How did I become an F1 driver?

But before the race started, Qin Miao, like all other drivers, took a time to go to the corner where F2 driver Anthony Hubert died in a car accident to commemorate him.

There are many racing accidents at Spa's El Rogo corner, but the cumulative losses amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars are small.

But the only F2 driver who has died here is Anthony Hubert, and this is still in this era when the FIA ​​has introduced a series of rules to protect the personal safety of drivers.

But no one wants to see such an accident happen.

All others can do is learn from it.

In addition to Qin Miao, other riders also came here to pay homage to each other, but when others came to pay homage, they only brought flowers and the like.

Qin Miao brought two packs of spicy strips brought from China.

It wasn't the ones from Wei Long. What Qin Miao brought was the 50-cent-a-pack of spicy strips bought from the canteen in his hometown.

Qin Miao thinks it tastes pretty good and the other party should like it.

Even if you don't like it, there's nothing you can say if others are dead.

After the memorial ceremony was completed, Qin Miao returned to his daily work life.

On Thursday, normal marketing work ended before attending a pre-game press conference.

Friday, practice one and two.

But on Friday, Qin Miao got good news for him and all F1 fans in the country.

That is, Arrow Racing has renewed its contract with Zhou Guanyu and directly signed a two-year contract, which lasts until the end of 2024.

This fully demonstrates the team's recognition of Zhou Guanyu's strength, but to be honest, no matter how strong Arrow Racing is, their strategy team and tire changers are also as bad as Ferrari.

So if Qin Miao is placed in Zhou Guanyu's position, he can consider changing jobs to other teams next season.

Even if it's Haas, at least Haas' tire change and strategy team are not as outrageous as Arrow's.

But Zhou Guanyu didn't think that much.

Geely is still negotiating with Martin, but the two sides have not yet reached an agreement. Geely has encountered great resistance, so even if Zhou Guanyu has met Geely's chairman and received an answer from the other party, he cannot be sure about Geely. Will definitely be joining in the near future.

It is impossible for Zhou Guanyu to put his career on a gamble.

If Zhou Guanyu had Qin Miao's strength, then he wouldn't have to worry about not having a car to drive. But although Zhou Guanyu now has strength, he is not yet at the point where he can win Long Wangshu. He has a two-year contract in front of him. Zhou Guanyu had no reason to refuse.

So in the end Zhou Guanyu completed the contract extension with Arrow Racing.

Time soon came to Saturday, practice three.

At the end of the third practice, the two Red Bull drivers won one and two.

Qin Miao and Hamilton still do long-distance testing more often.

Ferrari came on the scene in the final 24 minutes.

However, before the end of the third practice session, Leclerc made a mistake in T3 and ran off the track and hit the wall.

Fortunately, the collision was not serious. Leclerc only damaged the right front end panel of the car, and the suspension and rear wing were still intact.

However, Leclerc's accident brought a large amount of gravel into the track, so in the final stage of the third practice, a red flag appeared on the track.

Finally, when the game resumed with 4 minutes left in the third practice, Qin Miao simply didn't go out.

After all, his data has already been obtained.

By the time the broadcast footage reached the P room of the Mercedes team, Qin Miao was no longer in the car.

Two hours later, qualifying.

Although the sky was always gloomy in Spa today, luckily it didn't rain.

At the same time, in today's race, a large number of drivers replaced engine parts of their cars and received varying degrees of penalties.

Bottas is one of them.

Because he is also among the drivers changing parts, and no matter what result Bottas gets in qualifying, he will eventually start in the fourteenth position.

However, Bottas still entered Q2, and helped Zhou Guanyu pull back twice in Q2, walking his teammate to Q3.

Ricciardo lived up to McLaren's expectations and stopped in Q3 after Norris entered Q2.

Then in Q1, the first qualifying session after the summer break, Ferrari began to show the audience.

The original tactics developed by Ferrari Q3 were based on Mercedes' wake tactics.

Leclerc first put on the old soft tires to help Sainz put on the slipstream for a lap, and then asked Sainz to put on the old soft tires to help Leclerc, who put on the new tires, block the slipstream for a lap.

Originally, everything was arranged well, and Sainz had already started to perform his own flying laps on the track.

Then when Leclerc came out of the pit area, the tire changer put him on a brand new set of soft tires.

Leclerc was confused when he saw the tires on his car and quickly asked the team staff what to do with the soft tires.

Then Leclerc's track engineer Harvey could only say helplessly: "Just do a flying lap."

Naturally, without Leclerc helping him with the wake, Sainz could no longer sacrifice his own flying lap to help Leclerc with the wake, so Ferrari's two-car wake tactic went bankrupt before it even started. .

However, in the eyes of Ferrari fans, this kind of thing happening is unexpected and reasonable.

They won't be surprised.

The performance of the two Mercedes drivers in the qualifying stage was not very good either.

Although Qin Miao set a new record for his fastest single lap in both flying laps, after completing the two flying laps, Qin Miao's fastest single lap time was actually a full 1.4 seconds slower than Verstappen!
Although Qin Miao is still using an old engine, while Verstappen has a new internal combustion engine, and the Red Bull car is obviously more suitable for the layout of the Spa track than the Mercedes car.

But the 1.4-second time gap in qualifying still made Qin Miao's brows jump wildly when he found out about it in the team TR.

Hamilton was even more exaggerated. The time gap between him and Verstappen reached a terrifying 1.8 seconds.

All Mercedes executives were dumbfounded when they saw this time gap.

The final qualifying Q3 results are as follows:
1: Verstappen

2: Sainz
3: Perez
4: Qin Miao

5: Leclerc

6: O'Connell

7: Alonso
8: Hamilton

9: Norris
10: Zhou Guanyu
After the game, everyone was surprised: after a summer break, the three teams whose time difference was only within 0.5 seconds had a huge setback after this game.

No, it should be said that the speed of improvement of Red Bull this summer break is incomprehensible.

A time difference of 1.4 seconds!
This is a qualifying match.

"Is it too big?" After qualifying, Qin Miao couldn't help but ask in the team TR.

"Well, we judge that this may not be our problem. Our current lap time is actually about the same as what we expected."

Qin Miao:......

After the game, whether it was Five-Star Sports, Sky Sports or the fan community, they were all surprised by the huge time gap.

Soon, the results of the discussion came out.

During the entire summer break, there were basically no big changes in the paddock. Apart from the upgrades of each team, there was only the TD039 technical instruction given by the FIA.

So don’t think about it. The reason why there was such a big time gap between Mercedes and Ferrari on the track that Red Bull suddenly pulled out was because of this TD039.

Of course, it is not ruled out that Red Bull’s own upgrades during the summer break will have a very significant effect.

So after the qualifying session, Qin Miao and most of the R&D department directors were called over for a meeting to discuss why the performance of the car was suddenly so different from Red Bull.

At the same time, because a large number of drivers have replaced new components, the starting position for tomorrow's race will be different from the qualifying results.

The correct starting positions for tomorrow’s race are as follows:
1: Sainz
2: Perez
3: Qin Miao

4: Alonso
5: Hamilton

6: Zhou Guanyu
7: Albon
8: Ricardo
9: Gasly
10: Stroll

This may be Zhou Guanyu's best starting position since entering F1.

But there is still the same problem. Arrow's car is not good this season, and overtaking is easier this season than last season.

Therefore, Zhou Guanyu may not be able to keep his ranking. The most likely possibility is that he will be overtaken by the cars behind him one by one during the race.

However, Qin Miao only briefly thought about Zhou Guanyu's problem. After qualifying, Qin Miao focused more on Red Bull.

The gap is so big that I don’t know how such a terrifying time gap came about.

The two drivers Qin Miao and Hamilton did nothing else after returning to the team home.

I turned on the projector in the conference room of the team home and studied over and over again why the Red Bull car was so fast and why the Mercedes car was so slow.

But in the end, Qin Miao and the others didn't figure out the reason.

Moreover, there was not much time left for the Mercedes team to study this matter, and the second day's race started soon.

Sunday, Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium. Today is a rare good day, the sun is shining and there are no clouds in the sky. The meteorological department reports that the probability of rain during the race is less than 30%.

After a month's rest, the drivers and team engineers are already gearing up and waiting for the opportunity to show off their skills on the track.

It's just that there are still some people in the paddock who have predicted the final result of this game much in advance.

On the track, Qin Miao and Hamilton were chatting about current racing problems.

And wonder together why the car is so much slower than the Red Bull.

But until the two drivers' respective track engineers called the two drivers back to the car, neither of them discussed the reason.

"We are also very surprised by the gap between the car and the Red Bull Racing car. We will investigate and solve the specific problems at that time. Now staying focused and winning today's race is my primary goal." It seems like It was because they knew that Qin Miao and Hamilton were absent-minded.

As soon as Qin Miao got into his racing car, Toto's voice reached Qin Miao through the team's TR.

"Okay boss, but all I can do is try my best to run this race well. As for the ranking, I'll see if I can get a third place. I can't guarantee anything more." Qin Miao replied. road.

Toto also knew that he could not force Qin Miao to do anything at this time, so he said in the team TR: "Just do what you can do, we believe in you."

After saying that, he cut off the call with Qin Miao and went to calm Hamilton's mood.

Soon, the time came to the point where the game was about to start.

All team staff evacuated the track. As the indicator light came on, the warm-up lap of the Belgian Grand Prix of the 2022 season was about to begin.

In the starting stage, Qin Miao, like Sainz ahead, was using soft tires.

The tire formulas given by Pirelli for this week's Belgian Grand Prix are three types of tires with medium hardness, C2-C4.

Based on the tire durability tested by Qin Miao in the qualifying stage, Qin Miao's set of soft tires can last at least 20 laps in this game.

And although the redesigned chassis did not bring any improvement in the speed of the car, it did help a lot to heat up the tires. Hamilton also said at the team meeting after the practice session that the tire management of the car at this time is more demanding than before. easy.

Therefore, in the main stage of this game, the Mercedes team's strategy team responsible for the pit stop strategy also encountered a happy trouble.

If Qin Miao implements the stop-stop strategy of red and yellow, Qin Miao will simply run out of tires in today's race.

Maybe after the race, Qin Miao's medium tires would allow Qin Miao to continue running 5 or 6 more laps on the track.

Hamilton does not need to implement a two-stop tactic. Huang and Bai can run the entire race with one stop. However, if a two-stop tactic is necessary, Hamilton's tires can be used regardless of consumption.

Excluding Red Bull, who showed incredible speed in yesterday's qualifying session, Mercedes' speed in today's game is 10 points ideal and impressive in their own eyes.

Soon, the warm-up lap was over and all the drivers returned to their supposed starting positions.

Qin Miao stopped at the first place in the second row, with his teammate Hamilton behind him.

Taking a deep breath, Qin Miao began to wait for the five red lights to light up.

Soon, five red lights came on and off, and the game began.

"The five red lights go out, and the 2022 Belgian Grand Prix officially begins!"

"Qin Miao! The starting rhythm is very good, ready to surpass Perez!"

"Perez's starting rhythm was not very good, and he wanted to compress Qin Miao's space! But Qin Miao's starting rhythm was too good, and he passed directly from the outside! Hamilton and Alonso were also very fast, and they took advantage of the situation and surpassed Perez. Rez.”

"Qin Miao! We came to second place after the start. Is there any chance to attack Sainz?"

"Yes! That's right, just stick to Sainz like this and wait for the opportunity!"

"Huh? There was a crash. Hamilton and Alonso collided! Hamilton's car flew straight up!" The three commentators from Five Star Sports have been paying attention to the state of Qin Miao's car on the track since the start of the game, so they The three of them knew very well where Qin Miao was at this time.

Naturally, we knew that the Mercedes that caused the accident was not the car driven by Qin Miao.

On the track, the main cause of this accident was that when passing T5, Hamilton, who was behind Alonso, braked late on the outside of T5 and got in front of Alonso.

But the three corners T5, T6, and T7 of the Spa-Francorchamps are combination corners.

After the right turn of T5, the left turn of T6 follows.

Therefore, in order to have a fast cornering angle and speed when exiting the T6 corner, Hamilton squeezed directly towards the outside line of the track in an attempt to obtain a wider cornering line.

But at this time Alonso was not completely overtaken by Hamilton's late braking, and he was still side by side with Hamilton.

Alonso did give up a certain position to Hamilton at this time. Even before the two collided, Alonso's right front wheel had almost pressed against the green paint outside the outer shoulder of T5.

But when exiting the corner, Alonso still collided with Hamilton because of insufficient position.

A very classic position, the right front wheel of the car hits the left rear wheel of the car in front.

Hamilton took off immediately due to the incident.

According to visual inspection, the highest point of Hamilton's car even reached about 1.7 meters.

But after all, both drivers are world champion drivers. Their control of the car cannot be said to be superb, but it can also be said to be easy to grasp.

Therefore, even though the two drivers had accidents with each other, whether it was Alonso the launcher or Hamilton the pilot, both of them stabilized their cars within a short period of time and did not let their cars lose control.

After this accident, the two of them naturally lost a lot of positions. There was an obvious leakage at the rear of Hamilton's car. Soon, the recording camera that followed him and Alonso was covered with a layer of water. fog.

In this game, Hamilton's chance of winning the championship was completely reduced to zero after this collision.

One lap later, Hamilton's car fell heavily because of that time, and the engine broke down. He had no choice but to stop on the side of the track and retire.

The race also dispatched a virtual safety car at this time.

In the end, the director gave Hamilton a shot that seemed to be full of the hero's twilight.

During the virtual safety car period, a large number of drivers chose to pit for tire changes, including Leclerc.

Because a piece of helmet goggle film was stuck in the ventilation duct of Leclerc's racing car.

The stuck film caused a sharp reduction in the air intake of Leclerc's brake ventilation duct and the temperature remained high. In order to prevent the brake disc from exploding, Leclerc could only stop and clean the brake ventilation duct and change the tires.

But it seems that because of Hamilton's mistake, Leclerc's loss during this pit stop was not huge.

After the race restarted, Verstappen on the track put his terrifying performance in qualifying into practice. In the race, Verstappen was still ridiculously fast.

He started 14th and was already in 6th place after 6 laps.

He gained 6 places in 8 laps.

Qin Miao overtook the most times in the 2021 season, and the fastest race was not as outrageous as Verstappen.

Came to fourth place on lap 7.

On the 8th lap, he passed his teammate Perez and came behind Qin Miao.

Qin Miao was sucking in Sainz's wake, using the DRS provided by Sainz to keep an eye on Perez behind him. Suddenly Perez changed people and became Verstappen. .

After Qin Miao saw Pan Zi's car, his heart naturally tightened, and then he said in confusion: "Didn't this bastard start in 14th place? Why is he behind me after only 8 laps?"

Frankie was silent for a while: "We actually want to know why."

Qin Miao was just a little puzzled after seeing Verstappen behind him, and complained to the team staff, without really wanting an answer.

After all, after yesterday's qualifying results came out, Qin Miao knew that the Red Bull car was abnormally fast in this game, and he had already been mentally prepared to be directly overtaken by the speed of the Red Bull car.

On lap 12, using the DRS provided by Sainz at the front, Qin Miao once again had a hearty attack and defense with Verstappen on the field.

But even though Qin Miao has many advantages.

The car in front provided DRS, soft tires with stronger grip than the car behind Verstappen, and ERS power reserve, which did not have much power after Verstappen overtook all the way from the rear.

Even though Qin Miao has so many advantages, Qin Miao still feels very difficult when defending Verstappen behind him.

Although Verstappen's driving is precise and efficient, Qin Miao's driving and stability are not much worse than Verstappen's, but this awesome car is fast, purely fast and unreasonably fast.

It corners quickly, accelerates quickly, and is faster on the straights, especially the DRS efficiency.

After Qin Miao turned on his own DRS, he might only be able to increase his speed by 15 kilometers per hour, but this Red Bull increased his speed by at least 24 kilometers per hour.

If it weren't for Sainz's cooperation, Qin Miao and him blocked the line that Verstappen could rush up by braking late, and the two of them would have been overtaken by Verstappen.

But this defense did not last long. No matter how fast Verstappen's car was, he was not Qin Miao. After 12 laps, Verstappen's speed on the soft tires also began to decline.

This is especially true for Sainz in front of Qin Miao.

So on the 12th lap, Sainz entered the pit to change tires due to tire wear.

Verstappen's speed at this time was no longer as advantageous as when he was chasing Qin Miao. Qin Miao could barely defend Verstappen.

On the 15th lap, the time gap between Verstappen and Qin Miao came to 0.9 seconds. It was gradually becoming less difficult for Qin Miao to defend Verstappen.

Finally, Verstappen couldn't stand it anymore. It's really unreasonable that he drives such a fast car and is blocked by Qin Miao.

Verstappen pitted for medium tires and came out in third, 4 seconds behind Sainz.

At this time, Qin Miao's speed was still impressive, so he still did not choose to stop and change tires.

On lap 18, Verstappen, who put on new tires, overtook Sainz in front of him in just two laps.

It can be seen that the single-lap speed difference between Red Bull and Ferrari is really 1.8 seconds. (End of chapter)