How did I become an F1 driver?

Chapter 417 Chapter 420: Ferrari’s Routine Operations

At the same time, even if Mercedes discovered Ferrari's actions, it was not in a hurry.

Not to mention that Qin Miao's current soft tire lap speed is still stable. Even if Sainz at the back is faster than Qin Miao after coming out of the pit area, Qin Miao's 16 seconds advantage in 5.7 laps is enough. The IQ of the Mercedes team strategy team was temporarily lowered to the same level as the Ferrari strategy team and they made a mistake.

And even so, Qin Miao still had enough time to keep himself in the lead after coming out of the maintenance area.

Not to mention that the current Mercedes-Benz team was severely tortured by Toto after the last grand prix. Everyone in the team was silent, which is why Qin Miao pitted on the 22nd lap of this game. No mistakes were made.

After Qin Miao came out of the pit area, his position naturally did not decline at all. After all, he was the last driver in the front row to pit.

After Qin Miao came out, he fell behind Leclerc 1.7 seconds behind him.

After Sainz pitted, Leclerc was obviously faster than Sainz, so after coming out of the pit area, the driver behind Qin Miao became Leclerc.

At this time, Leclerc has already pitted once, but like Sainz, he changed from medium tires to medium tires, which means that he still needs to pit again.

Next, Qin Miao's speed dropped significantly. Leclerc caught up with Qin Miao and entered the DRS area behind Qin Miao.

It doesn't matter if Qin Miao is overtaken at this time, because Qin Miao is protecting his tires.

I believe Leclerc will be able to attack Qin Miao soon.

Because this means that the performance of the cars you two drive is the same, and your superb offensive skills have no way to play any role when the performance gap between the two cars is not big.

Even the commentators of Five Star Sports, who usually like to be surprised, rarely calmed down at this time, explaining to the audience in the live broadcast room: "It's not a big deal for Qin Miao to be overtaken at this time. Anyway, this is a big deal." Qin Miao used a one-stop tactic during the race. His set of tires would last the entire race, and Leclerc and the others would definitely have to make one pit stop.

Ocon, who was eleventh, locked all the offensive routes of his teammate Alonso, so that Ricciardo behind Alonso had reached a distance where he could easily attack the two of them. Ocon was not interested in this. It doesn't matter.

This process is simply called bad luck opening the door for bad luck, and the bad luck is here.

As a result, Ricciardo entered the points area.

On the other side, Qin Miao was also overtaken by Leclerc on the 30th lap.

Alonso is still very helpless here.

Alonso was so angry when he found out.

On lap 24, another magical scene appeared on the track.

But after seeing Qin Miao being overtaken, everyone at Mercedes was in a very stable mood, because the team was planning to let Qin Miao run a 48-lap long sprint on the track.

The most outrageous thing is.

By then, Qin Miao's 22-second time advantage would be enough for Qin Miao to finish the race and Ferrari behind him would not be able to catch up. "

Ricciardo, who was sitting in the McLaren car, couldn't understand why he had been unlucky for almost a season since joining McLaren, but he didn't expect a sudden change today.

Then Ricciardo overtook Ocon's defense against Alonso and jumped directly from 12th to 10th.

From the start of the game to now, countless attacks have been attempted, but all of Alonso's attempts failed.

The situation that F1 drivers are most worried about on the track is that you are faster than the car in front, but for various reasons, you cannot overtake the car in front.

If this is not painful enough, then add another prerequisite: the car in front is your teammate, and your pain will be doubled.

Throughout the process, Ocon had no intention of blocking Ricciardo, and all his attention was on his teammate Alonso behind him.

Alonso reported this matter to Alpine, which ignored it and allowed the two drivers to compete freely on the track.

On lap 32, other drivers also appeared on the track and stopped to change to hard tires.

Although Qin Miao had no idea of ​​changing to hard tires from the beginning to the end of this race, Qin Miao still paid attention to the lap times of other drivers using hard tires.

然后秦淼就错愕地发现，自己软胎的配速在重油状态下基本上单圈是1分23秒左右，中性胎1分24秒，可是这些换上了硬胎的车手单圈速度降低到了1分26。

You must know that the race has already gone on for 32 laps, and most of the cars have used more than half of their fuel. The cars are at least 20 kilograms lighter than at the beginning of the race, which has a huge impact on lap times.

Not long after, French also told Qin Miao about this matter: "Qin Miao, according to our observation, the applicability of the current hard tires is very poor and is completely unsuitable for the current track."

Qin Miao was very calm about this, and he had no intention of changing to hard tires.

Then on lap 40, Leclerc was called to pit by Ferrari.

At the same time, Ferrari took out a new set of hard tires from the team's P room.

You must know that Arrow and Alpine, who pitted early to change to hard tires in this race, have confirmed to Ferrari that it is not appropriate to change to hard tires under the current track conditions of this track.

But despite this, Ferrari still called Leclerc in and put on hard tires...

The idea of ​​the Ferrari strategy team is very simple. During the practice session, the Ferrari strategy team came up with the result on the track that the lap speed of the first ten laps on the hard tire will be a little worse than the neutral tire, but after ten laps, every lap on the hard tire will be slower. The single lap speed of the tire is 0.2-0.4 seconds faster than the medium tire.

That's when Leclerc's counterattack moment comes!
It can only be said that this is Ferrari, they have not considered the temperature issue during the race at all.

At this time, not only was there a cold wind blowing on the track, but it also often rained a little in some areas. The track temperature was not as high as it was during their practice test data.

So after putting on hard tires, Leclerc couldn't hold on for a lap and was overtaken by Verstappen behind him.

Although Verstappen, who had just overtaken Leclerc, made a 4-degree spin on the T360 on the track, putting Leclerc back over.

But on lap 45, Verstappen regained the position.

Leclerc had no room for resistance on the track and was easily controlled by Verstappen behind him.

Then on lap 48, Ferrari discovered that not only was Leclerc's single-lap speed not as fast as Verstappen's, he was even not as fast as Perez behind him.

But at this time, Leclerc had just come out of the pit area, so it was naturally impossible for Leclerc to pit again. That would be a bit too much of a loss.

Then Ferrari called Sainz to pit and put on soft tires. To be honest, when this news reached Qin Miao's ears, Qin Miao couldn't help but start to wonder whether Ferrari is really like what they said, and there is no distinction between the first and second drivers among the two drivers. .

To be honest, Qin Miao feels that Sainz is Ferrari's No. 1 driver now, and Leclerc is just a tester who helps Sainz test and avoid mistakes.

After Sainz pitted, the driver behind Qin Miao became his teammate Hamilton.

Leclerc and Sainz both pitted for tire changes to start their three-stop cycle.

Although Qin Miao's current single lap speed is not as fast as when he just came out of the maintenance area with this set of neutral tires, Qin Miao's speed is still very stable, and his lap time has always been within the team's expected speed.

At the same time, Verstappen, who is ranked third, is quickly approaching Hamilton, who is second, and can shorten the time gap between himself and Hamilton by 0.4 seconds per lap.

In fact, it was almost Hamilton's pit stop window at this time.

But considering that Qin Miao is still running his long stunt in front.

Knowing that Qin Miao was very likely to win the championship with Qin Miao's ability to protect tires, Hamilton saw Verstappen's close rate and asked the team if Verstappen would be a threat if it continued at the current pace. Go to Qin Miao's position.

The team also answered truthfully: "If Qin Miao's single lap speed maintains the current pace without much change, Verstappen will catch up to the DRS area behind Qin Miao on lap 64.

At that time, the only thing Qin Miao can rely on is his own defensive ability. "

Hamilton did not deny Qin Miao's strong defensive ability. In private, Hamilton even practiced offense and defense with Qin Miao. At that time, Hamilton was guarded by Qin Miao and made him doubt his life.

However, it is worth mentioning that the performance of the two-person racing car at that time was the same.

This naturally makes Qin Miao's defense a lot easier.

After that discussion, Hamilton even had the illusion that as long as Qin Miao wanted to, he might not be able to break through Qin Miao's defense in his life.

However, as Hamilton's understanding of Qin Miao gradually deepened, Hamilton gradually realized that his original idea might not be an illusion...

But the current situation is different from the past. Verstappen behind him is obviously faster than Qin Miao.

Even though he had a profound experience last season on how difficult it was to overtake on the Hungaroring track, Hamilton was still a little worried that Qin Miao wouldn't be able to defend Verstappen's attack.

So he decided to help Qin Miao defend Verstappen to the best of his ability. At least when Verstappen caught up with Qin Miao, Qin Miao's pressure would be much less.

So Hamilton directly missed his pit stop window and used a set of medium tires with bottomed out grip to defend Verstappen behind him for two laps on the track. From lap 52 to lap 54, he helped Qin Miao gained at least a 2-second advantage.

Hamilton also pitted for tire changes after being overtaken by Verstappen.

At this time, there were still 16 laps to go before the end of the race, so Hamilton naturally changed to soft tires.

Hamilton came out of the pits with clean air front and rear.

Sainz is in front and Perez is behind, and the time gap between these two drivers and Hamilton is more than 5 seconds.

This is why Hamilton is willing to help Qin Miao defend Verstappen from the front. After all, even if Hamilton does this, he will not lose any substantial speed.

After Hamilton was overtaken by Verstappen, Qin Miao also received this news through the team's TR: "Hamilton helped you gain a two-second advantage in the rear, and now it is expected that Verstappen will win on the last lap of the race." Entering the DRS area behind you, what's the condition of the tires now?"

Qin Miao was a little surprised when he heard the team's report. He really didn't expect Hamilton to help him during the race. Qin Miao had already prepared for a fight with Verstappen in the last two laps. Even Qin Miao's ERS battery has been kept at around 70%.

But Hamilton's sudden help caught Qin Miao off guard.

Because Qin Miao actually overprotected his tires. In short, the consumption of Qin Miao's tires was less than Qin Miao himself imagined.

Based on the current wear and tear of Qin Miao's tires, he can increase his lap speed by 0.2 seconds to finish the race in a single lap.

If this is done, Verstappen will not be able to catch up with Qin Miao until the end of the race.

Originally, when Qin Miao entered the state of integration between man and car, he didn't think too much. He just used his most comfortable state and rhythm to run long-distance laps on the track.

But now that he has come to his senses, Qin Miao no longer has a tire, and his lap speed has improved.

Red Bull's strategy team was at a loss this time, because they discovered that with Qin Miao's current speed, even if the race was over, the time gap between Verstappen and Qin Miao might only be fixed at 3 seconds.

There was no way he could catch up with Qin Miao.

On lap 55, Ferrari called Leclerc to pit and put on soft tires.

Ferrari finally discovered that the hard tires on Leclerc's car were not fast enough. Although Leclerc's set of tires only ran 15 laps, they still called Leclerc in.

As a result, Leclerc, who was still in the leading position, has completely lost all possibilities of competing for the championship.

You must know that in today's game, Ferrari's car is the fastest among all cars, and there is no one.

No one could have imagined that such a good hand could be beaten like this by Ferrari.

To put it bluntly, even if a dog were put in Ferrari's strategy team, the dog's pit stop strategy would be better than the bunch of bugs in Ferrari's current strategy team.

Later in the race, Verstappen, who was ranked second, was desperately chasing Qin Miao, who was ranked first, while Hamilton, who was ranked fourth, was desperately chasing Sainz, who was ranked third.

However, on lap 60, Hamilton was only 2.7 seconds behind Sainz in front.

Verstappen is still 5 seconds away from Qin Miao.

However, the close rate between Verstappen and Qin Miao did not reach 0.5 seconds per lap, and even if the close rate between Verstappen and Qin Miao was 0.5 seconds per lap, Verstappen could only catch up before the end of the game. Going up to Qin Miao, there was no extra time for Verstappen to attack Qin Miao.

Not to mention breaking through Qin Miao's defense.

So at this time, Verstappen has never wanted Hamilton to die as quickly as he does now.

Without Hamilton's defense in those two laps, it was really possible for him to catch up with Qin Miao.

(End of this chapter)