How did I become an F1 driver?

After Reyes and the others received the news, they immediately installed the tires in their hands on Qin Miao's car and took off the tire warming blanket on the medium tire.

As the staff on both sides of the track withdrew, the moment Qin Miao gently stepped on the accelerator pedal, he finally heard the first roar of the W13's engine.

Then naturally Qin Miao drove his racing car onto the track with ease.

The appearance of the defending champion was naturally noticed by everyone immediately.

The live broadcast footage also showed the W13 driven by Qin Miao for the first time.

On the other side, at Five Star Sports, the three commentators saw Qin Miao and said happily: "Here we come, Qin Miao is out."

"To be honest, I was looking forward to Qin Miao's speed today. The characteristics of the ground-effect car are very different from last season's car."

"I still believe in Qin Miao's adaptability. Last season, Qin Miao's ability to adapt to car upgrades and new tracks has been very fast. This car should not be difficult for Qin Miao."

It is worth mentioning that F1 has now become the most watched program on Five-Star Sports, so in many cases, unless it is other competitions such as the finals, it has to make way for F1 projects, even if it is just a test.

Therefore, during this period, the three commentators from Five Star Sports appeared in the studio on time to meet the audience.

On the field, Qin Miao actually did not encounter the problems mentioned by the three commentators. There was no such thing as adapting. The moment he touched the car, Qin Miao established a connection with the car. For this I know the basics of Taiwan racing.

However, today Qin Miao had no chance to push the car to the limit. It was not so much that there was no chance, but that the team at this time did not dare to risk Qin Miao pushing the car to the limit.

After all, due to changes in technical regulations, this W13 only inherits 12% of the parts from the W30, and the remaining 70% of the parts are all redesigned.

No one can guarantee that this car will not cause any accidents when driving at high speeds.

It doesn't matter if the car is knocked down in an accident. The worst thing is to build a new one. Mercedes has a lot of money and can't afford this little money.

But if Qin Miao has an accident during testing due to imperfect car design, I believe the Mercedes team will be sprayed to death by fans.

So after Qin Miao went out, in addition to testing the overall balance of the car and collecting data on each component of the car, he was also responsible for checking problems with the car.

Therefore, the car must not be driven too fast.

At the same time, Qin Miao's teammate Hamilton also wandered back to the team's P room shortly after Qin Miao left.

During his absence, he actually went to the P rooms of other teams to see the appearance of their cars.

It fully embodies what it means to know yourself and the enemy, and you will never be in danger in a hundred battles.

After all, the old man is a seven-time champion, so the staff of other teams couldn't drive him away when they found Hamilton poking his head outside the P room of his team.

Just let him watch.

After Hamilton took a quick look at the cars of other teams, he also learned from Angela that Qin Miao was about to drive on the track.

Hamilton, who has officially listed Qin Miao as his primary competitor in the new season, naturally did not want to miss the scene of Qin Miao taking to the track to start testing, so he came back.

For the next whole morning, Hamilton stayed with Toto, watching Qin Miao's test footage, the data Qin Miao got on the track, and Qin Miao's feedback in the team's P room.

As for Qin Miao, after the tenth lap and the team's data were almost there, Franky said in the team's TR: "Qin Miao, you can try to speed up a little now. Let's take a look at the car. condition while driving at high speed.

You have two laps. After the two laps, return to the team's P room. We will then install an airflow detection net on the car. "

Qin Miao was naturally extremely happy.

And Qin Miao clearly felt that the grip of the car this season was obviously stronger than that of the car last season, especially in high-speed corners, the car's cornering speed envelope was very large.

Last season, medium and high-speed corners that had to be throttled back a little or even required braking could be passed quickly this season.

This is where the horror of inefficient floors comes in.

Of course, Qin Miao has also discovered many problems now.

After entering the medium-high speed section, the stability of the rear of the car is a bit too high.

To put it simply, the downforce at the rear of this car is too high.

Therefore, racing cars are prone to tire overheating on the track.

At the same time, the special new suspension design makes the car suffer some disadvantages on tracks with relatively high and hard road shoulders. It is easy to lose grip when crossing the road shoulders, and the vibration is a bit loud.

And Qin Miao also has a feeling that at the end of the straight, the acceleration of the car this season is obviously not as crisp as last season.

After reaching 300 kilometers per hour, it is easy to slow down the speed.

In addition, there are many problems, large and small.

But most of them are setup problems, which can be solved by going back to the team's P room and adjusting the car's software and programs.

Of course, the current test is for the FIA ​​to solve these problems for the team. Qin Miao did not feel uncomfortable because of it. He was even very happy to see the problems of the car exposed during the test, because the problems exposed during the test The more problems there are, the fewer problems there will be in the main race.

For the next entire morning, Qin Miao devoted himself wholeheartedly to discovering and improving racing problems.

Basically, he went out to run more than ten or twenty laps, then came back to adjust the settings of the car, discussed the problems he found with the team's technicians and the designers of the design department, and made a record. After the car was adjusted, Qin Miao returned. Get back in the car and hit the track.

After the morning practice ended, Qin Miao's work for the day came to an end, and the next afternoon was Hamilton's test time.

During this period, Qin Miao replaced Hamilton's position and came to his own position to observe Hamilton's driving data.

It is worth mentioning that after obtaining Qin Miao's data, Hamilton ran a few flying laps as soon as he came out.

Even the speed of the fastest flight lap was nearly 1 second faster than Qin Miao's fastest lap in the morning.

Qin Miao didn't feel anything about this, but he was a little worried that it would be too risky for Hamilton to do a flying lap at this time, while Toto on the side gave Qin Miao a meaningful look.

However, after seeing Qin Miao's calm expression, he raised his eyebrows and then turned his attention to his work, as if nothing happened.

……

The next day, Qin Miao began to try to speed up. It is worth mentioning that because Qin Miao started to speed up, he discovered a big problem.

That is, when the car is traveling at high speed, it will bounce.

Maybe the bounce wasn't too violent in the broadcast footage, it was just shaking up and down while driving at high speed.

However, Qin Miao, the driver, felt that after every bounce, his entire back would collide with the seat cushion of the car.

Yes, it was a collision.

Because the human body is soft and has a certain amount of compression, when the car bounces, the first push of the car is violently upward. The human body will naturally fly upward for a while under the reaction force of the suspension, and then it will be brought back by the safety belt. He was pulled back to the chair, and during this time the suspension of the car was re-compressed. The distance between the human body and the carbon fiber backrest behind him even increased a little, and then he was pulled back again.

You may not feel anything if you do it once or twice, but if you do it more times, it will be really uncomfortable.

But the bouncing when driving at high speeds is always there. Even with Qin Miao's strong physical fitness, his back still hurts after being hit too many times.

The only thing that comforted Qin Miao was that after returning to the pit area, he found that almost all teams had this problem. The only difference was the frequency and severity of the dolphin jumps.

After returning to the team, Qin Miao was naturally the first to report this issue to the team.

Naturally, the team also attaches great importance to it. After all, this dolphin jump will not only attack the driver, but also severely limit the performance of the Mercedes engine. During high-speed driving, the speed of the car cannot be increased at all.

It can even have an impact on the consistency of the car.

The team immediately made adjustments. Even Hamilton, who was frowning and thinking hard about the cause of this phenomenon, was rushed to the team home by the team, put on his racing suit, entered the car, and began to help the team find the cause of this problem. The reasons and solutions are out.

After that, the team tested two solutions at the same time. One was to increase the suspension hardness of the car, and the other was to install the reinforced ribs that had been prepared on both sides of the car's floor.

Tested by Qin Miao and Hamilton respectively.

Therefore, it is rare that during the testing phase, the scene of two Mercedes racing cars appearing on the track was similar to that of the practice session.

On the track, Qin Miao felt that the adjusted racing road feel was too strong.

The suspension was originally stiffer than last season because of the new suspension. After adjustment, it really turned out to be Mr. Huang of Goose City - tall and stiff.

But don’t mention it yet. The stiffer suspension did alleviate the bounce of the W13 when driving at high speeds, but Qin Miao found that the speed of the car after the adjustment was slower than before the adjustment.

The only advantage is that the car used to have dolphin jumps at about 305 kilometers per hour without turning on DRS, but now it only occurs at about 315 kilometers per hour.

But the speed increase is slower than before the adjustment.

For F1 racing, this is a waste of watermelon. In addition, there is another big trouble, that is, because the suspension strength has become higher, the appearance time of Qin Miao's racing dolphin jump has indeed been slowed down, but the amplitude of the dolphin jump is also larger and the intensity is higher.

All in all, this is not good news.

On the other hand, Hamilton's settings did alleviate the occurrence of dolphin jumps, but they only addressed the symptoms rather than the root cause. Even because of the emergence of the two tie-rod structures, the wind resistance of the car increased slightly, and problems with weight and balance also appeared. There was a problem of consistency between exiting and entering corners. The same corner two laps apart had two different entry characteristics. What stood out was that it was completely random.

In short, Mercedes encountered a big trouble on the second day after the test started.

Of course, although this problem is particularly difficult now, neither the top management of the Mercedes team nor Toto Wolff immediately changed their confidence in the current racing structure because of this small setback. They still feel that This situation can be solved through subsequent gradual upgrades.

After three days, the test ended.

Although the test results obtained by the Mercedes-Benz team are somewhat unoptimistic, and can even be said to be very bad, the dolphin jump at high speeds bothers everyone.

The only good news is that this trouble does not only plague the Mercedes team, but almost all teams have been affected by the dolphin jump.

At this time, the Mercedes-Benz Racing Team has initially come up with a solution to the dolphin jump, but this will have to wait until the Mercedes-Benz Racing Team compiles and analyzes all the data collected during this practice session.

On the other side, after three days of testing, Qin Miao went out for a meal with Zhou Guanyu and Leclerc.

While eating, the three of them inevitably talked about racing this season.

Because of the dolphin jump, basically all the drivers' backs were hit hard by their cars thousands of times in three days.

"Have you encountered dolphin jumping?" Qin Miao was the first to speak. In three days, his back had been bruised by dolphin jumping on the track. After returning to the hotel, there were even bruises on many places on his back.

"Tsk, it really hurts." That's all Zhou Guanyu said, but his meaning was easy to understand, and his back was probably bruised at this moment.

Leclerc looked at the two of them in surprise: "Didn't you adjust it? We solved the problem by increasing the suspension strength."

Qin Miao's mouth twitched. After discovering this problem the next day, the Mercedes team tried various adjustments in the next two days, even giving up part of the time to collect data, just to find a way to Various methods have been tried to alleviate the dolphin's jumping, including four tie rods connected to the chassis, but the jump still needs to be made.

So on the afternoon of the third day, Mercedes stopped trying to alleviate the problem. Instead, they filled Qin Miao and Hamilton's cars with sensing parts, and covered key parts with paint, in order to find the specific cause of the dolphin jump. The reason is to collect enough data and then return to the team factory to find a solution.

Because of this, Qin Miao and Hamilton were greatly disturbed in the past two days.

Fortunately, what is being done now is just testing, and the team can make adjustments to the car through the data collection during this period.

"That's easy to say, but our team has no clues at all." Zhou Guanyu said helplessly.

Qin Miao also shook his head and said: "On the third day, we simply gave up on solving the problem of dolphin jumping on the spot. Instead, we started collecting data. We have to find a way to change it after returning to the team."

After saying these words, Qin Miao picked up a chopstick of beef and couldn't help but feel the pain in his back again.

At this time, there is less than a month left before the Bahrain test in March.

Qin Miao is willing to believe that the team can solve most of the problems currently exposed in less than a month, but Qin Miao always has a feeling that the problem of dolphin jumping is not so easy to solve.

After returning to the team, what surprised Qin Miao was that Hamilton did not go anywhere else in this month.

I returned to my residence in London and came to the team factory at about ten o'clock every morning to start working.

It seems that Hamilton also realized that this season's car is not as competitive as last season, and he became nervous.

Qin Miao still lived in the house near the Brackley factory during this period, living a random life from nine to nine every day.

The randomness mentioned here mainly refers to the fact that when to get off work depends entirely on when Qin Miao completes the day's work.

……

March 2022, 3, a very ordinary Monday.

Qin Miao got up early as usual, put on her clothes, and after washing, she took a mobile phone and prepared to ride her scooter to the team factory to work.

Because of the problems discovered during the test in Barcelona half a month ago, everyone in the team has been busy day and night for half a month. Qin Miao has also devoted all his attention to the simulator recently. Even his favorite game was put down, causing complaints from the audience in Qin Miao's live broadcast room who wanted to watch his live broadcast.

There was even a time when Qin Miao's fans started scolding each other in the live broadcast room.

The two parties scolding each other are actually fans of Qin Miao. One is a car fan who likes to watch Qin Miao racing, and the other is a fan who likes to watch Qin Miao play games.

Fans who like to watch Qin Miao play games are clamoring in the live broadcast room every day when Qin Miao will come back to live broadcast. On the other hand, car fans come to Qin Miao's live broadcast room to see when Qin Miao will start broadcasting and listen to what he has to say. Regarding racing, naturally I saw these people shouting in the live broadcast room, and then naturally the two sides started to quarrel.

After all, in the eyes of car fans, Qin Miao's status as a racing driver is higher than that of an anchor, and a racing driver definitely makes more money than an anchor, so he naturally puts his racing career first.

The other group of people are just for fun. They just want to watch Qin Miao play games live. When Qin Miao is not there, they just yell and complain.

Anyway, he started to curse out of nowhere.

The fans who like to watch both Qin Miao's racing and Qin Miao's live broadcast are confused.

Pulling away, back to the topic.

Today, Qin Miao was preparing to work in the team as usual.

After arriving at the team, they checked in and found Barber in the cafeteria. After eating the breakfast prepared by Barber, the two went to the team factory together to start their day's work.

It is worth mentioning that today, almost all the team's senior technical department executives are in the team. Even Mike Elliott, who is busy working on new parts and looks much more haggard than before, also returned to the team factory today. .

After working until the afternoon, after checking the data in front of him and packaging the files and sending them to the simulator department's mailbox, Qin Miao stretched and stood up from the ergonomic chair in his office.

After stretching comfortably and flexing his wrist, Qin Miao picked up the phone and looked at the time, 4:20 pm.

I don’t know why, but I have a little less work today, so I can go back from get off work early.

Since there is nothing wrong now, and it has been almost half a month, it is rare that I can get off work before 5:30.

Qin Miao naturally packed up his things happily and prepared to leave his office at the racing car manufacturing factory.

Because he often goes to the team factory, Mercedes also prepared an office for Qin Miao in the factory. During this period, Qin Miao spent much more time in this office than in the office in the administrative building. .

But as soon as Qin Miao packed her things and went out, suddenly there were two "bang!" sounds of exploding firecrackers at the door.

When normal Europeans and Americans hear this sound, they probably think there is a shooting or someone fighting near them.

Hearing this sound, I subconsciously wanted to lie down on the ground with my head in my hands.

But Qin Miao, a native Chinese, was startled by the sudden sound just because he was unprepared.

But that was all, Qin Miao did not show any more reaction.

Then the smiling faces of many people appeared in front of Qin Miao, including Toto, Hamilton, Elliott, Alison, and Hodgkinson.

In short, almost all the senior management of the technical department of the Mercedes-Benz team came over, and these people cheered to Qin Miao: "Qin Miao! Happy 21st birthday!"

Qin Miao was stunned for a while.

ah? Celebrating your birthday? When did it happen? Why didn't anyone remind me?

While Qin Miao was still in a daze, Qin Miao's press officer Alyssa had already brought over a cake with 21 candles in it, but with a 1 in the middle.

It is not difficult to guess what these 21 candles and this 1 mean.

21 means Qin Miao will be 21 years old after today, and this 1 means that Qin Miao has already won a world championship.

After seeing this, Qin Miao gradually realized that today is his birthday.

Then Qin Miao couldn't laugh or cry again. She was so busy during this period that she even forgot her birthday.

But this is good after becoming a celebrity, because you don’t need to remember your birthday, there will always be someone to remind you, and even if you don’t know, they will prepare birthday surprises and gifts for you.

In fact, if Qin Miao browses the Internet and browses short videos on his mobile phone during this period, he can get information about his birthday.

But Qin Miao was really busy during this period. He had to train for physical fitness and help the team run simulators. At the same time, he also had a lot of shortcomings to make up for.

Qin Miao, who couldn't wait to spend one day for two days, naturally had no time to look at her mobile phone.

At this time, Qin Miao subconsciously wanted to be less emotional. After all, in Qin Miao's own opinion, he was now 21 and no longer a child. However, the corners of Qin Miao's mouth looked like AK, which was suppressed no matter what. Not going down.

In the end, Qin Miao simply gave up, smiled and hugged his colleagues who had sent blessings to him, and personally distributed the cake to everyone.

Of course, Qin Miao didn't forget to take a piece back for his wife. (End of chapter)