How did I become an F1 driver?

Qin Miao naturally knew the other party, and was indeed a little surprised to see him here.

This restaurant was really just a random choice by Qin Miao. Neither Qin Miao nor Barber had ever eaten here before, and they didn’t know how it tasted. The only thing Qin Miao liked about this place was this one. The shop is very close to the paddock.

"Mr. Liu, I really didn't expect to meet you when I went out for a late-night snack at night. Who are you?" Qin Miao shook hands with the other party with a smile and asked curiously.

At this time, other staff who were sitting there eating also stood up, took out their mobile phones and started taking pictures and videos of Qin Miao.

Qin Miao had long been accustomed to these actions and didn't care. He even smiled and nodded to them.

Liu Xinyue explained with a smile: "Isn't it the weekend of the Grand Prix? All the work is over. My colleagues in the company have also worked hard for several days. After going out for a meal, I will give them a holiday."

"Isn't it a coincidence? I have just finished work and am going to have something to eat before returning to England."

"If you don't mind, let's eat some together?"

"Don't bother me?" Qin Miao said a little embarrassed.

Before Liu Xinyue could say anything, the Geely staff who were anxiously filming the video immediately started to make a noise.

"No, no, no, I wish for it!"

"Quick, quick, make room for Qin Miao and the others."

……

Liu Xinyue also smiled and invited Qin Miao to take a seat: "It just so happens that we have just served Italian food here. I don't know if it will suit your taste."

"Excuse me. Actually, I have lived in Italy for a while, so I don't have any problem with my taste." Qin Miao nodded with a smile. His face was quite useful at this time.

But before sitting down, Qin Miao winked at Barber.

Barber nodded knowingly.

During the following period, Qin Miao naturally started chatting with Geely's people while eating.

After all, Qin Miao knew many people, so it would not be out of the ordinary for Qin Miao to come over for a meal at this time.

Moreover, it was not a secret in the paddock that Qin Miao did not drink. No one had any intention of letting Qin Miao drink. Qin Miao simply substituted tea for wine.

However, after three rounds of wine and five tastes of food, everyone else had drank a little too much.

Qin Miao's mind was quite clear, and then he started chatting with Liu Xinyue next to him.

"Mr. Liu, how are the negotiations with Aston Martin going now? Judging from your current posture, it is certain to enter F1 next season, right?"

Liu Xinyue nodded vigorously with a blurry look in her eyes: "Qin Miao, I'm not going to brag with you, I'm here to guarantee you that you can definitely see our Chinese F1 team on the track next season!"

"It seems to be going well?" Qin Miao said with some surprise: "I remember that the price offered by Old Stroll was a bit high. Did you all agree?"

"How is it possible? Those bastard Angsa devils are just talking like a lion! They are just playing tricks on us."

"Oh~" Qin Miao nodded meaningfully, and then asked curiously: "Maybe this question is a bit presumptuous, but I still want to know, do you have a specific price for this recent negotiation?"

"Logically speaking, this kind of thing cannot be publicized everywhere, but you are Qin Miao. If you want to know this kind of thing, just call the chairman and he will tell you."

As she spoke, Liu Xinyue made a 7 sign and said: "Cash, and a bunch of additional terms.

All in all, it looks very tempting, but there are so many twists and turns inside, that the people responsible for the negotiation lost a lot of their hair. "

"It's really not easy." Qin Miao nodded in agreement: "In the F1 arena, it's only a race when you're in the car. Most of the time, it's a business."

"Who says it's not, but I have one thing to say, Qin Miao, your performance on the court is really good now. Don't you know that there are many bars and special offline game viewing venues in China, all of which are there just to watch you play? "It's an emerging industry." Liu Xinyue said: "We are so motivated to enter F1, and that's actually why you performed so well in the F1 arena."

Qin Miao said: "To be honest, I don't even know how much influence I have in the country. After all, I haven't had many activities in the country during this time."

Liu Xinyue thought for a while and then said: "Otherwise, our Geely side happens to have a sub-brand called Geek. Would you like to come and participate in our Geek's track day event? Then you will know how powerful you are in the country. Welcomed.”

Qin Miao smiled bitterly and said: "Mr. Liu, you are just making fun of me. I am a driver for the Mercedes team, not the Haas team. I have the exclusive endorsement of Mercedes-Benz and cannot accept advertisements from other car brands. There is no way to participate in any non-Mercedes car-related activities.”

"That's a pity." Liu Xinyue said with regret.

Qin Miao didn't care. Instead, he asked on a whim: "By the way, Mr. Liu, during this competition week, I seemed to see that you and Red Bull were having a very happy chat. What should I say? Are you talking to Xiao Xiao?" Red Bull has an idea?”

Liu Xinyue was stunned for a moment, as if she didn't expect Qin Miao's thinking to be able to jump like this. Then she immediately smiled and said: "How is that possible? It's just a good relationship with Red Bull. Maybe it's just the people who come into contact with Red Bull. The conversation between Horner and Marco was more speculative, so we probably chatted for a little longer.”

Qin Miao also nodded, and then switched to other topics: "By the way, has Geely's entire F1 department been set up now?"

"Not yet. The current plan is not to change the overall framework of the team after the acquisition is completed, but to inject capital and recruit people under the current framework of the team, and then slowly replace the backbone of the team, but there is a high probability that they will not be recruited from domestic sources. , but poached from other teams.”

"By the way, if it's convenient, please give me the phone number of the top management of Mercedes-Benz Racing Team, and I'll see if I can poach a few." Liu Xinyue said seemingly jokingly.

Qin Miao hurriedly waved his hand: "Mr. Liu, please let me go. I usually communicate with them by email, not many phone calls, and their emails are all public. If you really want to find it, you can go through email." Contact them, there is no need to do anything on my part.”

“Hahaha.” Liu Xinyue slapped her head and said, “Look at me. I was drinking with the world champion today. I got a little drunk and almost killed the conversation…”

Qin Miao also laughed and followed Liu Xinyue's words to get rid of the topic.

After dinner, Qin Miao took a photo with Barber and others before leaving.

Naturally, it was impossible for Qin Miao to really mess with the Geely staff for this meal. Barber had already paid for it before leaving.

After all, Qin Miao only knows these people, and is not familiar enough to have a meal without any psychological burden. Qin Miao went to have a meal mainly because he wanted to find out about Geely's trends and progress in recent times. , and by the way, answer some of my inner doubts.

After eating, Qin Miao went directly to the airport with Barber and returned to the UK that night.

After leaving at the airport, Qin Miao returned to his familiar home.

The next day, Qin Miao got up at 7 a.m., washed up and started exercising.

During exercise, Qin Miao usually turns on his mobile phone or tablet to listen to the latest news in the paddock.

It seems that Geely is now in contact with Williams and Haas in addition to Aston Martin.

Qin Miao scratched his head. Was he planning to kill three soldiers with two peaches?
Scratching his head, Geely seemed to be open to Qin Miao about the acquisition, but he kept silent about a lot of key information, and Qin Miao didn't have any good ideas.

Simply stop paying attention to this matter. Anyway, judging from Geely's current attitude, it will definitely need to enter the market sooner or later. Let's talk about it when everything has settled.

Besides, what Qin Miao is happiest about is having three weeks of rest.

The reason for these three weeks of rest is mainly because Da Mao is teaching his children at home, so the Sochi stop was cancelled.

However, the 2022 schedule was set in 2021 and cannot be changed now.

Therefore, this period of time naturally adds an extra week, which is an extra autumn break for nothing.

But unlike the summer break, during these three weeks all teams can carry out normal car development and design work.

Therefore, Mercedes will have many major upgrades applied to its racing cars before the start of the Singapore Grand Prix.

What makes Hamilton most ecstatic is that the team will bring new cockpit position adjustments this week.

At the same time, there will also be a new front nose cone and side box air inlet design.

This can be regarded as Mercedes' most significant and last major upgrade in the 2022 season.

But no one knows the specific effects of the upgrade, but at least in wind tunnel and CFD simulations, the aerodynamic efficiency of the current car is better than the current half-baked W13.

Yes, it's just a little better. This design mainly takes care of Hamilton's requirements, adjusting the position of the cockpit, changing the center of gravity of the car and the characteristics of the car when entering corners.

It can be regarded as a U-turn on the road of racing car development.

It is really surprising that the performance of the car can be improved under such a big change. Under normal conditions, the performance of the car should have declined after such a big change.

Of course, in addition to this surprising to all the team's R&D personnel, there is another thing that no one expected.

That’s because this set of upgrades came off the production line too quickly.

Because the original offline time of this set of upgrades is estimated to be around the time of the United States Grand Prix.

But the reality is that this set of upgrades directly improved two grand prix events, which took almost half a month.

And it's not just this. Many of the team's recent upgrades have been like this, at least a week earlier than expected.

The key is that the effect of this upgrade is particularly good. At least the performance has reached the design indicators. There has never been any situation where the upgrade is lower than the design expectations.

Of course, Mercedes has upgrades here, and Red Bull will definitely install more upgrades on the car in these three weeks.

Moreover, the current data are also the results of wind tunnel and CFD. The specific effect depends on the performance of the car at the Marina Bay Circuit in October.

Of course, this week the team also made some upgrades in terms of driver comfort specifically for the Marina Bay Circuit.

Marina Bay Circuit has always experienced high temperatures and high humidity during races.

In addition, this is a street race, and both sides of the track are blocked by guardrails. Even at night, there is not much wind that can blow onto the track, so the Marina Bay Circuit is also very stuffy.

Because it is a street, it is relatively bumpy and has 23 corners.

Although most of these corners are right-angle corners, the pressure on the driver during street racing is definitely greater than that on a normal track.

After all, in the driver's eyes, it's like the protective walls are crashing directly towards him.

Qin Miao has never run a race on this track, mainly because of the epidemic. The Singapore Grand Prix in the 2021 season was canceled.

Therefore, Qin Miao has not personally experienced how hard it is to run on this track, but according to the riders Qin Miao knows, the Marina Bay Circuit generally has mixed reviews for this track.

But one thing Qin Miao can be sure of is that when running this race, he was like driving in a sixty-degree sauna, and there was no wind in the process. Even if there was wind, it was hot wind.

As for opening the goggles to breathe during competition?

Your eyes don’t want it anymore, right?

When the speed of the car is 200 kilometers per hour, your eyes will be blown open by the wind, let alone if there are some pebbles brought by the car in front, or mosquitoes and other small things in the air.

If it hits you, you'll have a big cut on your face.

Considering this situation, and the fact that the team just had an upgrade for this race, Mercedes simply asked the two drivers for their opinions on the appearance design of the new parts when manufacturing new parts for the car.

One is the nose opening under normal conditions, which will not lose any performance. The only disadvantage may be that your cockpit may be a bit stuffy in the Marina Bay Circuit of the Singapore Grand Prix.

As for the other option, it is to open a hole in the nose cone that is twice the size of the normal state.

This opening can input more hot air of about 30 degrees Celsius into the racing car's monocoque.

But at least it is much lower than the 60 degrees Celsius air in the cockpit, although it will reduce the car's cornering performance...

When the two options were placed in front of Qin Miao and Hamilton, Qin Miao was thinking about whether his physique could withstand the high temperature on the track, while Hamilton directly chose the second option.

And pulled Qin Miao to choose the second option.

Qin Miao actually didn't have a precise impression of the environment of the Marina Bay Circuit. After all, Qin Miao had never run there.

But Qin Miao clearly saw that the old man looked like he was facing a formidable enemy whenever he talked about the Marina Bay Circuit.

After arriving here, Qin Miao roughly knew that this track was probably really hot for the drivers.

After receiving feedback from the two drivers, the team naturally made adjustments to the next production plan.

Of course, the main work content is just to produce two sets of front nose wings with large air intake holes.

No spare parts are available. Because this set of front nose will probably only be used at Marina Bay Circuit this season, the team only built two sets in order to save some money.

If the driver breaks this front nose on the track, he will have to replace it with a new one without comfort modifications.

Anyway, the aerodynamic effects of the two sets of front nose wings are basically the same, except that the drag of one set is slightly larger, which is basically negligible.

In addition, the team also considered that Qin Miao and Hamilton performed very stably this season and basically had no car damage.

Naturally, we save as much as possible in the production of racing accessories.

If both drivers really damage their front noses during the race, they will have to use a front nose that is not optimized for comfort.

But even if this happens, the performance of the car will not be reduced.

In short, the Singapore Grand Prix is ​​worth looking forward to, and in fact, the Singapore Grand Prix can be regarded as half of Qin Miao and Zhou Guanyu’s home court.

For well-known reasons, there are a large number of Chinese in Singapore, and Chinese is also one of the official and commonly used languages ​​in Singapore.

Even when you walk on the street, you can see that many shops use Chinese store names directly.

To a certain extent, this game can be regarded as a preview before Qin Miao and Zhou Guanyu's home game.

And Qin Miao seemed to have heard that all the tickets for the Singapore Grand Prix were sold out a month in advance. Yes, all of them, not a single ticket left.

In the past, Grand Prix weekends might have attracted 300,000 people or more over three days, but those Grand Prix events would more or less have some very expensive tickets left over that no one bought, but in Singapore there was not a single ticket left.

When he got the news, Qin Miao had already imagined who these people who had bought all the tickets were.

Even Qin Miao began to look forward to it inexplicably.

According to Qin Miao's normal personality, after working day and night for three weeks, Qin Miao would give himself a day or two off no matter what.

But considering his position in the standings at this time, and the increasingly faster Red Bull car.

My slightly slack mind started to get nervous again.

After returning to the UK, Qin Miao only had one day off on Monday, and then began to devote himself to his daily work.

However, Qin Miao does not spend all his time in the team factory, he just goes to and from get off work normally. After all, Qin Miao has a system to support him. Qin Miao can basically complete the tasks assigned to him by the team every day, and he is determined not to work overtime. .

In addition, the team's progress in the research and development of new cars has been steady and improving recently, and most of the work is being carried out as planned, so Qin Miao has no need to work overtime.

Basically I get off work on time every day.

However, recently, Qin Miao hasn’t played much CSGO since he came home from get off work.

Mainly because Zhou Guanyu spent most of his energy on self-improvement and business activities during this period.

As mentioned before, Qin Miao does not like to participate in some business activities or interviews, but the domestic car fan group is growing day by day, and everyone has a certain hard demand for information in this area, and they are also very curious about the various aspects of the F1 paddock. There are all kinds of interesting things, and I am more curious about what an F1 driver does in a day.

Since Qin Miao, the most influential Chinese driver, cannot be hired, the next best option is to find Zhou Guanyu.

Because Zhou Guanyu's gaming partner is gone, Qin Miao naturally plays less CSGO.

But this does not mean that Qin Miao has no other games to play. After all, Qin Miao and Zhou Guanyu are not the only F1 drivers who like to play games.

Aren't there Norris and Verstappen? Gasly and Leclerc also like to play games.

During this offseason break, Qin Miao, Norris, and Verstappen drove a dump truck in the COD theater.

But the main thing is that Qin Miao is running around and killing people, while Norris and Verstappen are the complete troublemakers.

Because Verstappen and Norris have known each other since childhood. Men, after growing up together, they will inevitably become each other's bad friends.

When Qin Miao and the two of them were in three rows, they had completely different styles of painting.

Qin Miao is really playing the game seriously, and he cares about the outcome of the game. He is killing in the war zone with the shortest gun of TTK in this version of COD.

Verstappen and Norris have always been playing with each other's mentality.

For example, during the gun duel, Norris threw smoke bombs at Verstappen's bunker so that he could not see the person on the opposite side.

While running the drug, Norris went to pick up the resources on the map. When he turned around, he saw that Verstappen had already left in the helicopter and was not waiting for him at all.

After Norris fell to the ground, Verstappen didn't even look at Norris who fell to the ground. He shouted something: courage, justice, bonds, etc., and rushed out to fight the enemy. The key is that he still If you lose, you will die.

Qin Miao was left alone in the TS to ask them about the specific location of the two enemies, and then one of them "didn't know" and the other "was right there."

Qin Miao couldn't fix it on the spot.

But the two of them played like this. They were completely different from Qin Miao's style, but it didn't make Qin Miao unbearable. Qin Miao actually enjoyed it.

After all, after the two of them broke out with each other, they would always humbly ask Qin Miao to save them in TS.

In the paddock, it's rare to see Verstappen looking down and down.

Because of the existence of these two live treasures, Qin Miao always keeps 6000 yuan with him when playing War Zone, so that he can buy these two live treasures at any time.

And when the three of them were playing games, they were all live streaming.

The whole process was very joyful, and the fans were very happy to watch it.

At least during the three weeks without games, you can see these people playing around.

However, this happy scene did not last long, because Leclerc, who was live broadcasting soon, also discovered that Qin Miao and the others were playing games, and naturally joined the dump truck team.

After Leclerc joined, Verstappen and Norris became more motivated to win.

The two stopped joking, and now the four-wheelers really started to collide.

Some water friends commented: [It feels like when playing COD, the communication between these four people is more serious than when they are competing. 】

Several of them are professional drivers themselves. This industry also has high requirements on people's response. Therefore, everyone naturally has a certain talent for FPS games, and they are naturally better than ordinary people in playing them.

So during this rare break, the four of them played the game for almost five days in a row. They gathered on time at 8 o'clock every night, started the game, and continued until 11 o'clock in the evening. The audience in the live broadcast room for them was used to it.

On the fifth day, which is the Monday when the Singapore Grand Prix starts, several people will start working.

The audience habitually opened the live broadcast room of the four people, and found that none of the four people were live broadcasting, and they had a withdrawal reaction for a while.

……

"Have you packed your things?" Mom poked her head out from the door and looked at Qin Miao, who was in the bedroom watching the in-car video of previous laps of the Singapore Grand Prix and the team's reserve data.

Qin Miao said without raising her head: "Qiu Meng said she had it done."

Mom is not surprised by this, and she is also very relieved about Qiu Meng. Since this girl has handled this matter, she will definitely do it perfectly.

Without disturbing Qin Miao any more, her mother closed the door and walked out.

This competition weekend, my mother just took advantage of the Singapore Grand Prix and wanted to go to Singapore for a while. By the way, I went to the paddock to watch Qin Miao's game. Also, Singapore is relatively close to China, so I planned to watch the Singapore Grand Prix. After the game, I went directly back to my country.

After playing abroad for so long, my mother suddenly discovered that in foreign countries, especially places in Europe, apart from the pure and unique natural landscapes, the fun places are really not as good as those at home.

Even to be honest, most places in China have their own characteristics in terms of scenery, which is not inferior to that of foreign countries, or even better.

Of course, according to my mother.

In addition to this, there is also a trivial reason, because JJ Lin is a Singaporean, coupled with his attributes as a public figure, and a little gossip.

As expected, he will also participate in the Singapore Grand Prix.

When Qin Miao's mother was young, she liked to listen to JJ's songs, especially Jiangnan and the like.

Although I am not a fan of the other party, after all, I often listen to the other party's songs, and my mother is quite happy to have the opportunity to get in close contact with him.

Now that my mother is preparing to return to China, Qin Miao's company has also received many cooperation invitations in China, so Qiu Meng just took advantage of this opportunity to return to China together. Although Qin Miao's agency has many fans of Qin Miao's car, It's just a decoration in the ridicule.

But there is still a need for this company to exist. On the one hand, it maintains Qin Miao's external image. On the other hand, it also needs to interact with Qin Miao's fans from time to time. At least it cannot give domestic fans a feeling that you are particularly high-ranking. After all, Qin Miao was just lazy, not really cold.

But these are things after the Singapore Grand Prix.

Half an hour later, Qin Miao's room door was pushed open again, and this time it was Qiu Meng who walked in.

"Let's go. Everything is packed. Come and help move it down."

Upon hearing Qiu Meng's greeting, Qin Miao responded, closed the tablet in his hand, stuffed it into his bag, and then followed Qiu Meng out.

Today, Wednesday, Qin Miao is preparing to leave for Singapore.

At this time, the team's materials have arrived at the Marina Bay Circuit in Singapore, and the layout has even begun.

The team's new upgrades are all in place. Many photographers in the paddock did not care about Ferrari and Red Bull, which also brought upgrades during this game. They found camera positions that were conducive to directly filming the Mercedes-Benz P room. Racing angle.

The reason is naturally because the upgrade brought by the Mercedes team this week is the largest among all teams. It can be said to have directly redesigned the entire W13 shell, which will naturally attract the attention of the media inside and outside the paddock.

Not only the media inside and outside the paddock, but also the teams in the paddock are also very interested in Mercedes' upgrades this week and want to see how much work Mercedes has done.

Qin Miao also saw the improved car after it was assembled when he went to the paddock to participate in an event on Thursday.

What Qin Miao saw before were single parts of the racing car, and these parts were not sprayed with a layer of varnish to reduce wind resistance. They looked like a black carbon fiber creation. Naturally, he had never seen them assembled in a car. Together.

The improved W13 naturally has a new name. After all, the chassis of the car has undergone huge changes, and the characteristics of the car in corners are also completely different from the original version.

The current car has nothing to do with the original W13. Except for the engine and gearbox, which are not allowed to be replaced due to the regulations of the competition, most of the parts are different from the W13 at the beginning of the season.

Therefore, the team named the car W13B after internal high-level discussions.

Of course, these changes come at a cost, and the Mercedes team's research and development budget has completely bottomed out this season.

Although the total budget of other aspects is still very considerable, the team does not feel that it is necessary to squeeze out the budget of other aspects of the team for the research and development of racing cars at this time, because even the budget squeezed out will be a drop in the bucket for the development of racing cars.

Not to mention the problem of manufacturing the upgraded parts for the racing car after they are designed.

And it may cause more additional problems.

Therefore, after this upgrade, the team’s remaining R&D and manufacturing budget can at most provide 13 to 2 more minor upgrades to the W3B.

Later, even if the team's design department had a new idea, the idea was converted into design drawings and CFD simulations were completed, the Mercedes team did not have enough budget to manufacture new parts.

However, there are still six games left before the end of the season, and 2 to 3 small upgrades, plus this major upgrade, are actually enough to a certain extent.

At least it can be guaranteed that the performance of W13B will not be far behind Red Bull and Ferrari.

Naturally, the remaining issues will be left to be resolved in the 2023 season.

On Thursday, after walking the track, Qin Miao also participated in the recording of some promotional videos under the arrangement of the team.

In addition to recording promotional videos, Qin Miao and Hamilton also held a roadshow on the streets of Singapore.

Just drive a racing car and perform on the streets.

Interact with the Singaporean car fans on site, and then drive your own car to perform stunts and so on.

At this time, it is naturally impossible to drive cars from recent seasons, and all cars driven are old cars.

This is true for both Qin Miao and Hamilton. Hamilton drives the W2017, the championship car he drove in 08, while Qin Miao drives the same W08, but it was Bottas' car that year. (End of chapter)