How did I become an F1 driver?

Next, as the fight between Verstappen and Hamilton intensified, Qin Miao was able to gradually widen the time gap between him and the two drivers behind him.

The battle between Hamilton and Verstappen for the second place became the main highlight of today's race.

After getting caught in a fight with Hamilton, Verstappen no longer had any hope that he could compete for the championship in today's race.

By the 50th lap, the time gap between Qin Miao and Verstappen, who had finally overtaken Hamilton and moved into second place, had reached 2 seconds.

After seeing Qin Miao's huge speed advantage, many excited Mercedes fans directly hung the double champion flag on the sidelines and waved it wildly.

He actually opened the champagne in advance.

But sometimes the world is so magical that if you open the champagne in advance, you will always be punished by the God of Champagne.

On the 52nd lap, just when everyone thought the race would continue like this and were watching the fight between Hamilton and Verstappen, an accident occurred on the track.

Norris lost power and stopped his car at the exit of T10, forcing him to retire.

Coincidentally, today is Norris’ 23rd birthday.

McLaren, whose finishing rate this season is only slightly lower than that of Mercedes, also suffered their first double retirement of the 2 season in the penultimate Grand Prix of this season.

I can only say that the F1 arena is sometimes so strange. There will always be some dates, grand prix or moments that have special significance to the driver, which will bring bad luck to the driver or something else.

This was the case with Norris today, and it was the same with Leclerc in the Monaco race in previous years, which always makes many drivers and their fans feel deeply dissatisfied.

But this is F1, and this is the charm of this sport.

Normally, the virtual safety car period is not a good time to make a pit stop, because although pitting in such a situation is still faster than pitting in the normal rhythm of the race, the time saved is not too much.

But at this time Verstappen saw an opportunity given to him by God, an opportunity to challenge Qin Miao and Hamilton.

So immediately after the virtual safety car caused by Norris, Verstappen made it clear in the team TR that he wanted to pit during the virtual safety car period.

Although the Red Bull team's strategy team did not think this was a good decision, because after the virtual safety car ended, the time gap between Verstappen and Hamilton in front of him would reach 14 seconds, which basically meant that Verstappen had completely lost the possibility of getting second place.

Moreover, Verstappen no longer had any new soft tires at this time. He only had a set of old soft tires that he had used in the qualifying round and ran a flying lap on.

And even if Verstappen had new soft tires to use, it would be impossible for him to catch up with and overtake Hamilton in the remaining 19 laps while chasing Qin Miao who was ahead of Hamilton.

But there is an old Chinese saying: Those who are barefoot are not afraid of those who wear shoes.

Although compared to other drivers in the paddock, Verstappen can't be considered barefoot in any way, but compared to Qin Miao, who is about to win the second world championship in his career, Verstappen is definitely the barefoot one.

So Verstappen and the Red Bull Racing team quickly reached a consensus after a brief discussion. After all, they had nothing to lose at this time.

Rather than slowly dying on the track, it is better to take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. What if the safety car appears?

"Huh? Verstappen actually pitted at this time?" Fei Ge was a little confused after seeing Verstappen's actions on the field: "Isn't it too late to pit at this time?"

Brother Bing smiled and said: "Qin Miao is now in the lead on the track. No matter what, Qin Miao will definitely be able to defend his second world championship after today's race.

Verstappen, because of Hamilton's obstruction, can only get on the podium at best, and it is difficult to win the championship, so instead of waiting to die behind Hamilton, it is indeed better to take advantage of this rare opportunity to pit and change tires to have a better chance. "

"Unless the safety car appears, Verstappen's tire change is just a temporary solution and cannot change the final outcome of the race," Zhou Haoran said confidently.

The other two commentators also thought it made sense and nodded in agreement with Zhou Haoran's idea.

……

While the commentators of Five Star Sports were chatting happily in the studio, Matthew, who was responsible for cleaning Norris's car on the track, was a little overwhelmed because of Norris's car.

Although Norris' parking place is not on the track, the exit location of T10 is a relatively special location on the entire Interlagos circuit, because there is no way to arrange a crane there. The track in that area is too narrow for the crane to enter.

So if there is a small accident on the track, Matthew will directly push the car into the buffer zone of the track and wait to hand it over to the team after the race. If there is a major accident, a crane will be dispatched from the opposite side of the track.

Although the car stalled when Norris got out, it was not known whether there was a problem with the gearbox of the car. Matthew pushed Norris' car for a long time but failed to move it.

Obviously, it was impossible to move the car off the track by manpower, so a crane had to be used to move the car away.

So after two laps of the virtual safety car appearing, the virtual safety car on the track turned into a safety car.

After the appearance of this safety car, naturally some people were happy while others were sad.

Of course, the most worried people at this time were the three commentators from Five Star Sports, because Zhou Haoran had just finished speaking for two laps when the safety car appeared on the track.

It truly explains what it means when poison milk comes true.

After the safety car appeared, the happiest and most ecstatic team was naturally the Red Bull team. Although Verstappen's position did not drop after coming out of the maintenance area, the field would not be compressed again during the virtual safety car period, so the time gap between Verstappen and Hamilton was real.

However, after the safety car appears, the slow cars need to be freed and the traffic will be compressed again.

So Verstappen got a huge advantage, as the 14-second gap between him and Hamilton was wiped out by the safety car.

He, Hamilton and Qin Miao are back on the same starting line.

You can't even say there is anything wrong with deploying the safety car at this time. After all, all these decisions are made according to the rules of the race.

But despite this, Mercedes fans still gave the FIA ​​a warm, friendly and heartfelt greeting.

On the track, after Qin Miao and Hamilton learned that there was a physical safety car on the track and Verstappen had already pitted to change tires, both wanted to pit to change tires as soon as possible.

But as luck would have it, the two of them just missed the entrance to the maintenance area when the safety car came out.

It literally just drove right past the entrance to the maintenance area.

And it only took half a lap for the traffic at the rear to be compressed and the slow cars began to be freed.

At this time, even if the safety car still needs to run a few laps on the track, Qin Miao and Hamilton can no longer enter the pit to change tires, because when they come to the entrance of the maintenance area again, the car field has been completely compressed. If they enter the pit to change tires at this time, they will definitely fall to the end of the team.

So the two of them could only stay on the track at this time. Looking past Hamilton's car and looking at Verstappen behind Hamilton, Qin Miao felt a toothache for a moment.

Damn, is the race organizer targeting me and Hamilton?
There were so many good times to deploy the safety car, but it was deployed after he and Hamilton passed the exit of the maintenance area.

Is this too much of a coincidence?

It can be said that the only good news for Qin Miao and Hamilton now is that the drivers behind them have also missed the best time to change tires. In other words, the only driver who poses a threat to Qin Miao and Hamilton's positions at this time is Verstappen.

However, things have come to this point, and considering so much can't change the current unfavorable situation for Qin Miao and Hamilton. So at this time, Qin Miao, in addition to protecting his tires as much as possible during the safety car period, is more silently hoping that the safety car will last a few more laps before the race restarts, or that there will be a sudden heavy rain.

But apart from the time when the safety car was deployed which seemed abnormal to Qin Miao, the Mercedes team and the team's fans, there were no other abnormal accidents on the track and all procedures were carried out step by step.

Finally, on lap 59, the safety car withdrew and the race was about to begin.

Qin Miao was still a little depressed, but looking at the red on Verstappen's car, Qin Miao was also ruthless. Isn't it just a set of soft tires? My brother's defensive ability can't be easily controlled by a set of soft tires!
Besides, I’m not fighting alone now. Let’s see if you can withstand the full-strength punch of my DRS train.

After the race restarted, there was no change in the rankings between the top three drivers.

There were still 12 laps left to the end of the race, and Verstappen, who had been anxious, was no longer in a hurry.

12 laps were enough time for him to recklessly squander the grip of his soft tires without worrying about excessive tire wear.

After the race restarted, he could have used the advantage of his tires to get very close to the car in front before the DRS zone, and then slowly deal with the two Mercedes cars after entering the DRS zone.

At this moment, Verstappen finally experienced Qin Miao's happiness. It feels so good to use the pure tire advantage to suppress the driver in front who is faster than you!
Soon, the race restarted. In the first lap, Verstappen was still restrained. Although he tested Hamilton and put pressure on Hamilton from time to time on the track, Hamilton was still very stable. He ignored all of Verstappen's tests, and Verstappen's attacks were also blocked by Hamilton.

But when the race reached the 60th lap.

Verstappen ended his probing of Hamilton before DRS was turned on and really took action.

At this time, Qin Miao was 0.8 seconds ahead of Hamilton, and this time gap was deliberately maintained by Qin Miao.

The time difference of 0.8 seconds with Hamilton can effectively prevent Hamilton from looking for opportunities to attack him, and can also provide Hamilton with a fairly good wake effect.

Not quickly increasing the distance from the driver behind you is also a disguised way of protecting your tires.

Although he was reluctant to admit it, Qin Miao knew that with 11 laps left to the end of the race, there was no way he could outperform Verstappen's soft tires using a set of old neutral tires.

If you want to defend against Verstappen, you can only rely on your teammates and the DRS train.

Although Hamilton did not expect Qin Miao to take so many twists and turns, but looking at the aggressive Verstappen behind him, he did feel the sense of security of having Qin Miao in front of him.

For his first attack, Verstappen chose the starting straight.

After all, it is a soft tire. Verstappen's speed after exiting the T12 corner is obviously faster than Hamilton and Qin Miao. After all, the grip of the soft tire is there.

However, Verstappen did not attack with all his strength at the first moment to overtake Hamilton in one fell swoop. Instead, he absorbed Hamilton's slipstream on the outside, and only after sucking it to the limit did he make a breakthrough on Hamilton's outside.

The reason why they had to cut in on Hamilton's outside line was mainly because when Verstappen was about to start the attack, Hamilton and Qin Miao seemed to have merged into one mind and blocked Verstappen's inside line.

If he wants to attack two people, he can only go from the outside.

Of course, Verstappen's attack this time was just a test.

Because both Mercedes cars were driving inside, his attack could not put any pressure on Qin Miao or Hamilton.

After all, there is no DRS, and Mercedes' W13B is famous for its terrifying speed on the straights.

So without DRS, the best Verstappen could do was to catch up with Hamilton side by side and one front wing ahead of him.

After reaching this position, the three cars arrived at the braking point of T1 one after another.

Of course, if Qin Miao was not in front of Hamilton to help Hamilton pull in the slipstream, Verstappen was confident that he could achieve his goal in one go and directly defeat Hamilton in this attack.

It’s a pity that there is no if.

After a tentative attack failed, Verstappen realized that Qin Miao would never let him pass easily no matter what. This guy would definitely use the DRS train tactics to the extreme.

So at this time, he could either rely on the advantage of the tires to continue to put pressure on Hamilton and wait for Hamilton to make a mistake, and then force his way into the gap between Qin Miao and Hamilton, or he could wait until the battery was fully charged and then attack with DRS.

Verstappen believes that with Newey's design, as long as he turns on the car's DRS, he can overtake two Mercedes cars at once on the straight.

So amid the enthusiastic cheers from the audience, Qin Miao and Hamilton defended against Verstappen's attack.

But two laps later, on the 62nd lap, Verstappen once again showed his claws to the two Mercedes drivers.

Same attacking position, same speed, the difference is that after entering the DRS zone, Hamilton and Verstappen both turned on their DRS.

To be honest, Qin Miao has tried very hard. When entering T11, Qin Miao even slowed down the speed a little bit just to disrupt Verstappen's rhythm of entering the corner.

But after fighting with Qin Miao for so long, Verstappen has learned his lesson. Before reaching the most suitable corner for attack in today's race, he will never show his claws to Qin Miao.

So he had enough time to react, and he didn't think of taking advantage of Qin Miao's seemingly easy opportunity.

The result was that after Qin Miao came to the starting straight and turned on DRS, Verstappen's final speed was 20 kilometers per hour faster than Qin Miao and Hamilton.

The two Mercedes drivers could only watch on the track as the Red Bull car using soft tires overtook the two Mercedes cars at once from the outside.

Qin Miao felt more helpless about this.

The lap speed of soft tires is 0.36 seconds faster than that of neutral tires. Verstappen's soft tires were nearly 30 seconds faster than the neutral tires that Qin Miao and his team used for 1.2 laps.

With such a huge gap in lap time, no matter how amazing Qin Miao's defensive ability is, he has no better solution. He can't just kill Verstappen with a right turn and torpedo him, right?

ps. I'm a bit busy at work today, so I can't update more. This chapter is 4500... (End of this chapter)