How did I become an F1 driver?

Chapter 441 Chapter 444: A rare mistake
In the first practice stage, Qin Miao was exploring the limits of the new car, and at the same time he was familiar with the Marina Bay track, which he had no knowledge of at all.

Hamilton's side immediately started conducting long-distance lap speed tests.

And with 20 minutes left before the end of the first practice, Hamilton used a set of soft tires to set a lap time of 0.4:1, which was 42.598 seconds faster than the second-placed Verstappen.

Although Verstappen only used a set of neutral tires, Hamilton's performance so far has well proved that Mercedes' improvements and adjustments to the car have indeed helped Hamilton's condition improve.

At the end of the first practice, Qin Miao's single lap performance was actually pretty good, but not as fast as Hamilton and Verstappen.

Mainly because Qin Miao really needs some time to get familiar with the current W13B. As for why Hamilton was in such good condition after getting this brand-new car, screaming and smashing results on the track, to be honest, Qin Miao was not the same. very clear.

Did the other party also get some system or something?
Of course, it may also be because Hamilton has been suppressed for too long this season and has been driving a car that is contrary to his driving habits. Now he finally has a car that suits his driving style. For a while, even Hamilton’s body shape Jing Baizhan's heart was a little too excited, the small universe must have exploded.

Practice at 9:00 p.m.

Qin Miao's speed improved significantly in the second practice stage. After the second practice, Qin Miao's performance ranked fourth. Although he was still not as fast as his teammate Hamilton, the two Mercedes drivers performed steadily in the second practice stage. Overwhelmed the red bull.

As for first and second...

However, Qin Miao was happy to see the results, because twenty minutes before the start of the third practice, he completed all the test items he needed for this week and got all the data he and the team wanted.

All in all, throughout Friday, Qin Miao and everyone at Mercedes-Benz were very satisfied with the results of today's work, especially Hamilton.

Because it rained during the third practice session, and the drainage function of the Marina Bay track is not as strong as that of a traditional track, so after the rain on the track was too heavy, the accumulated water could not be drained out for a while.

The cheering response from the audience came immediately.

There was a little accident at the beginning of the third practice.

Otherwise, they would be bored just sitting in the spectator seats and watching the rain.

After the second practice, Qin Miao has almost adapted to the current track and has a certain familiarity with the W13B. It is almost during the race that he can bring out the best performance of this car without reservation. As for the qualifying stage, you have to practice again and again to find the limit of this car.

Saturday, three practice sessions and qualifying.

Qin Miao didn't show up either. After sitting down, he took the coffee in his hand and saluted the audience.

Then when Qin Miao came out with his chair, the audience cheered Qin Miao.

Moreover, in today's two practice games, Hamilton was ahead of his teammate Qin Miao in terms of performance. This even made Hamilton feel like he was back at the beginning of the 2021 season.

And no driver drove on the track for half an hour.

It's all in Ferrari's hands.

Qin Miao simply took a recliner and sat under the load-bearing pillar at the door of the team room. He held a cup of black coffee in his hand and crossed his legs. He was distracted by the raindrops falling on the track while waiting for the restart of the third practice session.

Of course, under normal circumstances, even if Qin Miao wanted to be in a daze, he would return to the team's P room and sit in his seat.

The race didn't even give the teams a chance to put on full-wet tires and try them out on the track, and closed the pit lane for half an hour.

The reason why I came out today was because I considered Singapore to be half of my home court. It was a worthwhile trip to come out just in time to show the folks at the scene and let them record some videos and take some photos back home.

In the rest of the time, Qin Miao usually ran long-distance tests on the track with a new set of hard tires, getting more familiar with the track and running for fun.

I also roughly figured out the limits of my car under the current asphalt conditions of the Marina Bay Circuit.

He was so satisfied. The old man was full of praise for the improved car.

Now that it's raining, the air on the track is much cooler, and Qin Miao can rest for a while.

At the end of the third practice, Qin Miao drove the car onto the track to warm up with 10 minutes left before the end of the game. Anyway, the car now uses the engine from the practice session, and the tires are still semi-wet tires, basically. There is no need to worry about tire wear during the race and qualifying stages.

At the end of the last three practices, Qin Miao's final score was ranked 8th.

Even if it rains, it's still a street race. Qin Miao really can't bring out all his personal abilities.

Soon, during the halftime break, the team installed the engines for the race and qualifying stages on Qin Miao and Hamilton.

After all inspections were completed, it was almost time for qualifying to begin.

In the Q1 stage, although the rain on the track has stopped, the drainage capacity of Singapore's Marina Bay Circuit is indeed a bit poor. It is difficult to drain the rain on the track in a short time. Therefore, after the team evaluated it, Qin Miaohe Both Hamiltons put on semi-wet tires.

There is basically only one way to run qualifying with semi-wet tires, which is to put on a set of semi-wet tires and stay on the track to run flying laps.

It depends on when the track conditions get better, or if you are lucky and catch a good flying lap window, you can run a good result.

Q1 is neither difficult nor stressful for Qin Miao, but for Qin Miao's fans, watching Qin Miao's qualifying race makes people feel their blood pressure rising as always.

Because there was water on the track, although Qin Miao's four flying laps of Q1 were all green, and each flying lap had a certain improvement compared to his original results, the overall speed was not fast enough.

Even Qin Miao's speed is not as fast as Zhou Guanyu's.

Of course, as mentioned before, Qin Miao's qualifying game only made his fans feel their blood pressure rising, but did not make them feel their own blood pressure exploding.

Qin Miao advanced to Q1 from P11 behind Zhou Guanyu in Q2.

The drivers eliminated in Q1 were: Bottas, Ricciardo, Ocon, Albon and Russell.

Time came to Q2. As time went by and so many cars continued to drive on the track, the track conditions obviously gradually improved.

After running a flying lap in Q2 using semi-wet tires, Qin Miao said in the team's TR: "The track conditions are gradually getting better, and I feel like I can switch to dry tires."

Franky seemed to have expected Qin Miao to say such words, and directly rejected Qin Miao's proposal: "I'm afraid it won't work, Qin Miao. At present, only the traffic lanes are dry, and there is still water on the non-traffic lanes." , if you put on dry tires, there is no way to heat up the tires under such track conditions.

"What if I change to hard tires?" Qin Miao still wanted to struggle.

Because hard tires require a lower tire operating temperature than soft tires, adding a little water shouldn't matter much in Qin Miao's opinion.

"I'm afraid not," but Franky refused ruthlessly. Qin Miao could only nod helplessly, and then continued to run at his own pace on the track using semi-wet tires.

Although the current track makes Qin Miao feel uncomfortable when running, Qin Miao's own strength and the performance of the car are here. Even if it is uncomfortable to run, Qin Miao's results will not be too bad.

At the end of Q2, Qin Miao advanced to Q8 in 3th place.

After Q2 ended, what the director showed on the screen was Qin Miao blowing air on himself with the fan given to him by the team. Fei Ge complained: "Although this is not the first time we have said this, I I still want to say that as a fan of Qin Miao, you must have a good heart, because Qin Miao's qualifying race really challenges the psychological endurance limit of us fans. "

Now the five-star sports commentators no longer hide their identity as Qin Miao fans, and dare to speak out openly during the live broadcast.

At this time, Zhou Haoran said: "Thinking about it on the bright side, at least Qin Miao dared to play like this in the qualifying stage, which shows that the upgrade brought by the Mercedes-Benz team this week has indeed brought a lot of confidence to Qin Miao. After all, this When the performance of the W13 was insufficient during the season, Qin Miao basically ran as hard as he could in the qualifying stage, unlike last season where he only ran one lap in Q1 and Q2 in order to save tires.”

Hearing what Zhou Haoran said, the other two commentators also nodded in sympathy.

In the end, the drivers eliminated in Q2 were: Zhou Guanyu, Tsunoda, Stroll, Mick, and Vettel.

Zhou Guanyu was stuck in the eleventh position and was eliminated again, and became the Q3 goalkeeper again.

Although this result is somewhat tragic, at least Zhou Guanyu's result is much better than that of his teammate Bottas.

And now Zhou Guanyu is gradually winning more and losing less than his teammates.

Then think of Zhou Guanyu’s salary and Bottas’ salary.

Zhou Guanyu's price-performance ratio suddenly improved.

Although Bottas does have a certain decline in personal ability because he has not participated in the competition for a year, Bottas's own driving skills are there. Even if he declines, he will not be able to sneak into the second tier all of a sudden. A point where even the drivers are inferior.

Therefore, Zhou Guanyu's current results can only show that Zhou Guanyu, like Qin Miao, has gradually become familiar with the F1 car. After getting used to the intensity of F1 competition, he also began to show his true talent.

The track conditions in Q3 were significantly better than those in Q1 and Q2.

At this stage all drivers switched to soft tires.

Qin Miao is no exception.

After no longer using semi-wet tires, Qin Miao's lap speed immediately improved significantly.

I got the second place in the first flying lap.

The first is Qin Miao’s teammate Hamilton.

Facts have proved that Hamilton has indeed fulfilled his original promise to the team. After the team changed the center of gravity and cornering characteristics of the car, Hamilton's speed improved immediately.

Hamilton on the track does not need to spend more energy on controlling the car, but can focus more on pushing the car to the limit as before.

Qin Miao's flight lap was only 0.09 seconds slower than Hamilton's.

It is also a very good result.

Although everyone's first flying lap is used to lay the groundwork, Qin Miao's ability to run such a result also proves Qin Miao's current status to a certain extent.

After the first flying lap, Qin Miao returned to the P room of the team to review whether there were any deficiencies in his first flying lap.

Soon, Qin Miao was let out again.

In this last flying lap, Qin Miao completely pushed the car to the limit of what he could do.

Starting from the warm-up lap, he tried his best to release all the performance of the car. The extreme cornering was comparable to the last flying lap of Qin Miao's qualifying session in Monaco this season.

The difficulty of the Marina Bay Circuit is actually almost the same as the Monte Carlo Circuit in Monaco. It can even be said that the Marina Bay Circuit is more difficult.

Because compared to Monte Carlo, Singapore is much hotter and puts greater pressure on the driver's physiology.

Of course, because of this characteristic, Singapore's Marina Bay Circuit is more difficult to overtake than a normal track, and is only a little easier than Monaco.

So Qin Miao knew that if he wanted to keep his current position in the driver standings in this game, he would need to get a relatively good result in qualifying.

In this way, I can rely on my own tire protection and defensive abilities to stay in first place.

However, after all, Qin Miao is not as familiar with the Marina Bay Circuit as the Monte Carlo Circuit in Monaco, so on many corners, Qin Miao did not run his car as extreme as Monaco, although he also wiped out the T18 There was a bit of paint on the SINGAPORE GP billboard at the right position, but Qin Miao felt that overall he ran a bit conservatively in these laps.

Other riders:? ? ?
However, just when Qin Miao was about to take the last corner and complete his last flying lap in the qualifying stage, T23 came out of the corner. Qin Miao's speed was a bit too fast. Although Qin Miao's four wheels did not move after exiting the corner. Out of the white line, but the outside tire has exceeded the shoulder of the road and pressed against the paint on the outside of the track.

And at this moment, Qin Miao's right tire raised water mist.

But Qin Miao didn't see that when the F1 driver sat in the car, the visual range was actually very small.

And because of the water mist outside the track, Qin Miao didn't expect that the grip of the tire on his right side had dropped due to the temperature when he accelerated.

So there was a small push when exiting the corner, although Qin Miao quickly counterattacked and saved the car.

But this mistake directly cost Qin Miao at least 0.15 seconds.

So after Qin Miao crossed the line, he could only rank third behind Leclerc and Hamilton.

You must know that Qin Miao has always been a very stable driver and rarely makes mistakes on the track.

Therefore, Qin Miao's mistake surprised many people. The fans near Turn 23 were even more uproar after seeing Qin Miao's mistake.

On the team's side, Toto also fell back tactically, looking at the broadcast in front of him with some helplessness and some relief.

Yes, Qin Miao is so powerful that he almost forgets that Qin Miao is just a 21-year-old boy. Many young people like him are still struggling in F2 and F3, let alone winning world championships.

(End of this chapter)