How did I become an F1 driver?

Naturally, the weather report sent by the team's meteorological department cannot be just a few words. These words are the essence of what Qin Miao summarized after reading the weather report sent by the team. The meanings are quite different.

After reading it, Qin Miao rubbed his head with a headache, but no matter how much he had a headache, he still had to get up and go to the game.

So Qin Miao got up, washed up, and then went to the paddock.

The heavy rain on Friday did not affect the enthusiasm and fanaticism for F1 racing among the Japanese fans at the scene. Every one of them was wearing a raincoat and holding an umbrella.

When Qin Miao entered the paddock, he saw the scene from last week's Singapore Grand Prix again. The grandstand area facing the door of the Mercedes team's P room at the Japanese station was full of Qin Miao fans wearing black Mercedes team uniforms.

As soon as Qin Miao entered the stadium, the fans who had been waiting for a long time began to shout Qin Miao's name in unison.

After arriving at the entrance of the team and waving to the audience, Qin Miao returned to the team home under an umbrella.

After finishing all the interviews before the game, Qin Miao put on his racing suit and started practicing.

It's just that the weather during the first practice was completely different from the weather forecast Qin Miao received from the team when he woke up in the morning.

It started raining heavily before the first practice started. When the timer of the first practice started to count, the drainage system of the track began to operate at full capacity. The water thickness in some places on the track even reached 2mm.

Almost most teams did not let their drivers out after seeing the thickness of water on the track during the first practice.

On the one hand, with such thick water, there is no need to test it. Even if it were to be tested, no useful data would be obtained.

After all, if there was such thick water during the race, the FIA ​​would have canceled the race long ago.

Moreover, with such thick water, it is extremely easy for drivers to make mistakes on the track and lead to crashes.

At the end of the season, except for those low-end teams that have no investment within the budget cap due to financial problems, most of the relatively wealthy teams have already bottomed out their budget caps. If they bump up again in the second practice, then the next few games of this season will Don't even think about any upgrades during the competition. Even if there are upgrades, they can only stay on the drawings, and there is no money to manufacture the corresponding parts.

Therefore, after weighing the pros and cons, most teams did not allow their drivers to test on the track.

Because the benefits and risks are not proportional.

But as mentioned here, it’s the majority.

"Hey, Lewis, have you ever experienced the feeling of racing on a track with full wet tires? How is the grip?" After being informed by the team that there was not much water on the track and not going out for a run, Qin Miao came to Hamilton's side. , asked curiously.

"Wet." The old man COS mentioned Kimi and began to cherish his words like gold.

But Qin Miao also roughly understood what Hamilton meant. The track conditions will not be very good, and even if the car uses full rain tires, the grip will not be ideal.

But it has been more than a year and almost two years since Qin Miao entered the F1 paddock. Qin Miao has never tried to run a race in such heavy rain, so Qin Miao is still somewhat curious.

then……

"Reyes, get me a set of full wet tires and I'll go on the track and do two laps."

"Um...but this rain..." Reyes hesitated, looking at the rain that could be seen in the pit lane.

Toto also turned his head and looked at Qin Miao.

"It doesn't matter. I also know that the current track conditions are not suitable for lap times. I mainly want to get familiar with the layout of the Suzuka Circuit and the angles of the corners, and by the way, I want to see the track layout from the driver's seat."

"...If you insist." Qin Miao said so, and Reyes had no reason to refuse.

And what Qin Miao said is indeed reasonable. This is Qin Miao's first time coming to Suzuka. Before today, all Qin Miao's learning about the Suzuka track was based on the team's simulator. At this time, Qin Miao wanted to take advantage of During the practice session, it is understandable to go to the track to familiarize yourself with the layout of the Suzuka track and find the braking points on the track in wet conditions.

So soon, Qin Miao got into his car, and entered the car while Hamilton looked at him with "Are you serious?"

After the lubricating oil in the engine was filled, Qin Miao started the car and drove out of the Mercedes-Benz Racing Team's P room in the heavy rain.

When Hamilton heard Qin Miao ask him about the issue of wet-weather tires, Hamilton really just thought that Qin Miao was here to learn from him and asked about the driving experience of full-weather tires. He never thought that Qin Miao could actually drive. Take your own car to the track.

After all, Qin Miao is a well-known landlubber.

It is quite famous in the paddock.

Moreover, in recent years, the FIA ​​has basically adopted a one-size-fits-all strategy for those races where the climate is not controlled. If the rain is heavy, it will simply give a red flag and stop running.

The spectators at the scene were a little surprised when they saw Qin Miao coming out of the Mercedes-Benz P room. After all, it was raining heavily on the track at this time.

Many fans who came to watch the practice session were ready to leave disappointed, but Qin Miao's appearance obviously gave them a big surprise.

The spectators sitting on the grass, even in the rain, cheered at the Mercedes car passing in front of them.

However, the two races on Friday were both practice races after all, so there were not too many spectators at the scene, and even if the drivers drove their cars onto the track, they would not push their cars in such weather and time. limit.

Naturally, there won't be that many things to watch, so although there were spectators cheering for Qin Miao, the cheers were not loud. After all, the overall audience base was not large.

However, Qin Miao didn't go to the track to hear the cheers given to him by the audience. Qin Miao was used to hearing this kind of cheers in so many grand prix races in his career.
He really wanted to come up and get familiar with the track. At the same time, he was also curious about what it would feel like to drive on full wet tires.

However, when Qin Miao actually got on the track, she really felt that the full wet tires had very weak grip and poor acceleration. It felt no different from normal semi-wet tires, or even worse.

Qin Miao had an extremely strong feeling on the track. As long as he dared to step on the floor oil at a speed below 150 kilometers per hour, the full rain tires on the rear wheels of this car would dare to instantly break through the limit of the car's grip.

Moreover, even though Qin Miao tried his best to be cautious when driving the racing car, he still applied the gas much later than normal during the exit stage of many high-speed corners. He would also slip after exiting the corner and had to make corrections to correct it. The car is under control.

Exiting the bend will delay things even more.

Even if Qin Miao straightened his car, he could not step on the accelerator directly as he did on dry ground. The limit of grip of the rear wheels of the car was too easy to exceed.

Qin Miao drove cautiously during the entire practice match.

But despite this, Qin Miao still lost control at the rear of T7, a long-curved car.

The reason was naturally Qin Miao's operating error, because Qin Miao started to apply fuel after the apex of T7 on the last lap, and the rear wheel of the car caught the ground at that time.

But after one lap, it rained heavily. In addition, only Qin Miao's car was testing on the track at this time. There were no other cars that could drain the rain on the track, so Qin Miao once again When passing here, he subconsciously refueled at the same position as when he passed here on the previous lap. The result was that the rear wheel of Qin Miao's car broke through the limit of grip.

The rear wheels of the car instantly lost grip, and the rear of the car slid forward.

To put it simply, the car oversteers.

After all, Qin Miao is the F1 world champion. As soon as he found something was wrong with the car's posture, Qin Miao began to fight back to save the car.

However, Qin Miao discovered that while the grip of the rear wheels was gone, the grip of the front wheels seemed to be gone as well. The car turned into a curling stone on the track and slid straight towards the buffer zone outside the track.

If it continues to slide like this, the car may go directly into the grass.

After seeing this scene, the staff in the P room of the Mercedes-Benz team who had been paying attention to Qin Miao's racing progress instantly felt that their heartbeats had skipped a beat.

At this moment, Qin Miao also instantly thought about the possible consequences later, and thought of a solution that should be feasible.

The gear was dropped to second gear, and the floor was oily.

The rear wheel of the car, which had lost all grip, immediately began to spin rapidly, bringing up a large amount of water mist.

However, the overall state of Qin Miao's racing car still did not change. It was still rowing towards the grass at the edge of the track under the influence of the original inertia of the racing car.

But soon, as Qin Miao raised the gearbox of the car to third gear and the rear wheel speed further increased, the all-weather tires actually regained the grip of the track.

As a result, before the audience could even exclaim, they saw Qin Miao's car sliding towards the outside of the track and gradually moving forward.

then……

The forward kinetic energy of the car gradually exceeded the inertia, and Qin Miao's W13B drifted into the corner in the T7 corner.

F1 cars just have too much downforce and are not suitable for drifting. It does not mean that they cannot drift.

But it is extremely difficult to drift a properly tuned F1 car.

This was also a coincidence for Qin Miao. There was no wind on the track. Qin Miao himself was not very fast. The aerodynamic package of the car did not provide much downforce to the car. The rain on the ground made Qin Miao perform on the track. This time it was a miraculous drift into the corner.

And although Qin Miao completed this miraculous drift, in fact Qin Miao was just walking a tightrope, dancing within a very small control range.

As long as Qin Miao gives more or less fuel during this process, the angle of the steering wheel is more or less, or even if there is a gust of wind at this time, Qin Miao's drifting state will be broken.

But Qin Miao completed all this series of operations under the harsh track conditions and successfully drove out of T7.

After passing this corner, Qin Miao's speed also slowed down.

Audiences watching the first practice broadcast online were dumbfounded when they saw this:
【what? 】

【? ? ? 】

[This is F1? 】

[It’s been a long time since I’ve seen this. I’ve watched F1 races for so long. This is the first time I’ve seen an F1 car drifting on the track. ][ Damn, I was scared to death. I really thought Qin Miao was going to rush out. 】

……

"Qin Miao, what happened?" Franky's voice sounded immediately, and lingering fear could be heard in his voice.

Qin Miao was a little embarrassed and wanted to touch his nose, but now that he was wearing a helmet on his head, Qin Miao couldn't touch anything. He could only reach out and push away his helmet goggles: "It's nothing, after the car when passing T7 The wheel grip was not enough and the car lost control. It was not a big problem, I had the car under control.”

"Understood. Judging from the current weather conditions on the track, it is not suitable for a practice session. Come back first." Franky said quickly.

He was really afraid that Qin Miao would have another accident on the track.

"Ok."

Although Qin Miao's mistake on the track made all the relevant staff of the Mercedes-Benz team break into a cold sweat.

But for the spectators at the scene and the fans who watched this practice match through various channels, there are not many opportunities to see F1 racing on such a rainy day, let alone seeing it on the track. The F1 car drifted.

They had never seen this scene before.

So after Qin Miao's car returned to the door of the P room of the Mercedes-Benz team, the audience gave Qin Miao extremely warm cheers and applause.

Looking at Qin Miao who was going to the door of the team's P room to wave to the spectators who came to watch the practice match after getting out of the car, Toto asked Elliot next to him: "Do you think it's possible? Qin Miao, who has never been a fan of rain battles, suddenly wants to go for a lap on the track. Could it be that he just wants to drift the car on the track? "

Elliot was looking at the telemetry data obtained by Qin Miao after running these few laps. He was stunned after hearing Toto's words, and then thought about it and said uncertainly: "It shouldn't be possible, right?"

Looking at Qin Miao who had finished greeting the audience and was walking back, Toto said: "Who knows, maybe only he himself knows what he really thinks."

……

The only thing to watch in the early stages of practice was Qin Miao.

Within 50 minutes after Qin Miao came back, no other driver came out to run a practice session. It was still the same problem, there was too much rain on the track.

Therefore, all the broadcast scenes in the early stage of the first practice were related to Qin Miao. Even Qin Miao's drift was replayed in slow motion at least 7 times in the broadcast scenes.

Most of the time then started to show the rain on the track, the fans and spectators at the scene, and the status of the drivers in the team's P room.

Of course, the happiest thing is still Qin Miao and the Mercedes-Benz team’s sponsors. Although the practice sessions do not receive as much attention as the main race and qualifying, F1 now has such a large audience base here, even if For practice matches, the number of viewers watching via television broadcasts around the world will not be less than 5.

In front of these 5 people, at least the car that did not crash appeared for more than ten minutes, and during these 10 minutes, these viewers basically watched, not as disgusted as if they were seeing an advertisement, and they were thinking Change the channel.

In short, it’s a win!

The track conditions did not improve until there were 15 minutes left before the end of the practice session.

The drivers all came out of the P room of their own teams and drove their cars onto the track for testing.

During this period, all drivers have different tire choices. Some, like Qin Miao, use full rain tires, but most drivers use semi-rain tires during this period.

But everyone was still skidding after getting on the track, but the main places where they skidded were T8 and T9. On the contrary, Qin Miao's T7, which was drifting, was relatively stable.

We are all F1 drivers. Although no one can be like Qin Miao, the skidding of the F1 car directly becomes his own personal show, but everyone can easily pull their cars from the edge of losing control. return.

At most, it's like rushing to the grass on the edge of the track to COS a rally driver.

However, the overall climate conditions in the first practice session were still not very good, so many drivers did not stay on the track for too long during the first practice session. At most, they only ran seven or eight laps on the track before getting off.

Still the same problem, in such an environment, basically no information useful for racing tuning settings can be collected.

At the end of the last practice session, Brother Tou got the fastest lap of the practice session.

Old comrades still have their own unique understanding of the Suzuka Circuit, especially when the lap speed is not very fast...

Before the end of the race, everyone returned to the track for starting practice.

After all, in a normal Grand Prix weekend, the only time you can stop on the track and practice starting without any distractions is when the practice session is about to end and when you come out of the pit area.

Based on Qin Miao's starting ability, he would not appear among the people starting practice under normal circumstances, but today's situation was special, it was raining heavily.

There are not many opportunities to practice starting in such an environment, so Qin Miao was called out by the team to practice starting.

There were no problems at the start of practice this time. The problem was that on the return lap, Mick crashed again...

Originally, Mick had gradually become accustomed to the pace of F1 in the second half of the season. Although he could not score points from time to time like his teammates, he had gradually become accustomed to the F1 arena, and the frequency of crashes had also dropped significantly.

At last week's Singapore Grand Prix, Mick has completed the first round of contract renewal negotiations with the Haas Racing Team. Both parties have already had preliminary intentions to continue cooperation. After arriving in Austin, they will start the second round of negotiations with the Haas Racing Team. , it is estimated that he can stay with the Haas team for another year.

This crash is probably going to knock out Mick Schumacher's F1 seat. After all, this accident was too low-level. This was not even a practice session, but the return lap after the practice session.

When Qin Miao was returning to the field, he was a little bit sad when he saw Mick's car inside the track.

After all, the opponent was his opponent before, and his speed was pretty good in F2, but after entering F1, it was completely broken.

Nothing like his father's speed and ability.

But in any case, these have nothing to do with Qin Miao. Qin Miao and Mick are not particularly familiar.

It was still raining in the second practice, but compared to the first practice, the rain on the track was much lighter. Qin Miao was mainly conducting long-distance tests during this practice session.

There was no fun to watch in the second practice, Qin Miao did not continue to work on the track, and completed all her test tasks honestly under the requirements and supervision of the team.

Then the work on Friday is over, get off the car, take a shower and change clothes, attend the post-game press conference, and the day's work on Friday is over.

But after returning to the hotel, Qin Miao posted the video of his drift on his social platform.

Looking at those words full of exclamation, Qin Miao's face was full of smiles.

In fact, this drift was really intentional by Qin Miao, but the main point is that Qin Miao's refueling was not a mistake, and saving the car was Qin Miao's subconscious reaction.

But after finding that he had found the steel wire-like balance on the rain-filled track, Qin Miao subconsciously wanted to maintain this balance longer, and then drew this drifting arc.

……

On Saturday, Qin Miao got up as usual.

The weather conditions at the Suzuka Circuit finally improved today. After opening the curtains and looking at the sunshine outside the window, Qin Miao breathed a rare sigh of relief.

After getting up, Qin Miao went to the paddock after a simple warm-up training.

When they arrived at the paddock and had breakfast, Qin Miao got some surprising news from Franky.

Gasly joins the Renault team to replace the team leader who will leave the team next season.

The reason is naturally that Brother Tou announced on August 1 that he no longer wanted to stay in Alpine, a garbage team, and turned around and went to Aston Martin.

Therefore, there was naturally a vacancy in the position of the Alpine team, but Qin Miao did not expect that the person to take the vacant position would be Gasly.

Looking at it now, Alpine has actually formed an all-French team.

To be honest, Qin Miao still admires the French's courage, but Qin Miao feels that this kind of gameplay will not go far. When the time comes, either the driver will pull his hips or the team's car will pull his hips.

Not to mention that France still has a traditional repertoire like palace fighting. It is certain that the Alpine team will not be too stable by then.

But in the final analysis, Qin Miao is just a driver. For his gaming partners who have played games with him, Qin Miao can only take out his mobile phone and send them a text message to express his congratulations.

At least for Gasly now, switching from Red Bull to Alpine is definitely an upgrade.

No matter how you say it, Alpine is a manufacturer team, and the performance of Alpine racing cars is definitely stronger than that of Toro Rosso.

After breakfast, Qin Miao went to participate in self-media interviews and various VIP activities. Qin Miao received another piece of news before the start of the third practice.

Gasly has just announced that he will join Alpine, and Toro Rosso announced that they have signed a contract with Nick de Vries and given him a one-year driver contract.

Qin Miao is no stranger to this driver. After all, the other driver is the test driver and reserve driver of the Mercedes team. Although Qin Miao has not raced with the other driver on the track, the two have worked together for a long time. of.

And at the Italian Grand Prix a month ago, De Vries replaced Albon who was undergoing appendicitis surgery and drove a Williams car to bring back a point for the Williams team.

Such a performance in his first contact with an F1 car is indeed worthy of an F1 driver contract, and de Vries has also proven his ability in other series.

But even Qin Miao didn't expect this driver contract to come so quickly.

Just after his performance, he got the F1 driver contract a month later. What kind of incredible protagonist template is this... (End of this chapter)