How did I become an F1 driver?

Chapter 365 Chapter 359: Envy separates Zhou Guanyu

In the next few days, Qin Miao's life returned to normal, and time soon came to Wednesday again, the time when the weekly system releases tasks.

It is worth mentioning that Qin Miao has not completed any of the three system tasks refreshed by Qin Miao last week.

One task is to ask Qin Miao to get on the podium in the race, one is to overtake three cars in the race, and the other is to enter the top three in the qualifying stage.

Unfortunately, whether it was qualifying or the race, Qin Miao stayed in the fifth position and didn't move much. Therefore, Qin Miao didn't get any mission rewards last week.

This week, the system seemed to know Qin Miao's current situation, and the difficulty of the tasks issued to Qin Miao was reduced a lot.

But because of this, the rewards given by the mission are not many.

One task is that Qin Miao's lap speed needs to be kept above 1:25.00 to finish the race during the race, excluding safety car and yellow flag periods.

The reward is Qin Miao's personal long-distance speed rating of 0.3 points.

The other is to bring the car back intact.

But looking at the two tasks issued to him by the system, Qin Miao felt that he was underestimated by the system.

Anyway, the two of them have the same destination, they basically set off on Wednesday, and they are both in the UK most of the time.

Qin Miao didn't mean to hide it. Zhou Guanyu was quite strict and would not talk about these things, so Qin Miao said calmly: "The salary has been increased, but this matter has not been announced."

Zhou Guanyu shrugged: "At worst, I can just buy your neighbor's house. It's just a matter of price."

"There seem to be ancestral houses of the villagers around here. It might be difficult for you to find them." Qin Miao opened the door and motioned for Zhou Guanyu to come in.

"How much is your annual salary now?"

After hearing what Zhou Guanyu said, Qin Miao gave him a thumbs up: "Rich man!"

How can I say that my single lap time in the race can be maintained above 1:24.500?

……

The reward is to add 0.1 to the team's car durability research and development capabilities.

On Wednesday morning, Zhou Guanyu came to Qin Miao's house.

Speaking of Qian Zhou Guanyu put down his luggage and looked at Qin Miao and asked curiously: "By the way, you also won the driver's championship last season, and Toto didn't say anything about giving you a salary increase or anything like that." of?"

Because Qin Miao has a private jet and the relationship between the two is good, Zhou Guanyu will basically fly to Qin Miao's plane to compete together unless the team has special arrangements.

After chatting for a while, Qin Miao hung up the phone and said to Zhou Guanyu, "The plane is ready. Let's go directly to the airport."

It’s okay to take one person with you, and it’s okay to take two people with you. A few more people and a few less people will not have any impact on the fuel cost of Qin Miao’s plane.

"It's not much, just 2000 million US dollars a year. Counting bonuses and income from business activities, I can earn about 5000 million US dollars a year. And because I live in Monaco, the money can be divided If it doesn’t land, it will all go into my pocket and I won’t have to pay taxes, so I’ll basically earn 5000 million a year.”

You can see how simple these two tasks are from the rewards given by the system. Although it can't be completed with a wave of hands, it basically doesn't require much effort on the part of Qin Miao.

When Zhou Guanyu heard Qin Miao's understatement, the corner of his mouth twitched involuntarily: "You use "not much" and "ye" very well. Fortunately, you grew up in China. If you don't know how to use them, I recommend not using them."

Zhou Guanyu got out of the car and locked his car and thought about it carefully. He really felt that what Qin Miao said was reasonable. However, after thinking about it, Zhou Guanyu still said: "There is no time now. I will come after the Australian Grand Prix." Look at the house here."

Zhou Guanyu clicked his tongue. He had just arrived at Qin Miao's house and had to leave for the airport without even having a drink of water. However, Zhou Guanyu still said: "Okay."

However, after Zhou Guanyu got off the bus, Qin Miao, who was standing at the door waiting for Zhou Guanyu, still complained: "Why don't you just buy a suite here, so as not to have to come here every weekend."

Qin Miao smiled proudly, but just when Qin Miao was about to say something, Qin Miao's phone rang.

The two then drove to the airport with their luggage and flew directly from the UK to Australia.

Although it takes a bit long, at least the only advantage of flying on a private plane is that you can move around freely on the plane. When you are tired, you can get up and move around for a while. In addition, Qin Miao and Zhou Guanyu are both F1 drivers, so their physical fitness is naturally the same. The top group of people, so the entire flight did not cause any discomfort to the two of them.

After landing, the two of them went to the hotel booked by their team separately.

There was no talking all night. The next day, Qin Miao and many drivers went to the paddock and began to record some promotional videos and conduct some commercial activities.

Time soon came to Friday, and everyone at Mercedes-Benz was looking forward to the race week with both anticipation and worry.

The expectations are naturally due to the team introducing a new upgrade this week. According to the simulation results of the simulator, this new rear diffuser can effectively reduce the dolphin jump of the W13.

The worry is naturally because the Mercedes team has fallen from the altar, and everyone is a little uneasy because of this. They are worried that the performance of the Mercedes team on the field will disappoint the fans.

However, no matter what the mental activities of everyone in the team are before the start of this game, this game is what everyone needs to face.

In the first practice session on Friday, Qin Miao and Hamilton changed from their normal routine. The practice session had just started and Qin Miao and Hamilton went to the track to test.

The positive attitude of the Mercedes team made other teams confused after seeing it. What happened to Mercedes today? Taking the wrong medicine?

But soon, Qin Miao and Hamilton had completely different feelings on the track.

Indeed, the upgrades introduced by the Mercedes team have significantly slowed down the car's dolphin jumping phenomenon.

At least when driving at high speeds, compared to the car on the Jeddah circuit last week, the amplitude and frequency of this car's dolphin jumps are much smaller. It does not occur in qualifying with light fuel or even at top speed. Dolphin jump.

But this just means that the jump is not as strong. The car will still jump when it is heavy on fuel. This means that the car will still jump like a dolphin during the race.

But at the same time, the tail speed and final acceleration of the car have indeed been significantly improved. At least there will be no situation where the foot is almost stepping on the fuel tank until the end, and the top speed of the car is still hovering around 300.

For this level of bounce, Qin Miao's physical fitness is acceptable. Even after the bounce has slowed down, Qin Miao feels that he will not have any discomfort in his back after running the entire Grand Prix.

But Hamilton is no longer good, and one has to accept old age. Hamilton, who is already 37 this year and is fast running for four years, naturally has no way to compare with a 20-year-old like Qin Miao in terms of physical fitness.

So although the phenomenon of dolphin jumping has been greatly slowed down, Hamilton still feels some discomfort in his back after a practice race.

Therefore, after the first practice, Hamilton and Qin Miao returned to the lounge with different moods.

Qin Miao stayed in the lounge waiting for the start of second practice, while Hamilton found Toto and Elliott and began to discuss the possibility and research and development directions of further reducing racing dolphin jumping. After a short rest and preparation, the second practice begins.

During this process, Qin Miao always maintained a speed that surprised everyone in the team.

What the team's simulator did not simulate was that due to the introduction of the new chassis, the car's cornering speed has also been significantly improved, so that the speed is much faster than expected.

After the first and second practice sessions, Qin Miao actually ranked second in the second practice session, behind Leclerc and 0.1 seconds faster than Verstappen.

Although knowing the results of the qualifying race can only be used for fun, after seeing this result, whether it is the commentators of Five Star Sports who are explaining the practice session, the domestic fans or the staff of the Mercedes-Benz team Everyone felt excited.

Even Toto, who was always unsmiling during games, had a rare smile of relief on his face.

At least judging from the current progress of the team's upgrade, the team's upgrade is effective. It is indeed possible for the Mercedes team to regain its previous competitiveness in the middle or later stages of this season and participate in the championship competition.

But when Saturday came and qualifying began, this beautiful illusion was quickly shattered.

Qin Miao's speed in Q1 was indeed good and faster than his teammate Hamilton, but their results were still fifth and sixth.

It can be seen from this that the two Mercedes drivers tried their best to set lap times during the practice session, while whether it was Ferrari or Red Bull, they were really just practicing during the practice session.

In the Q1 stage, Qin Miao and Hamilton did advance steadily, but no matter how you look at this result, it is somewhat inconsistent with Mercedes' previous image.

On the other hand, Zhou Guanyu also passed Q1 of this game smoothly.

The drivers eliminated in Q1 were: Albon, Russell, Magnussen, Vettel and Stroll.

In fact, everyone was a little surprised to see Magnussen eliminated in Q1.

Because Magnussen's speed this season is actually quite good. At least from the first two games of this season, Magnussen's performance is very impressive.

But now that I see Magnussen's results... I can only say that he was driving too high and was running wild.

Soon, the time came to Q2.

In the Q2 stage, Qin Miao and Hamilton had similar rhythms.

However, when they advanced this time, Qin Miao was ranked sixth and Hamilton was fifth.

It can be seen that the gap in single lap speed between the two Mercedes drivers has been further narrowed this season.

In the past, Hamilton had always beaten Qin Miao in terms of speed in qualifying, but now the two are fighting back and forth on the track. Qin Miao's growth rate is astonishing.

Zhou Guanyu was unfortunately eliminated in Q2.

At the same time, Zhou Guanyu’s teammate Bottas was also eliminated in Q2.

The time gap between the two is not that big.

At least this can reassure the domestic audience. Judging from the qualifying results of the two, Zhou Guanyu is not much worse than Bottas.

In the end, the drivers eliminated in Q2 were: Gasly, Bottas, Zhou Guanyu, Tsunoda, and Mick.

Soon, Q3 begins.

However, Qin Miao and Hamilton had just completed their first flying lap in Q3 when an accident occurred on the track.

When Alonso went purple in the second segment, he made a mistake and understeered in T11 and ran off the track and hit the wall.

It is not difficult to see from the playback that Alonso’s left hand has been trying to downshift the car when entering the corner, but there seems to be something wrong with the hydraulic system of the car, and the gear has been stuck in 4th gear. There is no way reduce.

At this time, someone will ask. As an experienced veteran driver, Alonso is fully focused when running qualifying. It is impossible to miss the apex and rush out of the track during the cornering stage, even if he cannot drop. The gear should not affect his cornering rhythm.

But in fact, the braking method of F1 racing cars is not only the brake, the engine is also another braking method.

After lowering the transmission gear, the reduced engine speed can effectively reduce the rear wheel speed to brake the car.

Therefore, after Alonso was unable to downshift his engine, the car lost part of its braking force, causing Alonso to miss the apex of the corner, causing it to understeer and run off the track and hit the wall.

Alonso's collision with the wall this time directly damaged the left front suspension of his car, and there was no Matthew's tunnel at that position. It was very troublesome to clean up the wreckage of the car, so naturally the race meeting raised a red flag.

Fortunately, most drivers completed their first flying lap.

The most unlucky person was Sainz. A red flag appeared on the track about 100 meters before crossing the line, so his first flying lap result was directly invalidated.

Don't underestimate this low flying lap, because after having a low flying lap result, the drivers dare to run without any scruples in the last flying lap.

Because even if your last flying lap result is not good, or you make a mistake, you will still have a base result. Your ranking may be slightly worse, but it will never be so bad that you cannot accept starting in 10th place. Category.

But Sainz was troubled by this. When the last flying lap started, he would definitely have some scruples and not dare to push to the limit, so the results would naturally be a little worse than if there was a flying lap as a base.

In the end, Sainz did not get a very good result in qualifying.

But it was not because he missed one flying lap, but because there was a problem with the car in the final stage of the race, so that his speed in the last flying lap was nearly 1.1 seconds slower than the first Leclerc.

On the other side, because one of the four drivers in the two teams in the front row was missing, Qin Miao could also get a glimpse of the top four positions.

After the qualifying round is finally over, the top ten results are as follows:

1: Leclerc

2: Verstappen

3: Perez

4: Qin Miao

5: Hamilton

6: Norris

7: Ricardo

8: O'Connell

9: Sainz

10: Alonso

(End of this chapter)