data collected by the team during the first training phase still needs Qin Miao to summarize and organize it.

After working intensively for a period of time, the F2 qualifying session ended. Qin Miao had no time to pay attention to Zhou Guanyu's results in qualifying because the second practice began.

During the second practice period, Qin Miao spent the first half hour running a long-distance test on the medium tire. He also ran a qualifying simulation on the medium tire. His results were a bit poor, but the problem was not major. Qin Miao still had plenty of time to adjust. . Qin Miao spent most of the next half hour practicing soft tire qualifying simulation.

Throughout the second practice, no one on the Mercedes team was idle.

When the second practice ended, everyone on Qin Miao and Mei Ben breathed a sigh of relief.

Because just like the first practice, the crew of the second practice Qin Miao also completed the test and data collection fifteen minutes earlier than expected.

Because the weather environment in the second practice was the same as that of the main game, the results of the second practice had certain reference significance. After all, except for Qin Miao’s second practice, which had almost ten kilograms of extra sensors on the car, everything else was done according to the schedule. Run at the pace of a position race.

After the second practice, Qin Miao's result was 0.7 seconds faster than Hamilton.

Although it seems that Qin Miao has a huge advantage, in fact, Hamilton's result means that he did not exert any effort at all.

But Qin Miao was already very satisfied with such a fast speed.

In this game, Toto can be said to be very proud of his horse.

In past games, Toto would more or less mention Red Bull to James Allison and others, or talk about Verstappen's performance in this game.

And this week, from the time Toto arrived in the paddock on Thursday until now, the frequency of the mention of Red Bull in his mouth has decreased significantly.

He simply didn’t take Red Bull seriously.

And Toto also has reasons for doing this. After all, the only two drivers from Mercedes who are most likely to win the driver's championship in this game.

Red Bull really couldn't get into Toto's eyes at this time.

After work on Friday, Qin Miao didn't rest even after returning to the hotel. He tested on the simulator whether there was any possibility of optimizing the route he ran on the field.

After all, it was just a practice session. Although Qin Miao had tried his best in that lap, that was Qin Miao's limit at that time, not Qin Miao's limit as a person.

So after returning to the hotel, Qin Miao spent almost three hours studying the track details on the simulator.

The speed is naturally improved compared to the second practice, and the single lap is 0.3 seconds faster than the fastest lap in the second practice.

But on the track, whether the details and cornering skills Qin Miao learned from the simulator can give him an advantage in the competition, we will have to wait until tomorrow's third practice to know the result.

The next day, Saturday.

It was still morning, Qin Miao came to the paddock early.

After completing the routine pre-match interview, Qin Miao returned to the team's P room and took the time to watch the replay of Zhou Guanyu's qualifying match yesterday.

As expected of his eldest son, Zhou Guanyu finally finished third in the qualifying session on Friday.

This means that Zhou Guanyu will eventually start in third place. With Zhou Guanyu's current ability, he will basically get points back in the third start.

Not surprisingly, this year's F2 driver championship will fall on Zhou Guanyu.

However, Qin Miao didn't watch the replay of Zhou Guanyu's qualifying match to see his ranking on the field.

He mainly wanted to see Zhou Guanyu's rhythm when driving on the track and his route into corners.

However, at this time, Qin Miao could gain very little from the F2 qualifying video, so after watching it for more than ten minutes, Qin Miao closed the lid of the laptop in front of him.

After watching the video of last year's game again, the time came to 3 pm on Saturday, the time when the third practice started.

At this stage, Qin Miao is basically doing the finishing work and the final fine-tuning of the car.

It is worth mentioning that although this race is the last race of the 2021 season, and Verstappen poses almost no threat to the two Mercedes drivers at this time, Mercedes still gave the two Mercedes drivers in this race Riders bring new upgrades.

These include a front spoiler and a rear diffuser.

Both components increase the downforce and stability of the car.

In fact, last week, during the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, the Mercedes-Benz team's R&D department had already shifted its research and development focus to next year's car.

The two upgrade components for this game are components that have been developed for a long time, but were only recently produced.

The most intuitive effect brought about by the introduction of these two components is indeed that the overall performance of the car has been improved, and the cornering stability is also good. The most important thing is that the pain point of Hamilton's racing tires being slow to heat up has been improved.

Of course, this thing is not all good, there are pros and cons.

Perhaps because these are the last two upgrade parts of the W12, the engineers were somewhat lazy. After these two parts were installed on the car, the tuning window of the car became significantly smaller.

But fortunately, the W12 has the foundation of the W11 Mars rover, and the narrowed tuning window did not cause Qin Miao much trouble in adjusting the racing settings.

Moreover, Qin Miao and his crew are in surprisingly good condition this week. Whether it is testing or finding Qin Miao's most comfortable training, it is faster than a normal grand prix weekend.

So in the last 10 minutes of the third practice, Qin Miao determined the car tuning he would use for qualifying and the race.

Because of this, Qin Miao rarely left work early during practice matches.

As for Qin Miao leaving get off work early, Hamilton and his crew were stunned for a moment.

Qin Miao's movements also invisibly increased the pressure on them.

Still not watching Zhou Guanyu's F2 sprint race, Qin Miao returned directly to the lounge of the team home after finishing his third practice session.

The next step is naturally to wait for the game to start.

But usually Qin Miao is never nervous at times like this, and sometimes even plays with PS5.

But today, after Qin Miao returned to the lounge of the team home, she couldn't calm down and seemed very anxious.

In the end, Qin Miao found some noise-cancelling headphones and turned on the noise-cancelling mode to block all external sounds, and then the restlessness in her heart subsided a little.

Time passes bit by bit.

Finally, qualifying is about to begin.

(End of this chapter)