How did I become an F1 driver?

On the track, after the inspection, the warm-up lap begins.

After running a lap, Qin Miao returned to his pole position and waited for the race to begin.

In today's race, Qin Miao adopted a standard pit stop strategy, stopping after red and yellow...

At least for Qin Miao, it is a very standard and familiar pit stop strategy.

Qin Miao's teammate Hamilton also started with soft tires.

However, Hamilton's ability to maintain his tires is not as amazing as Qin Miao's, so Hamilton, who started with soft tires, is likely to make a second stop in the later stages of the race, or he may switch to hard tires to finish the race.

This also changes constantly according to the situation on the field.

After all, the situation on the F1 track is ever-changing, and no one knows what kind of accidents will occur during the race, so the team must prepare several alternative plans in addition to the normal pit stop strategy.

It basically covers the time period during the entire competition when accidents may occur.

But despite this, unexpected events on the track usually catch all the teams' strategy team members off guard.

On the other hand, the two drivers of Red Bull, Qin Miao's main opponent today, also started with soft tires.

It's self-evident what I'm thinking.

Soon, Albon, who was in last place, stopped his car at his starting position and the race was about to begin.

In fact, the last person to start should have been Yuki Tsunoda of Toro Rosso, but because Tsunoda replaced the front wing and rear wing today, he was penalized by the FIA ​​to start directly in the maintenance area.

So there were only 19 F1 cars on the starting grid at the start of today's race.

"Okay, we see the green flag is waving, the pursuit car is in position, and five red lights are lighting up one by one..."

"The red light goes out, the race begins!"

Qin Miao released the clutch button of the car immediately, and the car started steadily as usual. The powerful power was instantly transmitted to the tires through the engine, and then the friction between the tires and the ground drove the car to accelerate forward.

After all, Qin Miao is young, and Qin Miao has never neglected the training of his reaction ability (here refers to playing games), so Qin Miao's starting speed is as stable as ever.

But Qin Miao's reaction speed was just fast. During the race, Qin Miao's main opponent Verstappen seemed to have awakened some extraordinary attributes and abilities after being pushed to the edge of a cliff by Qin Miao.

Verstappen's starting speed was abnormally fast, and he quickly closed the distance between himself and Qin Miao.

Before the braking point of T1, Verstappen was already side by side with Hamilton, and was about to pull over from behind Qin Miao and start attacking Qin Miao.

Qin Miao was also preparing to change line to the inside to defend Verstappen behind him.

But what surprised both Qin Miao and Verstappen was that Hamilton, who was in second place and started on the inside, inadvertently changed lanes to the outside, blocking Verstappen's route to change lanes to the inside.

Verstappen, who was about to make a breakthrough on the inside of Qin Miao, was blocked by Hamilton and suddenly felt as uncomfortable as if he had eaten a dead fly.

However, in order to avoid a collision with Hamilton's car, Verstappen did not dare to force his way into the gap between Qin Miao and Hamilton. In fact, because Qin Miao kept driving on the outer line of the track, it was unlikely for Verstappen to overtake Qin Miao even if he wanted to go outside.

So Verstappen's excellent start was directly blocked by the two Mercedes drivers.

Verstappen was also extremely depressed at this time.

"What a bad luck!"

By the time Verstappen eased off the accelerator a little to prevent a collision with Qin Miao, Qin Miao had already arrived at the braking point of T1.

Because there was no deceleration and no interference from the cars behind, Qin Miao's entry into the corner was very smooth, and he took the best route into the corner.

So Qin Miao has passed this stage in the initial stage.

As a recognized defensive master in the paddock, Qin Miao naturally saw through Hamilton's effortless defense at a glance.

To be honest, Qin Miao felt that the old man was definitely a top second driver.

In terms of awareness and defensive ability, this guy is no worse than me!
But Hamilton has won 7 world championships. It is estimated that unless Hamilton is really old and can no longer run, but still wants to stay on the track, then Hamilton may go to assist someone wholeheartedly.

As for the contribution to Qin Miao this season...

It was the team that forced Hamilton. If the W13 built by the team at the beginning of the season was in line with Hamilton's driving habits, Hamilton would not have been in such a difficult situation for the entire season until the end of the season when the car was improved.
But if it is true as I just said that the W13 was very much to Hamilton's liking from the beginning, then the scene on the track today would be completely different. It is possible that the three drivers would compete for the final driver's championship on the track like they did at the end of last season.

Who can tell exactly what it is like?

Because Hamilton basically did not delay his own race rhythm when he helped Qin Miao defend Verstappen, so even though Hamilton was slightly behind Verstappen by half a car body's distance at the braking point of T1, with Hamilton's late braking, Hamilton was back in parallel with Verstappen.

And when he arrived at T2, Qin Miao returned the favor.

Qin Miao made a slight "mistake" in T2 and did not eat enough of the curb, which resulted in Qin Miao straightening the front of the car about 0.2 seconds slower than normal.

In daily life, 0.2 seconds is hard to detect, or even be taken seriously.

But in the F1 arena, 0.2 seconds can determine the outcome of a race, and can also determine the ownership of tens of millions of dollars.

And because of Qin Miao's mistake of 0.2 seconds, Verstappen had to slow down his pace slightly, otherwise his subsequent cornering rhythm would definitely be affected by Qin Miao.

Because he was following Qin Miao too closely, there was a high possibility of a rear-end collision.

If he rear-ended Qin Miao at this time, not to mention whether the car was damaged or not, Verstappen would be completely ruined by the time penalty.

So Verstappen suppressed his inner impatience a little and slowed down a little again.

However, Qin Miao's "mistake" this time only affected the driver directly behind him. Hamilton next to Verstappen was not affected by Qin Miao at all.

Next, Qin Miao exited the corner normally, while Hamilton took advantage of the front of the car and closed the door strongly when exiting T3, and Verstappen returned to his third place.

It’s so frustrating. Really frustrating.

Despite the two defensive moves by the two Mercedes drivers, Verstappen was able to ignore them and try to attack.

But Verstappen knew that both attacks would carry the risk of a crash.

But Verstappen's position in the drivers' standings at this point does not allow him to take these risks.

But I have to say, these two Mercedes Benz idiots are so mean! They have no idea of ​​fair competition at all, two against one! Despicable!
But Verstappen could only curse in his heart. If conditions allowed, he would definitely not refuse the opportunity to cooperate with his teammates in a two-on-one match on the field.

"Beautiful! Qin Miao and Hamilton cooperated perfectly." Bing Ge sighed as he looked at the situation on the field at this time: "To be honest, after seeing Verstappen's excellent start in this race today, I was really worried that Qin Miao would pose a threat to Qin Miao's leading position. But it is hard to believe that one day you can see the two world champions of Mercedes-Benz cooperate so well on the field."

"It seems that Qin Miao is really good at handling interpersonal relationships in the team. At least he doesn't look like a young man." Brother Fei said.

"But that's exactly what we wanted to see, isn't it?"

……

Having experienced so many years of competition in the F1 arena, Qin Miao knows very well that the time period when accidents are most likely to occur is actually the start.

Now that I have started, I am still in the leading position, so it is very likely that I will defend my title in today's race.

The last hurdle is the possible pit stop for tire change later.

Qin Miao was confident that he would not make mistakes on the track, but he was not confident that the tire changer of the team would not make things difficult for him, so Qin Miao wanted to give the tire changer of the team more time before entering the pit.

In fact, Qin Miao would rather have his team members change tires a little slower than before, in exchange for stable tire changes and avoid any major mistakes.

Just when Qin Miao was about to start entering a cruising state and daydreaming based on the muscle memory he had learned from his daily practice and the muscle memory he had gained during the practice match...

T7 on the first lap.

Ricciardo rear-ended Magnussen in T7.

To be honest, the forms of car accidents in F1 arenas are very similar to those in daily life, such as PIT, collision, and running off the road. These are common mistakes and accidents in F1 arenas.

Such car accidents often happen in real life.

However, the biggest difference between the F1 arena and the real road is that rear-end collisions rarely occur on the F1 arena.

Rear-end collisions are far less common than other types of accidents.

The number of rear-end collisions that occur in a season can be counted on one hand.

After all, F1 drivers are very focused on the track, and with their mature driving skills and experience, it is possible that the car loses control, but it is absolutely impossible for the car to lose control and rear-end the car in front, because such a mistake is too low-level.

But it was in such an environment that a rear-end collision occurred on the track, and this was not the end of the accident.

After being rear-ended by Ricciardo, Magrusen's car's balance was broken on the spot at the extreme cornering state. The car went out of control directly, and the front of the car deviated to the right, drawing a circle directly on the track.

Because Magnussen's car was not going very fast when cornering, the tires of Magnussen's car on the track quickly recovered their grip on the ground.

After regaining grip, the inertia of Magrusen's car did not disappear, so Magrusen's car continued to slide backwards under the action of its own inertia and was about to run off the track.

As luck would have it, Ricardo, the instigator of the accident, also wanted to leave this troubled area from the outside of the track after colliding with Magrusen.

Then the left rear wheel of Magrusen's car, which was moving backwards, hit the left rear wheel of Ricardo's car. The left rear wheels of both of them were deformed on the spot in this collision.

Then the two of them crashed into the wall due to the inertia of their cars.

The safety car was deployed immediately at the race.

This can be considered as Magnussen not holding a grudge. After all, if there was a grudge, he took revenge on the spot.

And Ricardo...

All we can say is that he made a mistake and luck was not on his side.

Putting aside the cause of the accident, after all, this accident has nothing to do with Qin Miao.

Judging from the result of this accident alone, it is beneficial to Qin Miao.

Because this accident triggered the safety car, the safety car can effectively reduce the wear of Qin Miao's soft tires. Although Qin Miao will still pit to change tires at the point calculated by the team, Qin Miao can slightly increase the consumption of his tires during this process.

Because the two cars had to be cleared and there were a lot of debris left on the track after the collision, the safety car lasted for 6 laps and the race was restarted on the 7th lap.

Soon, the game resumed.

Because the rules for following a car have been changed, it is basically impossible for drivers to take advantage of the opportunity to attack the car in front after the race is restarted under the safety car.

Verstappen was also quite critical of the rule changes at the time.

After restarting, Qin Miao and Hamilton naturally began to cruise, while Verstappen followed behind them, ready to find an opportunity to launch an attack at any time.

But Qin Miao will not give Verstappen such an opportunity.

When it seemed that Verstappen was about to attack Hamilton at T1, but Hamilton was no pushover and he accurately stuck to the inside line and braked late.

In fact, Verstappen had already finished side by side with Hamilton when entering T1, but Hamilton relied on the advantage of the inside line to brake late and overtook again when T1 entered T2.

Verstappen actually still wanted to rely on his advantage in the inside to try to attack in T2.

But while Verstappen was watching Hamilton's car next to him, he also saw Qin Miao's Mercedes-Benz in front of him, with the edges of his flip-flops covered in red.

In the end, Verstappen gave up the opportunity to attack Qin Miao.

The race is still long, but Verstappen knows that if he does not give up this attack, there will be a risk of collision with Hamilton. His main opponent in today's race is not Hamilton, but Qin Miao who is ahead of Hamilton.

It would be fine if there was no damage to the car after the collision, but if there was damage to the car, or if both his and Hamilton's cars were out of control, then the champion of today's race would definitely not have any intersection with Verstappen.

Verstappen naturally missed all possibilities of being crowned world champion in 2022. Verstappen did not want to give up this hard-earned opportunity.

So Verstappen chose to endure.

After the driver in front controlled his emotions, some minor friction occurred between the drivers behind.

In T6, Norris, who was on the inside line, drove onto the curb and his car began to understeer, and his left front wheel hit the left rear wheel of Leclerc, who was on his outside line.

Leclerc spun out of control, spun twice, and then crashed directly into the guardrail on the side of the track. In fact, the collision was very serious. When the collision occurred, the rear wheels of Leclerc's car flew up.

Just when everyone thought the safety car might come out, Leclerc actually restarted his car and returned to the track.

When the director's camera cut to Leclerc, it was found that the entire front nose of Leclerc's car was gone, leaving only a nose vertebra, but the car's four suspensions and other internal systems were not damaged and could still drive on the track.

No one expected that the craftsmanship of Ferrari racing cars would one day reach the level of Mercedes-Benz.

Of course, although Leclerc did not retire because of this accident, the damaged front wing meant that Leclerc needed to go into the maintenance area for repairs.

After coming out of the pit area, Leclerc will definitely fall to the back of the team.

There is no doubt that Norris was fully responsible for this accident and was directly punished with a 5-second penalty and 2 points deducted from his super license.

It's not the maximum penalty, but it's not light either.

Because Leclerc's accident did not trigger the safety car, the race was not affected. Leclerc entered the maintenance area on the second lap to replace the new nose wing.

After coming out of the maintenance area, Leclerc fell to the end of the team, in 18th position.

At this time, Leclerc was only 42.7 seconds away from Qin Miao.

The time between him and his rival Perez, who is fighting for third place in the 2022 drivers' standings, is 38 seconds.

It is obvious that after this race, Leclerc is likely to lose his third place in the driver's standings.

Next, Qin Miao returned to his most comfortable racing state, always keeping a time gap of less than 1 second with Hamilton. On the one hand, he stabilized Hamilton and continued to feed Hamilton with the hot tailwind emitted by his car. On the other hand, he used Hamilton to contain Verstappen behind Hamilton, preventing Verstappen from finding an opportunity to overtake Hamilton.

As a result, the leading group at the front of the track quickly formed a small DRS train.

However, this train only has three carriages, namely Qin Miao, Hamilton and Verstappen.

Sainz, who was in third place, was thrown out of the DRS zone on the 3th lap and is now being entangled by Perez. Judging from the state shown by Perez at this moment, Sainz can't hold on for too long.

The next section of the track was relatively calm, at least for the three drivers in the leading group, who were just cruising during this period.

On the 24th lap, Qin Miao's advantage in protecting his tire was fully revealed, and he could no longer help his teammate Hamilton.

Because at this time, soft tires were also used, but even if Qin Miao ran slowly, his single lap speed was 0.3 seconds faster than Hamilton.

Not to mention that Qin Miao's tire consumption in this race became very low because of the yellow flag at the beginning of the race, so he didn't need to protect the tires at all.

So even though Qin Miao still wanted to manage his own DRS train at the back of the track, his strength did not allow it.

In addition, the team planned to pit for tire change on lap 32, so Qin Miao could no longer maintain the durability of his soft tires. He needed to use up the remaining tires before the 32nd lap.

If you keep the tire for so long, wouldn’t the remaining tire stock be wasted?

Hamilton, who was following Qin Miao during this period, finally couldn't withstand Verstappen's attack because he lacked Qin Miao's DRS support, and was overtaken by Verstappen on the starting straight on the 25th lap.

In fact, if Hamilton ran the race normally, he would not have been so embarrassed on the track.

But unfortunately, there was Qin Miao in front of Hamilton who was always pulling Hamilton's tailwind.

Although due to weather reasons, Hamilton's tires did not have problems with overheating, nor would they degrade due to excessive driving, and even because of Qin Miao's presence, Hamilton's soft tires were always in a very good working window.

But Qin Miao is the reason for both success and failure.

Because Qin Miao was helping to pull the slipstream in front, Hamilton didn't have to worry too much about Verstappen behind him. However, because of Qin Miao's suppression in front, Hamilton's speed could not be increased, and he often had to take the defensive line in some places where Verstappen posed a threat to him.

After taking the defensive line, it is indeed a very easy thing to block Verstappen behind you, but the problem is that after blocking Verstappen, your tires will consume more energy than when entering a normal corner.

So Hamilton's tires were somewhat over-consumed during this process.

Now that Qin Miao is gone, Hamilton's disadvantage of excessive tire consumption has become apparent.

To be honest, there was a moment when Hamilton felt that he was being controlled by Qin Miao on the track. This young man knew exactly what he wanted to do and what he was going to do.

But of course, this is just Hamilton's own prediction and there is no substantial evidence.

So at the end of the 25th lap, Hamilton pitted and changed to neutral tires, ready to try to undercut Verstappen on the track.

After all, Verstappen had been following Hamilton all the way, and at this time the tires of Verstappen's car would not have much remaining time.

Suddenly, we received the news that Hamilton had entered the pit to change to neutral tires.

To be honest, there was a moment when Verstappen really wanted to kill Hamilton.

But he had no choice. After all, Hamilton was blocking himself for his teammates on the track. No matter what, Hamilton's approach was right in the eyes of Mercedes and the fans of the Mercedes team.

Verstappen had to admit that he was a little anxious.

"What should I do?" Verstappen asked in Red Bull Racing's Team TR.

Verstappen's problem is not difficult to understand. At this time, should I pit to change tires to prevent Hamilton from under-cutting, or continue to persist on the track and narrow the time gap between myself and Qin Miao as much as possible?

Red Bull naturally understood Verstappen's problem, but they didn't know how to solve it for a while. After all, Verstappen had just been freed from Hamilton, and they didn't know what Verstappen's current lap speed was.

On the other hand, they had no definite answer as to the speed of Hamilton's medium tires.

He didn't even know whether Qin Miao, who had been cruising ahead, had any more speed to use.

But at this time we cannot wait for a lap, let Hamilton run a lap and get the lap data of the seven-time champion before giving Verstappen an answer, because by then it will be too late.

So after a brief discussion, Verstappen's track engineer said to the team TR: "We're going to pit on this lap, Max, now push as hard as you can! Use up all the tires."

"Received." (End of this chapter)