How did I become an F1 driver?

Even though all of Qin Miao's official public accounts and Mercedes-Benz's official social media have refuted the rumors, the discussion on this matter remains unabated.

"I'm speechless. No matter how much I think about it, I can't understand why this news spread like this?" After chatting with Hamilton, Qin Miao also complained.

"The media is like this, just get used to it." Hamilton smiled and patted Qin Miao on the shoulder.

Despite what he said on the surface, was there a moment in Hamilton's heart when he really expected Qin Miao to have a dream?

Then it is unknown that Qin Miao directly switched to Ferrari, as the media in the paddock said.

Or does he also want to go to Ferrari?
It’s impossible to tell.

After chatting with Hamilton for a while, the people in the conference room were almost there.

Finally, Toto and Elliot walked in. After the official arrived, the meeting officially began.

During the entire meeting, Qin Miao and Hamilton did not speak much.

They were all listening to Elliot's reports and explanations from his engineers.

Although the two drivers are very good at driving the car, they can also give some constructive suggestions.

But neither of them know much about the design of the car, the subsequent upgrade plan of the car, or the solutions to the shortcomings of the car.

Qin Miao may be a little better, after all, he spends time in the team's R&D factory every day, and he can understand what the people on the stage say, but Hamilton is completely blind to this.

Therefore, during this process, neither driver had the need to speak at this time.

This process may be a bit torturous for Hamilton, but it is quite interesting for Qin Miao. At least he knows how the W13 he is driving is designed and where the problem lies.

After the meeting, Hamilton said to Qin Miao next to him: "I see you were very happy to hear it. I got distracted halfway through. Can you help me summarize?"

Qin Miao shrugged: "In short, the W13 has certain upgrade potential, but if the fundamental problems of the chassis are not solved, we will never be able to catch up with Ferrari and Red Bull.

Summary: There is no chance of this season, W13 will be abandoned for development next season. "

After finishing speaking, Qin Miao and Hamilton could only smile bitterly at each other.

Although this decision seems to be so prosperous, after Mercedes' decision was made, the Mercedes-Benz team's car was developed one season later than other teams.

Although there is a whole season of data in 22 as support and reference, it is estimated that the car in 23 will not have the possibility to compete for the driver's championship.

But there is good news. Next season the team will directly abandon the W13 design concept.

The floor has been overhauled, the layout of the front and rear suspension has also been adjusted, and the problem of the driving position being too far forward that Hamilton often reported has also been corrected.

As for Qin Miao, because of its terrifying adaptability, he really doesn’t feel that there are any big problems with the W13. The only thing that makes Qin Miao uncomfortable is that the tuning window of this car is not as wide as the W12 last season.

The W12 tuning window last season was very wide, so making some more extreme tuning settings would not have a big impact on the overall speed of the car.

But not this season. If you exceed a certain threshold, the front wheel inclination may increase by one degree, and the overall lap speed of the car will drop by 0.2 or even 0.3 seconds.

For the racing industry, a speed drop of 0.2 to 0.3 seconds is almost fatal.

This is equivalent to you losing any competitiveness in qualifying and the race.

But these have nothing to do with Qin Miao now.

The meeting is over, this year's W13 upgrade plan has been redrawn, and the development of new concept racing cars for next season is on track. Now it depends on the progress of the simulator department.

Everything is going in the right direction.

Therefore, despite the poor performance of the car this season, the energy of everyone in the team is not much worse than last season.

But when leaving the team, Qin Miao and Hamilton went out together.

When he was at the door, looking at Hamilton who was waiting for Angela to pick up the car, Qin Miao said politely: "Lewis, it's just time for dinner. Do you want to come to my house for a meal?"

Originally this was just a polite word from Qin Miao, but what Qin Miao didn't expect was that Hamilton nodded without thinking much: "Okay, I remember a driver in the paddock said some time ago, your cooking skills Very good, now I have the opportunity to try it. ”

Since Hamilton agreed, Qin Miao had no reason to refuse. He nodded directly and said, "Okay, my home is not far, so just walk over."

"Okay, I'll call Angela and ask her to come directly."

Angela also knows the address of Qin Miao's home.

Having said that, this is the first time the two of them have dinner together after Qin Miao won the championship last season.

And after all, there was a guest at home. Before arriving, Hamilton said that Qin Miao's craftsmanship was good.

So naturally it was Qin Miao who cooked tonight.

Qin Miao's top-level chef skills, even if Hamilton and Angela have never eaten pure Chinese food, they are naturally full of praise for Qin Miao's skills.

Not to mention that Hamilton is a British person. How do they, the British, understand JB about food?

Domestic egg fried rice may be fine chaff to British people.

After eating and drinking, Qin Miao and Hamilton drove to the lake to fish for a while.

Qin Miao went directly to the air force, but Hamilton had two, but they were not big.

……

Time flies to Wednesday, June 6th.

This week is race week, the start of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

The good news is that just like what Toto said to Qin Miao when Qin Miao went to find Toto some time ago, the Mercedes-Benz team really upgraded the team in Azerbaijan this week.

However, it is not an aerodynamic upgrade, but an upgrade of the internal engine and engine radiator. The purpose of the upgrade is also to focus on reducing the weight of the car.

On the engine, the team redesigned the engine casing, reducing the weight of the engine by 500 grams without affecting the engine's stability and service life.

Don't look at it, it's only a pound of weight loss, but when reflected in the lap time of the car, this is at least a speed increase of about 0.05 seconds.

At the same time, the air inlet structure of the racing radiator has been re-optimized, reducing the radiator volume by 10%.

This upgrade also reduces the weight of the radiator without reducing the heat dissipation efficiency of the car.

After a set of combinations, the team estimates that the car's lap speed may be improved by 0.08 seconds per lap compared to last week's Monaco.

Of course, this is just the team's estimate. The actual results will not be known until Qin Miao drives his car on the track.

Baku is also a super high-speed track, and it is the second longest track in the entire calendar. I believe everyone is familiar with this track, so I won’t explain it too much here.

Qin Miao arrived in Baku on Wednesday afternoon. After a night's rest, Qin Miao appeared in the paddock the next day.

This time Qin Miao was not as serious about the track as he was in Monaco in the last race. After all, it is too easy to overtake on this track. The super long full-throttle section, coupled with the W13's favorite dolphin jump, Qin Miao couldn't help but do it. I feel like I can get some good results this week relying on my defense.

After walking around the track, confirming the condition of the track's asphalt, and checking whether the track's curves and wall materials have changed from last year, Qin Miao's most important work on Thursday is over, and the next step is to be interviewed. Participate in the team's pre-race meeting, the driver's pre-race meeting arranged by the FIA, etc.

Time soon came to Friday, the day when the first and second practice began.

When Qin Miao arrived at the team, he discovered that a low-pressure rear wing had been installed on the rear of today's car.

The entire tail is almost flat with a very small angle.

After all, there are more high-speed corners and right-angle corners on the Baku circuit.

In such track conditions, the aerodynamic efficiency of the car does not attach much importance, but the mechanical grip of the car in the corners and the tail speed on the straight.

During the first practice period, Qin Miao didn't encounter any problems on Hamilton's side. Qin Miao didn't know exactly what happened on Hamilton's side, but after the car became lighter, it did become much more flexible to control, at least the braking distance and tire strength. Wear is smaller, after all, the overall load on the tire is smaller.

However, these two weight reductions are not all good news, because the load on the racing tires is smaller, so the racing tires heat up more slowly.

Of course, the tire heating rate will only slow down and will not affect the overall speed of the car.

And with Qin Miao's mastery of Pirelli tires, it is not particularly difficult for the racing tires to heat up quickly.

In the first practice stage, Qin Miao was mainly responsible for testing long distances. While collecting data, Qin Miao was allowed to familiarize himself with the performance of the new season car on the Baku track during the process.

Therefore, although the car will still dolphin jump due to high-speed driving at the end of the straight, the dolphin jump phenomenon is much less severe than the dolphin jump at the beginning of the season.

However, when the time came for the second practice and Qin Miao started to simulate qualifying with light fuel load, Qin Miao began to doubt life.

The car's tail speed can reach 334 kilometers per hour in the later stages of the straightaway.

But before DRS was turned on, and before the T1 braking point after DRS was turned on, the car was like dancing in a nightclub, so fast that Qin Miao began to doubt his life on the spot.

Although after one lap, Qin Miao's results were ideal and he directly ranked first on the Q2 lap list, but the dolphin jump of the racing car was not as strong as Qin Miao's physical fitness, and he also felt a little uncomfortable.

It even feels like your teeth are chattering when you're cold.

Qin Miao immediately started looking for the problem after returning to the P room of the team.

Then Qin Miao’s Q1 test data was wasted.

Reyes and the others directly strengthened the hardness of Qin Miao's rear suspension.

Qin Miao returned to the track only ten minutes before the end of Q2.

After five familiar laps, Qin Miao pitted and put on a set of soft tires. Then Q2 went on the track and ran a flying lap before stopping the clock.

This time the bounce of the car was greatly reduced, and the tail speed increased from 334 to 341 kilometers per hour.

But the overall lap time dropped by 0.2 seconds. After the second practice, a post-race meeting was held. The content discussed at the meeting was not complicated, that is, whether this race should sacrifice the health of the driver to ensure the competitiveness of the car on the track, or whether it should sacrifice the overall speed of the car to ensure Rider's physical fitness.

However, this meeting did not last long. Everyone knew that the W13 this season was not good, and even the Brackley factory had actively decided to give up the development of W13 next season.

And McLaren, ranked fourth, clearly has no ability to threaten Mercedes' third place at this time.

Therefore, the team finally decided to increase the rear suspension hardness of both Qin Miao and Hamilton's cars to ensure the health of the drivers.

But despite receiving the news, Hamilton still seemed a little worried.

During the second practice, Hamilton also made adjustments to increase the stiffness of the rear suspension.

But in Qin Miao's opinion, the dolphin jump is already bearable, but for the 37-year-old Hamilton, it still feels a bit difficult.

As people get older, their bones are not as hard as before, and therefore, their waists can no longer bear their weight.

However, Qin Miao didn't know about this.

The next day, Saturday, was the start of practice three and qualifying.

During the third practice, Qin Miao was still familiar with the car and looking for training.

The adjustment in the first practice was completely useless due to the increase in rear suspension stiffness. In the second practice, Qin Miao not only needed to find his own trainer, but also helped the team collect data on the car under the premise of increasing the rear suspension stiffness. Therefore, Qin Miao's third practice was much slower than the practice match under normal conditions.

The good news is that Qin Miao still has good abilities in data collection and training, so before the end of the third practice, Qin Miao still found the most comfortable training settings for him to use.

And Hamilton also changed his own training settings based on Qin Miao's training settings after the third practice.

However, whether this change is beneficial will only be seen on the track.

During the period between third practice and qualifying, both Mercedes cars were replaced with engines used in the main race.

At this time, the engine in Qin Miao's racing car has been used in 7 grand prix, and today's Azerbaijan Grand Prix is ​​the 8th grand prix for this engine.

But what surprised the Mercedes team was that the overall wear and tear of Qin Miao's engine was not as high as they expected, and there was no problem even if it lasted two more races.

Hamilton, on the other hand, directly opened a brand new engine.

In fact, Hamilton's engine usage frequency is normal. For people like Qin Miao, the team's technicians are also a little confused.

However, being able to play a few more games is also a good thing for Qin Miao. After all, he does not have to accept time penalties, so except for the staff of the overall durability research and development department of the car, no one pays attention to this matter.

In this Grand Prix, because there are basically no long curves on the track, and there are more right-angle curves, the consumption of tires is very small, so the competition will provide the three softest tires, C5-C3.

After all, this track consumes less tires. Even if Pirelli officially provides the three softest tires, the mainstream pit stop strategy for this track is still one stop.

Of course, unexpected situations on the track do not count.

Because the track is too long, Qin Miao and Hamilton did not come out of the pit area until the other drivers had gone out or even started their own flying laps, as they did before.

So before qualifying started, all the drivers had already come out of the team's P room and were waiting at the exit of the pit area for the race to start.

However, a longer track also has advantages, that is, the possibility of encountering traffic conditions is not very high, and the distance between cars is further extended under the conscious control of the driver.

In the first flying lap of the Q1 stage, Qin Miao's score came to 1:43.539.

To put it bluntly, this result is not very good, but Qin Miao's result is definitely enough for Qin Miao to enter Q2.

In the second flying lap, Qin Miao did not use the new soft tires and ran a flying lap on an old set of soft tires.

The speed of this flying lap is pretty good, 1:43.879, and it can safely enter Q2, but it is not as fast as Qin Miao’s first flying lap.

Zhou Guanyu also made his first flying lap in Q1 and also entered Q2.

In this qualifying race, Arrow Racing has not given Zhou Guanyu any strength so far. Zhou Guanyu now has enough time and opportunity to show his full strength.

The drivers eliminated in the final Q1 stage were: Magnussen, Russell, Albon, Stroll, and Mick.

Q2 stage,

Qin Miao still started queuing at the exit of the maintenance area early.

However, Qin Miao did not run very well in the first flying lap. When he was running the flying lap, he was blocked by Tsunoda.

So much so that Qin Miao’s first flight lap score in Q1 was only 1:43.755.
Naturally, there is no way to enter Q3 with this result.

Even Qin Miao, who rarely used swear words in the team TR, was blocked by Tsunoda, and Qin Miao also rarely sent a telegram.

On the other side, neither Zhou Guanyu nor Bottas came out of the pit area immediately.

Under the arrangement of the team, the two of them waited until there were fewer cars on the track before going on the track and starting flying laps.

And because the track does not consume much tires, a set of soft tires is enough to run two flying laps on the track.

Because of the light load of fuel, the life consumption of soft tires may only be about 0.1 seconds slower than that of brand-new soft tires.

This time gap may be made up by the driver's driving on the track.

So you can look forward to these two flight circles.

Tsunoda Yuki also received a warning for blocking Qin Miao's flying circle behind him, and had to go to the black room after the game to receive a reprimand. Toro Rosso was also fined 1.2 euros.

After all, this is also the consequence of the Toro Rosso team's failure to warn in place.

Although the penalty was quite heavy, fortunately, he was not punished and was relegated to the starting position.

In the end, Qin Miao used a set of soft tires more than he expected in Q2. On the last flying lap, Qin Miao's lap speed reached 1:43.111.

This result is enough for Qin Miao to enter Q3 steadily.

As for Zhou Guanyu, he didn't know whether it was because he was under too much pressure, or there was a problem with the car settings, or it was a problem on the team's side.

In Q2, he and Bottas only ran one flying lap in total.

The original plan was to run two, but when running the second flying lap of that set of tires, a yellow flag appeared on the track. Therefore, the flying lap results of the two Arrow drivers were all invalidated.

In fact, Zhou Guanyu's first flying lap result was good, 1:43.380, which happened to be stuck at the gate of Q3.

Compared with Alonso, Zhou Guanyu was only 0.02 seconds slower.

But during the last flying lap, Arrow Racing was slow to release the car, so that neither Zhou Guanyu nor Bottas could cross the finish line before the Q2 clock stopped to start their final flying lap.

In the end, Zhou Guanyu got stuck at the closing line and was eliminated.

【The hanging heart finally died】

[Aro is indeed Ferrari’s satellite team and never disappoints in terms of overall performance]

[Aluo is a bad strategy team, even if I put a pig on them, they are better than them]

[If you don’t understand Huahuo, don’t play]

[It’s the closing line again, I’m so stupid]

[I finally know that Zhou Guanyu’s biggest competitor this season is not drivers like Alonso Tsunoda and Ricciardo, but his team and the team’s strategy team]

……

Zhou Guanyu once again stopped in Q2 due to the team's cerebral palsy operation. Naturally, Zhou Guanyu's fans on the Internet gave him a hard time.

The only thing that comforts Zhou Guanyu's fans is that Bottas was also cheated by the team in this game, or even worse.

博塔斯Q2的第1个飞行圈成绩并不算好，所以Q2结束的时候，博塔斯在Q2的第15被淘汰了。

In the end, the drivers eliminated in Q2 were: Zhou Guanyu, Norris, Ricciardo, Ocon, and Bottas.

Q3, Qin Miao ran more casually.

The first flying lap was just a warm-up. After one lap, the lap time was only 1:43.009.

Ranked sixth.

However, after Qin Miao completed his first flying lap, when he returned to the team's P room to rest, French's voice rang out from the team's TR: "Qin Miao, Hamilton wants you to help him with the wake in Q3. "

After hearing this, Qin Miao said without thinking: "Okay, when will it start?"

"Are you sure? Then our team's strategy team will start making arrangements, please wait." After Frankie confirmed that Qin Miao had no objection, he went to the team's strategy team to discuss the plan. Qin Miao and Hamilton came out of the pit area. It's time.

In less than half a minute, the staff of Qin Miao's team was notified, lifted the insulation blanket of Qin Miao's tires, and released Qin Miao.

Afterwards, under the coordination and adjustment of the team, about one second after Qin Miao exited the corner from T16, Hamilton, who started his own flying lap, appeared behind Qin Miao.

The Chinese are all about reciprocating kindness, so before Qin Miao went out, he asked Reyes and the others to adjust the angle of his front nose to the lowest level, which is the level with the least air resistance.

It is true that the settings of the car cannot be changed after qualifying starts, but what we are talking about here is the angle of the rear wing, the tire inclination and foot restraint of the car, the height of the chassis and the stiffness of the suspension.

The car's front nose angle is adjustable.

After all, the most easily damaged part of the car is the front nose. If the front nose is broken, it will definitely have to be replaced at the pits. At that time, the setting of the front nose cannot be the original setting.

When the FIA ​​gets into trouble, it will definitely be a mess again, so the FIA ​​simply allows the front nose settings to be changed during qualifying and the race. (End of chapter)