How did I become an F1 driver?

And this is not just a problem with the broken gearbox of Arrow Racing, there is also a problem with the gearbox program.

The engine couldn't even rev up, so naturally it couldn't accelerate the car at the start.

Fortunately, those who encountered this situation were first-year freshman Zhou Guanyu and Portas, who had not run in a race for a year.

Both of them have lost their temper during this period, and all they want is to return to F1/become an F1 driver, that's all.

If it were Kimi at this time, he would probably be able to scold everyone in Arrow's gearbox department from the person in charge to the sweeper in the team TR.

Fortunately, the race had just started at this time, and Zhou Guanyu's position was relatively forward, so he didn't lose too many positions and was not left too far behind by the car formation.

After the engine speed came up again, Zhou Guanyu followed closely behind Ricciardo.

And he passed Ricciardo in front of him before even finishing the first lap, raising his ranking to 19th.

Among the drivers starting in the front row, Qin Miao focused most of his attention on Magruson behind him. Although Qin Miao, like many viewers, was a little surprised that a Haas will appear in this position, but after coming to the track, Qin Miao will not take any opponent lightly.

So even though this Haas seemed easy to bully, Qin Miao still maintained his attention to him. In the next period of time, Qin Miao would take a look at the position gap between himself and the opponent from time to time.

But time soon proved that Qin Miao was worried. Just halfway through the second lap, the time gap between Qin Miao and Magruson was widened by 0.3 seconds.

On the second lap, Zhou Guanyu relied on the performance of his car to overtake Norris on the outside of T1.

That's right, Zhou Guanyu killed Norris directly.

Although Norris started with medium tires, Norris still tried to defend Zhou Guanyu's attack. However, under Norris's deliberate defense, Zhou Guanyu still successfully surpassed Norris. This is also This shows in disguise that Zhou Guanyu's offensive ability is still remarkable.

On the third lap, Zhou Guanyu killed Stroll in front of him again, and his position rose to 17th.

It seems that the mistake at the start did not have any impact on Zhou Guanyu's mentality. In fact, the mistake seemed to ignite a ball of anger in Zhou Guanyu's heart. Instead, it made him go faster and faster, and now he is almost catching up. On to his teammate Bottas.

Qin Miao in front also entered a long-distance cruising state.

And Qin Miao had a feeling that after entering the era of ground effects, it would be much easier to follow a car.

Although at the team meeting before the race, the director of the team's aerodynamics department said: "This season due to the introduction of ground effect rules, the turbulence emitted by the car in front will be much less than last season, so it will be easier to follow the car. It’s a lot and overtaking is easier.”

At first, Qin Miao didn't take this sentence too seriously, but after the race started, Qin Miao correctly felt that this season, following the car in front into the corner, the car's downforce was basically not lost.

It can also maintain a relatively fast speed when entering and exiting corners to better attack the driver in front.

It is obvious that the FIA's changes to the competition rules this season have indeed achieved what they wanted.

On the sixth lap, Zhou Guanyu surpassed Hulkenberg and moved up one position to fifteenth.

As for Qin Miao, due to tire problems, Qin Miao was gradually pulled away by his teammate Hamilton, but after six laps, the time gap between Qin Miao and his teammate Hamilton had reached 2.1 seconds.

However, when the race came to the ninth lap, Hamilton's soft tire advantage was gradually erased, and Qin Miao also kept up with Hamilton's pace.

It's just that at this time, neither the audience, the commentators nor the on-site director focused their attention on Qin Miao.

Because of Zhou Guanyu's performance from the bottom of the team to fourteenth in the past few laps, and now he has caught up with Albon and started to attack Albon, the director directly fixed the camera on Zhou Guanyu, giving Zhou Guanyu enough footage.

Zhou Guanyu also lived up to expectations and passed Albon in front of him on the straightaway on the 10th lap.

But after the scene of Zhou Guanyu surpassing Albon ended, the director immediately showed the scene to Qin Miao.

Because at this time, in the DRS area behind Qin Miao, a Red Bull was only 0.7 seconds away from Qin Miao.

Perez, who lost his rhythm after the start, stabilized his condition on the track, first surpassed Magnussen, and now finally caught up with Qin Miao, ready to attack Qin Miao.

What the two Mercedes drivers on the track have to admit is that Red Bull is indeed faster than Mercedes this season, whether in terms of qualifying or race lap speed.

Therefore, Qin Miao, who has always been good at defensive ability, felt a lot of pressure after seeing Perez behind him.

On the one hand, the track in Bahrain is a bit difficult to defend. On the other hand, the Red Bull car laps one second faster than the Mercedes car. Moreover, Qin Miao is still using medium tires, so it is easier to follow the car this season.

It can be said that Qin Miao had no room to resist in the face of Perez's attack.

Therefore, even someone as powerful as Qin Miao cannot guarantee that he can lock down Perez behind him like he locked down Verstappen last season.

However, the audience didn't think so. In the eyes of the audience, Qin Miao was still the talented driver with the best defensive ability in the field.

Then what shocked all the viewers was that Perez charged up a lap behind Qin Miao, and then on the eleventh lap of the straight, using DRS and ERS, Perez braked directly on T1 He surpassed Qin Miao before the point.

Although Qin Miao also tried to draw a dragon in front of Perez, and even took the center line of the straight when Perez was chasing him, giving Perez a choice of either you follow the lane and I will brake later, or You have no choice of speed after exiting the corner on the dirty side.

However, in the face of the absolute speed gap, these twists and turns were useless. Perez even surpassed Qin Miao before the braking point, and finally pulled his car back to the driving lane very calmly, smoothly. The ground curves out.

In fact, Qin Miao still wanted to struggle, and planned to take an intersection line at T2 and T3, and use the speed of exiting the corner and the DRS area between T3 and T4 to overtake.

However, Qin Miao's position on the gas after exiting the corner was 5 meters later than Perez's.

Although he suffered DRS after exiting the corner, Perez, who exited the corner faster, did not give Qin Miao a chance to catch up with him before the braking point of T4.

So Qin Miao could only watch helplessly as Perez surpassed him and walked away.

Faced with the absolute speed gap, Qin Miao's resistance seemed a bit funny.

"Qin Miao, despite trying, we can still see that Qin Miao did not hold his position."

"In fact, we can't blame Qin Miao. From this game, it is obvious that the two Mercedes drivers are not fast enough. This is most likely because Mercedes' cars are not competitive enough this season."

……

Qin Miao's position returned to sixth. Qin Miao had a feeling that if nothing unexpected happened, he could only defeat his teammate Hamilton and finish fifth in this game. As for the top four positions... then I can only think about it.

But just when Qin Miao thought that Perez would easily surpass Hamilton just like he surpassed himself, Hamilton actually chose to pit directly and put on a new set of hard tires.

After Hamilton came out of the pit area after putting on this set of hard tires, he happened to meet Zhou Guanyu, who was already chasing the twelfth place. Then because Hamilton's set of hard tires did not reach the appropriate working temperature, Hamilton was overtaken by Zhou Guanyu.

Yes, in front of everyone, Zhou Guanyu surpassed Hamilton.

Killing red eyes belongs to yes.

In the next half lap, Zhou Guanyu also relied on his tire advantage to gradually widen the time gap between himself and Hamilton.

However, he didn't pull too far away. On the straightaway on lap 13, Hamilton regained his position.

Although the glory was very short-lived, at least this scene brought quite a surprise to many domestic audiences who were looking forward to Zhou Guanyu's outstanding performance in his debut.

The matter of being overtaken by Hamilton soon had nothing to do with Zhou Guanyu, although this season's Mercedes car still has a lot of problems waiting to be solved in the eyes of people within the team.

But Mercedes is the defending champion team no matter what, and the gap with you Arrow is not even a little bit.

Next, the drivers on the track all entered cruise mode.

On lap 15, the pit stop window opened.

Verstappen in front of Qin Miao took the lead to pit. After Verstapan pitted, Sainz behind Verstappen also pitted at Verstappen's pace.

Ferrari's idea for this race is simple, that is, to allow Sainz to maintain a two-for-three lead and to help Leclerc contain Verstappen.

Due to the pit stops of the two drivers in front, Qin Miao's ranking moved to third.

On lap 16, Leclerc and Perez in front also chose to pit.

Ferrari's idea is simple. Leclerc was in good shape from the beginning of today's game, and Ferrari also has a speed advantage over Red Bull.

So at this time, Ferrari shouldn’t think too much. COS Hatake Kakashi, when Verstappen pits, we will pit with him on the second lap.

Although this approach is nothing new, it can at least ensure that the team will not make mistakes in pit stop strategy again.

After all the riders in front had pitted, Qin Miao took advantage of the situation and came to the first place.

The first time he led the field in the 2022 season was in this state. To be honest, this was not what Qin Miao wanted to see.

But everyone knows that Qin Miao's first place is only temporary. Now it depends on how long Qin Miao can last with this set of medium tires.

Also because Qin Miao came to the first place, the subsequent broadcast scenes had nothing to do with him.

The camera is all on Verstappen and Leclerc.

Because Verstappen took the lead and eliminated the 2-second time gap between himself and Leclerc, so the two started fighting directly on the track.

It happened twice on the track. Verstappen used DRS to overtake Leclerc in T1, and then Leclerc, who was overtaken, used the wake and DRS to regain his position in T3 after exiting the corner in T4. A good show.

It was the same method that Qin Miao immediately thought of when facing Perez's attack and overtaking, but Qin Miao did not complete this set of operations because of the gap in car performance.

And Leclerc did it.

The two fought for three laps in total. In the third lap, Verstappen was also preparing to attack in T1. Although he knew that even if he successfully overtook Leclerc in T1, Leclerc would overtake him again later, but he did so without hesitation. .

Then he locked up at T1, and the right front wheel was directly bruised.

This attack also came to an end.

"It is undeniable that the two battles between Ferrari and Red Bull were indeed exciting, but after seeing such a scene, and then looking at Qin Miao who was still on the track on the medium tire in front, why did I feel a sense of deja vu? "

Brother Xia also laughed and said: "Last season, Qin Miao really carried out the saying that the fisherman wins when the snipe and the clam compete. He always used his incredible talent in tire protection to combine himself with Hamilton Verstappen. The two main rivals have staggered pit stops.

Then, although Hamilton and Verstappen knew that if they continued to fight with each other on the track, they would eventually take advantage of Qin Miao, but they were unwilling to lag behind because of their own personalities. "

"Now this familiar feeling is back!"

But soon, as the race came to the 26th lap, Qin Miao was also called back to the pit area by the team.

Under such circumstances, Qin Miao has maintained a fairly good speed. After running for so long, he can prove to all the fans that his tire protection ability has not deteriorated, but the car has just pulled.

The tire changing time this time was 2.7 seconds, which is pretty good.

After Qin Miao put on new hard tires and came out of the pit area, Qin Miao fell behind Hamilton and in front of Magruson.

In other words, Qin Miao basically did not lose any rankings when he pitted for tire changes this time, and he also gained 12 laps of new tires in vain.

Because other drivers still need to pit again to change tires, Qin Miao's tires for these 12 laps will eventually be returned.

But at least with the terrifying ability of Qin Miao to protect the tire now, it is really possible for him to get a good result in this game.

As for the Mercedes team, they have actually calculated where Qin Miao will be after coming out of the pit area.

So after seeing Qin Miao's position, there was no surprise.

As for Qin Miao relying on his terrifying tire protection ability to get a good result on the track?

To be honest, everyone on the Mercedes-Benz team can only have a little extravagant hope, but they don't have any hope.

Because the performance gap between the car and the four cars in the front group is a bit big.

Qin Miao used the same tires as Hamilton, and Qin Miao's tires were a full 12 laps newer than Hamilton's. So after coming out of the pit area and spending the initial warm-up lap, Qin Miao started to race quickly. Shorten the time gap between yourself and Hamilton.

However, Mercedes certainly does not want to see its two drivers conflict on the track.

The team's strategy team knows the personalities of these two people. Hamilton will not take the initiative to let Qin Miao pass, and Qin Miao now has such a huge advantage and cannot willingly stay behind Hamilton and let Hamilton block him.

The Mercedes team directly asked Hamilton to pit for tire changes on lap 27. (End of chapter)