How did I become an F1 driver?

Then on lap 16, the pit stop window opened.

A large number of drivers entered the pits, but the position of the driver in front of Qin Miao did not change.

However, by the 24th lap, Verstappen, who pitted on the 13th lap, also got rid of the constraints of the slow car group behind and came behind Qin Miao.

Coincidentally, Qin Miao also caught up with his teammate Hamilton at this time.

Qin Miao even said to Franky directly and openly in the team TR: "Give me DRS."

Frankie can be said to be one of the people who knows Qin Miao best in the entire Mercedes team. After hearing Qin Miao's words, he knew what Qin Miao wanted.

So French turned directly to look at Hamilton's track engineer.

After the two communicated, Hamilton's speed remained unchanged, but when Qin Miao came to the DRS area behind him, Hamilton did not make any defensive moves, but used normal exit and entry routes. Run at your own pace.

Qin Miao was comfortably absorbing Hamilton's wake and DRS on the straight, and in the corners, he took the inside line to block Verstappen behind him.

Now it was Verstappen who was scolding the driver in front of him at the rear for harming others and not benefiting himself.

After all, Qin Miao's opponent is not just Verstappen, but also Leclerc and even Sainz.

Qin Miao blocked Verstappen here, completely giving up the highest podium to the two Ferrari drivers.

Verstappen couldn't even figure out what Qin Miao's motive was.

As for Qin Miao’s motives…

His idea is actually very simple.

At this time, his teammate Hamilton had not yet pitted for tire changes.

Therefore, the position of his teammates at this time is behind him.

Instead of passing Hamilton at this time, he faced Verstappen alone, whose car performance was obviously better than his own.

It is better to follow your teammate before his teammate pits and use Hamilton's DRS to defend Verstappen behind him.

With Verstappen's character, as long as he shows a slight flaw when running ahead, he will definitely seize the opportunity and try to attack him like a mad dog.

In this way, Verstappen's tire consumption will definitely be greater than that of normal driving or only attacking himself.

Although the tires on Verstappen's car at this time are a set of hard tires, there will definitely be excessive wear under such an attack regardless of consumption.

When Hamilton pits, he will not be under too much pressure to defend Verstappen by himself.

As for what Verstappen thinks, spending time with him here will benefit the two Ferrari drivers in front.

Qin Miao did think about it.

But sometimes the F1 arena is similar to a war. You can't just look at the gains and losses of one city or one place.

Putting aside the final ranking of this game, in the driver standings at this time, Sainz's total points are only 88 points. Even if Sainz wins consecutive championships in the next few games to catch up with him, it will take at least 3 games. game, and I couldn’t score a single point in these 3 games.

Not to mention that Sainz's teammate Leclerc's racing skills and abilities are obviously better than Sainz.

Therefore, rather than letting Sainz score more points, Qin Miao is more willing to suppress Verstappen and let him score less points.

And Leclerc...

Qin Miao's racing speed was not as fast as his, and he was not in his own hands at this time. Qin Miao really had no good way to deal with Leclerc.

Back to the track.

At this time, Verstappen was played by Qin Miao.

Because Qin Miao always leaks a little bit when exiting and exiting corners, it seems very likely that he will surpass Qin Miao in one go.

Verstappen might be able to hold it back once or twice, but after too many times, Verstappen would always lose his composure.

Then he would either be squeezed out of the track by Qin Miao, or Qin Miao would block the exit line.

The most important thing is that during the whole process, Qin Miao was always in a state of waiting for work. His tires basically did not consume too much, while Verstappen was constantly accelerating, decelerating and braking heavily.

On lap 27, Leclerc pitted and put on white tires.

Because of the efforts of the two Mercedes drivers.

After Leclerc came out of the pit lane, he fell 1.5 seconds ahead of Hamilton.

Behind Hamilton were Qin Miao and Verstappen.

In other words, Mercedes helped Ferrari in this race by blocking Verstappen behind Leclerc.

The director was very funny and showed the Ferrari team leader Binotto after Leclerc came out of the pit area.

At this time, Binotto didn't tense up, and smiled with the corners of his mouth curled up, and then the scene was captured.

On lap 28, Hamilton finally reached his pit stop window, freeing his teammate and old rival Verstappen.

After Hamilton pitted, Verstappen felt that he had a chance to surpass Qin Miao.

Then Verstappen was a little confused to find that Qin Miao's speed had increased significantly.

Verstappen quickly realized that Qin Miao was accelerating with all his strength while turning on ERS. Soon after the battery ran out, he could still catch up with Qin Miao.

Then on lap 29, Verstappen was a little devastated when he saw Qin Miao sucking into the wake of Leclerc who was using hard tires.

It’s not over, right?
Before that, Perez and Sainz in front had already completed a pit stop.

So at this time, Leclerc is first, Qin Miao is second, and Verstappen is third.

This can also be regarded as an under cut for Verstappen.

Although he has Qin Miao as a buffer behind him, Leclerc does not have to worry about Verstappen attacking him in the short term. At the same time, due to Qin Miao's car performance issues, it is unlikely that he will attack him.

But Leclerc still has no intention of slowing down and forming a brave train man with Qin Miao.

Leclerc knows Qin Miao, and his ability to force offense is not much weaker than his defensive ability.

Once he enters the DRS area behind him, Qin Miao may find an opportunity to surpass him at any time.

Pulling apart is the best way to defend Qin Miao.

After Qin Miao's ERS battery was almost used up, Leclerc began to expand the time gap between himself and Qin Miao at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Basically 0.4 seconds per lap.

Privately, it's okay if Leclerc suffers a little loss, but in the competition, Leclerc will still use all means to establish his own advantage.

Qin Miao also knew Leclerc, so he had already anticipated Leclerc's behavior.

And the main reason for him to keep up with Leclerc is to rub into Leclerc's wake, so that he can be farther away from Verstappen behind him and put less pressure on defense.

The next game will be more interesting.

Qin Miao's single lap speed was originally not as good as Verstappen's, but because Qin Miao allowed Verstappen to waste a lot of his tire performance before Hamilton pitted.

Therefore, in a short period of time, Qin Miao's single lap speed was actually the same as Verstappen's.

Although Qin Miao was using medium tires, Qin Miao had already run 18 laps on this set of medium tires.

Next, Leclerc slowly drove away, and Qin Miao's speed also began to decline. Soon Verstappen entered the DRS area behind Qin Miao.

But Verstappen can't produce decisive speed now, so Qin Miao has an easy time defending Verstappen.

He knows Verstappen's attacking routine very well.

Behind the two are Sainz, Hamilton and Perez.

Finally, on lap 37, after attacking for so long without achieving any substantial results, Verstappen finally couldn't stand it anymore.

Qin Miao was blocked in front of him, and Leclerc was running further and further away. If he didn't make some changes, he would become third in home games.

So Verstappen chose to pit again this lap, put on hard tires, and opened the two-stop window in advance.

Because he was farther away from the driver behind him, after Verstappen pitted, he only fell behind Sainz, ranking fourth.

But after putting on a set of hard tires that only ran 3 laps, Verstappen's lap time was 0.3 faster than Leclerc's single lap.

Naturally, he is faster than Qin Miao.

In fact, after Verstappen pitted, the team asked Qin Miao in the team TR whether he should go hard for a lap, secure his position and then pit for soft tires, or should he stay on the track and wait. Qin Miao's own entry window.

Qin Miao finally chose the latter after thinking for a while.

There was no other reason. The main reason was that when Qin Miao stopped, the team changed the tires for 3.4 seconds. Qin Miao was a little worried that the team would change the tires for him again, so he wanted to let the team's tire changers take a break. Waiting until the time agreed upon in advance before changing the tires will also allow them to be mentally prepared.

On lap 50, Qin Miao came into the pits and chose the second stop.

What was replaced was naturally a brand new set of soft tires.

At this time, there are still 21 laps to go before the end of the race, and the overall weight of Qin Miao's car has been reduced a lot due to fuel consumption.

The load on the racing tires is naturally much smaller than at the beginning of the race, and the durability of Qin Miao's soft tires has greatly increased.

According to the team's calculations, Qin Miao could complete 25 laps with a set of new soft tires in the later stages of the race. However, due to the excessive consumption of Qin Miao's soft tires in the first stint, the team was late this time and planned to beat Qin Miao by four laps. Miao called in.

At the same time, Leclerc also pitted on the same lap as Qin Miao.

Different from the soft tires Qin Miao put on, Leclerc put on hard tires after pitting.

Next, Leclerc will start to pursue the driver in front of him with all his strength.

After Leclerc came out, Verstappen was in front and Qin Miao was behind. After Qin Miao came out, he happened to be stuck 2 seconds in front of Perez.

But when the race came to lap 51, Sainz also pitted, and now there was only a Red Bull driven by Verstappen in front of Leclerc.

As for Qin Miao, he was 1 second faster than Leclerc who was using the new hard tires in one lap.

Originally, the time gap between him and Leclerc was only 6 seconds, but now it is only 5 seconds.

However, Leclerc's new hard tires chased Verstappen's old hard tires faster than Qin Miao chased Leclerc.

After all, the distance between the two is not that big.

So on lap 53, Leclerc caught up with Verstappen and started taking action.

Qin Miao, who was behind, was still 3 seconds away from Leclerc.

However, Qin Miao got the fastest lap during this period.

Of course, Qin Miao got behind the two of them on lap 55 and did not try to pick up the slack.

The main reason is that Leclerc, a veteran, also learned a lot from Qin Miao. He did not leave any chance for Qin Miao to pick up the slack. Every time he attacked Verstappen, he went inside.

So what Qin Miao can do now is to get as close to Leclerc as possible, and when he overtakes Verstappen, see if there is a chance to overtake Verstappen together.

Of course, if possible, Qin Miao wouldn't mind surpassing both of them at once.

And the opportunity came quickly.

On lap 57, Leclerc finally found a chance and came 3 seconds behind Verstappen before the braking point of T0.2.

Seeing this, Verstappen naturally stayed on the inside.

Leclerc braked late on the outside and entered the corner earlier than Verstappen.

After seeing this, Qin Miao already knew Leclerc's offensive intention.

He was going to do a crossover.

After all, the angle at which Verstappen braked and entered the corner was too small, and his exit speed was certainly not as fast as Leclerc's, who entered the corner at a relatively normal speed.

And Qin Miao also realized that this was his opportunity to steal the chicken.

Therefore, Qin Miao also braked late on the outside.

The front nose of Qin Miao's car was almost touching the diffuser of Leclerc's car, and he exited the corner at almost the same rhythm as Leclerc.

After exiting the corner, because Verstappen accelerated very late, Leclerc, who had sufficient acceleration distance, directly overtook Verstappen after exiting the corner.

And Leclerc was not the only one to beat Verstappen on the outside, Qin Miao on the side also seized the opportunity of Verstappen's distraction.

Qin Miao sucked in Leclerc's wake and also passed Verstappen on the right side of Verstappen.

The kind that explodes directly.

And that's not the end.

You must know that when Qin Miao came out of the corner, he almost came out of the corner close to Leclerc.

Although due to the acceleration position after exiting the corner, Qin Miao and Leclerc opened a certain distance.

But this distance is not too far, there is only a time difference of 0.2 seconds.

The straight between T3 and T4 is the DRS area.

And the distance of 0.2 seconds is just enough for Qin Miao to accumulate racing speed faster.

So Leclerc had just surpassed Verstappen, and before he had time to be happy, he was a little bit pained to see Qin Miao coming behind him and sticking closely to him.

The key thing is that I used late braking in T3. Not only did I pass the DRS zone in front of Qin Miao, I also passed the DRS zone in front of Verstappen.

Verstappen-Leclerc is not too worried. Even if the opponent has DRS, it is impossible for him to catch up with him after a 0.6 second time gap when accelerating on the straight.

But Qin Miao is now using soft tires, and Qin Miao not only has DRS, but also has his own wake. There is really no way around this!
Then this season, Ferrari, which had the fastest acceleration and tail speed in the paddock, was beaten by Mercedes on the straight.

Before the braking point of T4, Qin Miao had completely surpassed Leclerc.

After entering T4, there was a continuous curve. Qin Miao, who was using soft tires, took advantage of Leclerc's unstable mentality after being overtaken by him, and directly threw Leclerc out of the DRS zone.

"Fuck! Thief!" Seeing that he had been on guard for a long time, but in the end Qin Miao stole the first place, Leclerc was so angry that he cursed in the TR of the team.

You kid is a real thief!

Everyone in Ferrari's P room was holding their heads in their hands at this time, as if they were mourning for their heirs.

Binotto couldn't laugh at this time either.

Unlike the Ferrari team and its fans, the Mercedes team and Qin Miao's fans could hardly suppress their wild smiles at this moment.

"Qin Miao! Seize the opportunity to go two in a row! We're in first place!" The soldier from Five Star Sports stood up from his position.

Originally, everyone in this game was watching the battle between Leclerc and Verstappen, and no one paid attention to Qin Miao, even if they did, not too much.

But Qin Miao seemed to have overtaken Leclerc and Verstappen when they were caught off guard. Qin Miao also gave the commentators a big surprise when they were caught off guard.

"Beautiful! It's so beautiful. Qin Miao's ability to find opportunities is really good." Brother Xia was also amazed at Qin Miao's operation.

"I think Qin Miao's overtaking can basically be selected as the best overtaking shot of this season." Zhou Haoran said from the side: "You know, Pirelli gave data after the qualifying session. Mercedes' car single The lap speed is 0.2 seconds slower than that of Ferrari. Qin Miao’s appearance here is mainly due to Qin Miao’s terrifying tire management ability.”

After Qin Miao reached the leading position, the voices of Franky and Toto were immediately heard from the team TR.

"Very beautiful Qin Miao! But you still have to take care of your tires. We are waiting for your good news." Franky said.

"Nice! Qin Miao! You did a damn good job, that's it!" This was Toto.

However, just after Qin Miao completed a series of two, when Qin Miao switched from offense to defense on the track, a yellow flag suddenly appeared on the track.

When the live broadcast camera looked over, Sainz's car, which was still running his own pace on the track, drove straight into the buffer zone outside T4.

And the camera just captured a plume of white smoke suddenly coming out of the engine of Sainz's car.

Naturally, although Sainz relied on the inertia of the car to reach the Matthew entrance on the outermost side of T4 before stopping the car, a yellow flag still appeared on the track.

Among Team TR, Sainz naturally said: "NONONO."

This may be the fate of Ferrari drivers. As long as you drive this tractor, you will one day cry sitting in this tractor.

Even after Sainz's car stopped, an open flame broke out directly from the engine of the car. The fire was extremely fierce and quickly spread to the entire side box.

Even when Sainz got out of the car, the flames burned his hands.

However, the biggest function of the F1 driver's racing suit is to prevent fire, so although the flames had already burned Sainz, Sainz jumped out of the car as if nothing was wrong.

Afterwards, Sainz naturally sat on the side of the track with a bewildered expression.

The chance to race well and significantly shorten the points gap between himself and Leclerc is gone.

Anyone else's mentality would be broken.

However, when Sainz retired from the race, he drove his car to Matthew's entrance on the track.

Although the car was on fire, it was not difficult to extinguish the fire, so the competition took no further action and only deployed a virtual safety car.

However, the virtual safety car was dispatched relatively late. It did not appear until Qin Miao and Leclerc-Verstappen had passed the entrance to the pit area.

After the display on Qin Miao's side showed that the virtual safety car was dispatched, he naturally asked the team immediately: "Do I need to pit? What's the situation on the track?"

The team's strategy team started calculations as soon as the yellow flag appeared on the track.

However, it was still some time before Qin Miao and the others returned to the entrance of the maintenance area after another lap.

Therefore, the team was not particularly anxious, but Franky still said in a fast and clear voice: "Wait a moment, there is still time, the team is currently studying whether you need to pit."

Qin Miao also knew that he couldn't be in a hurry now, but he couldn't help but look at the Ferrari and Red Bull behind him through the rearview mirror, wondering if these two teams would pit?
At this time, the tire changers from Ferrari and Red Bull had already arrived outside the team's P room with tires and tire changing tools and were waiting. It seemed that they were indeed preparing to call the drivers in.

After some brainstorming on Mercedes' side, French finally told Qin Miao: "Stay outside, we think your soft tire condition is still good and you can hold on until the end of the race."

The team knows very well that the reason why Qin Miao was able to lead the race in this race was mainly because Qin Miao, Leclerc and Verstappen took a differentiated route.

Qin Miao's main advantage over the other two drivers is the durability of tires.

Moreover, Qin Miao's new tire reserves at this time only have hard tires, and the latest medium tires have been run for 11 laps, and the latest soft tires have been run for 6 laps.

The durability of these two tires is similar to the set of tires Qin Miao was using at this time.

But if hard tires are used, the weakness of Qin Miao's car, which is not as fast as Ferrari and Red Bull, will be exposed. Let alone compete for the championship, it will be very difficult to even keep the podium.

So after weighing the situation, the team finally decided to let Qin Miao stay on the track.

At least he can get a 10-second position advantage. Coupled with the speed of his soft tires, and there are only 12 laps left before the end of the race. If the virtual safety car maintains another lap, the race may be restarted with less than 11 laps left. There are only laps left.

Qin Miao's tires can definitely withstand the consumption during the last period of time.

Therefore, Mercedes-Benz has such a team order.

Qin Miao has no objection to this. He really believes in the decision of the team's strategy team. At least so far, the team has not cheated him due to wrong team instructions.

It's not like the strategy team of a certain red team.

Qin Miao couldn't even imagine how badly he would be tricked by the strategy team in the first season if he joined a certain red team. (End of chapter)