How did I become an F1 driver?

On the other hand, after Qin Miao won the world championship this year, his business activities inevitably increased.

Originally, Qin Miao's activities had always been controlled by his agency within a range that Qin Miao could accept, with a maximum of five commercial activities per week, including those within the paddock.

Basically, in a week, Qin Miao only needs to attend an opening ceremony or stand on stage, or even simpler, just record a video and Qin Miao's work is done.

But it’s no longer possible. After winning two world championships, Qin Miao began to find himself unable to control himself in many cases.

The Abu Dhabi government asked Qin Miao to be a tourism ambassador. Qin Miao was not going to agree at first. He could have refused, but the people in Abu Dhabi had studied Qin Miao, so they directly contacted the local ambassador to ask for help.

How could Qin Miao refuse when the ambassador called in person?

Qin Miao was also invited to some activities of the embassy.

Then, some UAE princes who had a good relationship with Qin Miao also came to Abu Dhabi to watch the game. They also wanted to invite Qin Miao to dinner and play together before the game started.

Qin Miao originally wanted to refuse, but the appearance fee offered by these people was too high.

Go out for dinner with them, chat for a while, take a few photos and post them on social media, let them show off, and then they will give Qin Miao $500 million...

Qin Miao is a two-time world champion. What kind of scene has he not seen?

He had never seen such a scene before.

Looking at the 500 million U.S. dollars in cash when it was deposited into the account, Qin Miao couldn't help but think: Did the money of these people come from the wind?

In short, when Qin Miao was sitting in the lounge of the team's home on Thursday afternoon, he really regretted coming to Abu Dhabi so early.

From Tuesday to today, Qin Miao has not had more than an hour of rest time, which makes him exhausted.

The only good news is that Qin Miao has gained some experience in socializing, so after laughing all day, the muscles on Qin Miao's face did not appear too stiff.

He has long been accustomed to this kind of life where he has to have a smile on his face every time he meets someone. And after professional training from the team's dedicated staff, Qin Miao can also always make the smile on his face look very gentle and friendly.

Qin Miao stretched his body and was about to lie down in the lounge of the team's home for a while before going back to the hotel to rest and sleep when someone knocked on the door of the lounge.

Qin Miao shouted, "Come in, the door is not locked." Then, the person who came in surprised Qin Miao.

"Old Zhou?" Looking at Zhou Guanyu who came in, Qin Miao sat up from his slumped position with some surprise.

At this time, Zhou Guanyu was still wearing the team uniform of the Arrow team. It was indeed a bit awkward for him to come to the team home of the Mercedes team. However, judging from Zhou Guanyu's familiar movements, this was not his first time here.

This is indeed the case, and the fact that the two have a good relationship is basically known to everyone in the paddock.

If Zhou Guanyu has something to do, he will come directly to the team home to find Qin Miao, not to mention that it is only Thursday now, and the really important work of the Mercedes-Benz team has not even begun. At this time, even some VIP fans are allowed to come in to visit the team home.

Zhou Guanyu took a bottle of water from the refrigerator in Qin Miao's lounge very familiarly, and then sat down on the sofa in Qin Miao's lounge.

Qin Miao was not surprised by this, but asked curiously: "What brings you here?"

Zhou Guanyu found a comfortable position and said, "I want to ask you something."

"Tell me."

"There is a 2-point gap between me and Vettel in the standings, but I can't guarantee that I can overtake Vettel in the drivers' standings in today's race, so I want to ask if it is possible for you to torpedo Vettel in the race. I will give you after that!"

Qin Miao: "Get lost, you came here just to bullshit me?"

Zhou Guanyu smiled and didn't care. After taking a sip of water, he said, "It's still Geely's business."

Qin Miao retreated tactically, but he was not in a hurry to speak. He recalled the news in the paddock recently before saying, "I don't think I've heard much news about Geely in the paddock recently. I've been busy lately and haven't paid much attention. What happened?"

Zhou Guanyu scratched his head and said with a wry smile, "It's not that something happened. It's just that Geely contacted me and wanted me to join Geely in 25 years."

At this point, Zhou Guanyu paused and asked, "Has Geely contacted you recently?"

Qin Miao scratched his head and said, "No, I haven't heard much about Jili recently. From what you said, Jili has contacted you recently? How are they doing recently?"

Zhou Guanyu shook his head: "I don't know much about them, and our team's performance in the middle and late stages of this season was not very good. I have been very busy recently and basically didn't pay much attention to Geely. It was only after they contacted me recently that I learned about them."

"Talk about it."

Zhou Guanyu thought for a while: "What I know is that Geely has completed negotiations with a team. Both parties should have started the process of drafting a contract. In addition, the FIA ​​and Liberty Media Group are supporting this negotiation, so Geely's entry into F1 is a foregone conclusion. However, I don't know when they will enter F1 and which team Geely has bought.

Geely approached me and planned to sign me after my contract with A-Ro expired at the end of 24, but they only offered me a one-year contract.

Qin Miao digested the information Zhou Guanyu gave him.

What is known and clear at the moment is that Geely probably did not reach an agreement with Martin.

This is normal, as old Stroll is quite rich, and although the young master is not very good at it, Qin Miao often attends press conferences with him, and the two of them also chat backstage. Qin Miao can naturally see that the young master really likes F1, and he has no intention of leaving the F1 paddock in the short term, so old Stroll is expected to continue to invest.

And because of his existence, F1 has always been in a state of making money. The valuation of the Aston Martin team has been rising. In the short term, old Stroll will definitely not cash out and leave.

So he has no reason to sell the Aston Martin team.

Geely should have bought another fleet of cars, but Qin Miao didn’t know who it bought it from.

After all, there was no news from within the paddock.

Geely approached Zhou Guanyu, but only signed a one-year contract with him. Qin Miao didn't know how to evaluate it.

After all, Qin Miao is just an F1 driver, and he cannot look at the driver contract issue from the team's perspective.

The butt determines the head, and Qin Miao's butt sat firmly on the driver's side.

After roughly understanding all of this, Qin Miao asked curiously, "I don't know how to choose?"

Zhou Guanyu shook his head: "That's not the case. My agency thinks that joining Geely is a good choice. After all, you know how big the domestic market is. Even if Geely only gives me a one-year contract, as long as I join Geely, I can get the full bonus. By then, whether it's the relationship between the team and me or my qualifications, I will have a say in the team."

"Then why did you come to me?"

"Aren't you a double champion? I want to see how you would answer this multiple-choice question from the perspective of a double champion."

Qin Miao scratched his head, then asked uncertainly: "Do you know which team Geely bought? Just give me a direction."

Zhou Guanyu said confidently: "It is definitely not the four teams Red Bull, Mercedes, Ferrari and Aston Martin."

Qin Miao rolled his eyes and said, "Do I need you to remind these four teams?"

But Qin Miao couldn't help but answer Zhou Guanyu's question. After thinking for a while, Qin Miao said, "If it were me, I would probably make the same choice as you and go to Geely.

After all, you should know what the true face of the Arrow team should be, and at the end of this season the Arrow team has returned to its original nature. A bottom-tier team is still a bottom-tier team after all, and you basically have no future in Arrow.

Geely is a factory team after all, and judging from their performance in TCR, they do have the ability and ambition in racing, so we can still look forward to it. Besides, it’s only one year, and we are all young and can afford it. You don’t have to compete with Verstappen and Hamilton for the world championship like me.”

Although Zhou Guanyu felt that what Qin Miao said made sense, for some reason, he always felt that there was a hint of pretense in Qin Miao's words, which made people want to punch him.

However, Zhou Guanyu still held back. He was asking someone to do him a favor, so he couldn't hit that bastard.

"Got it. When the time comes for the Chinese Grand Prix, we will have to take advantage of all the domestic traffic for the Chinese team and the Chinese drivers."

Qin Miao nodded. To be honest, as a practitioner in the racing industry, Qin Miao really hopes to see the domestic racing industry flourish.

After talking about the business, Zhou Guanyu was not in a hurry to leave. After all, most of the team members had already gone off work at this time. In fact, Zhou Guanyu came to find Qin Miao only after he got off work.

Among all the teams in the paddock, only the Mercedes team had prepared a chef who cooked Chinese food for Qin Miao, so Zhou Guanyu planned to have a meal at the Mercedes team before leaving.

Although it was time to get off work, it was not time for lunch yet, so the two of them chatted in the lounge. "Ferrari has been in turmoil recently," Zhou Guanyu sighed.

Qin Miao nodded and said, "I didn't expect that Teacher Bi would be taken down so easily."

What Zhou Guanyu and Qin Miao talked about was news from November 11th, sourced from an Italian daily.

Binotto was taken down and the person who replaced him had a relatively close relationship with Zhou Guanyu, as he was Vasseur, the team leader of the Arrow team.

Zhou Guanyu spread his hands and said: "Although I don't deny Binotto's ability in engine design and development, I even admit that Binotto is definitely the most talented engineer in the F1 paddock, but he is indeed not suitable to be the team leader. Of course, it is also possible that Binotto has the talent to be a team leader, but he was buried by the Ferrari team. After all, we both know what the situation is inside Ferrari."

After saying this, the two Chinese drivers who came out of Ferrari’s youth training looked at each other and smiled bitterly.

After all, Ferrari has crushed the racing dreams of countless young drivers. On the one hand, it is because there are too many young talents in the Ferrari team, just like leeks, which are harvested one after another.

In a youth training system full of talented people, it is difficult for a mid-level driver like Zhou Guanyu to stand out in such an environment. On the other hand, there are too many open and secret struggles within Ferrari.

Although exclusion and suppression have not surfaced, they are everywhere in secret.

It’s like if you don’t know how to fight in the palace, you won’t be able to go too far in Ferrari’s youth training system.

This is even a bit like the French.

The one who has the deepest understanding of this is Qin Miao, who has spent the shortest time at Ferrari. The only difference between him and Zhou Guanyu is that Qin Miao has a system, and therefore Qin Miao's personal abilities are slightly more outstanding.

It is possible to completely ignore these suppressions and exclusions. It can even be said that Qin Miao excluded all the people in Ferrari's youth training with his own abilities, and in the end Qin Miao even excluded Ferrari.

Many members of the Iron Buddha Temple are still upset about Qin Miao's departure.

As for Ferrari letting Qin Miao go, Toto has always been grateful to Ferrari.

"It's all in the past. There's no point in thinking about it again. I just hope that Teacher Bi has a good ending after being arrested." Qin Miao said.

Zhou Guanyu asked curiously, "I remember that you had a very good relationship with Binotto. It seemed that he was the one who strongly recommended you to join Ferrari. Now that Binotto has left, does your Mercedes team have any thoughts about this big boss in engine design?"

Qin Miao scratched his head: "I can't go. The team didn't tell me to contact Mr. Bi or anything. Besides, as the team leader, Mr. Bi has a garden holiday. He can't work for other F1 teams for at least a year."

"That's right." Zhou Guanyu also nodded, and when they talked about resignation, Zhou Guanyu put his hands on his head and lay directly on the sofa in Qin Miao's lounge, saying with some emotion: "Many people won't be able to see it next year~"

Qin Miao slapped Zhou Guanyu's foot and said, "Take off your fucking shoes."

"oh oh."

Qin Miao then shook his head and said, "If you don't have the strength, there's nothing you can do. Even if you have a powerful background and your elders have accumulated a lot of favors, it's useless. F1 is not a society of favors. This is a business alliance. No matter how great the favors of your elders are, they will eventually run out."

"By the way, Mercedes seems to have signed Mick?" Zhou Guanyu asked curiously.

"Signed." Qin Miao nodded and explained, "Didn't Dove go to Toro Rosso? After Dove left, the team didn't have a suitable and experienced test driver. Mick happened to be fired, so we signed him."

Zhou Guanyu shook his head and sighed: "As expected of the Mercedes team, they even use F1 drivers as test drivers. They are really rich."

Qin Miao spread his hands: "It's more because Michael Schumacher served in Mercedes for a period of time, and Toto has some friendship with him. So after seeing that Mick was out of work, and just happened to be short of a test driver, he just called him over."

Qin Miao paused for a moment before continuing, "In fact, Mick's personality is not very suitable for the current F1 paddock. His ability is average, perhaps even weaker than yours. In addition, his personality is a bit soft and he doesn't fight or compete. It's too easy for him to suffer in F1."

"Zhou Guanyu asked in confusion, "Are you very familiar with him? You know him so well."

Qin Miao rolled his eyes speechlessly: "When we were running F2, he and I were teammates."

Zhou Guanyu was briefly stunned, then he slapped his forehead: "Damn it, how could I have forgotten about this!"

Zhou Guanyu then complained first: "I feel like it's your fault. You were a little too dazzling when you were running in F2. It can be said that everyone's attention in the F2 paddock was focused on you. Who the hell paid attention to who your teammate was!"

"Don't act like a good kid just because you got the upper hand." Qin Miao squinted at Zhou Guanyu. "In the whole year of F2, only two people won the championship. One was me and the other was you. In the whole 2020 season, the national anthems of other countries have not been played on the highest podium of F2."

Zhou Guanyu imitated Qin Miao and spread his hands: "The trophy is not in my hand, how can you prove that I won the championship?"

Qin Miao: “…”

As for the driver who will replace Mick Schumacher in Haas, it is not difficult to guess. He is also a driver who has found a job again after retirement. He is the German driver Hulkenberg, also known as the Hulk, the king of designated drivers, and the strongest designated driver in history.

After all, in the few races he played for, he helped the corresponding teams gain points, and his results were better than De Vries'.

This shows that this veteran born after 85 has always been in very good shape.

I just don't know if Vettel, who is going to retire after this week's race, will have the possibility of returning to the track.

Not to mention the fans, Qin Miao also hopes that the four-time champion will return to the track one day.

The two of them kept chatting like this. I don’t know why, but when they get together, they always have something to talk about. They won’t be distracted by other things and can quickly extend the current topic.

After the two of them finished chatting, it was already time for dinner.

Afterwards, Zhou Guanyu naturally had a meal at the Mercedes team with a righteous attitude. After that, Zhou Guanyu left the Mercedes team’s canteen feeling somewhat satisfied but also a little uncomfortable.

I felt satisfied because today's meal was indeed delicious, but I felt uncomfortable because the food prepared by the Mercedes-Benz team for Qin Miao was high in sugar and calories.

So in order to avoid being overweight during tomorrow's practice session, Zhou Guanyu will have to practice for a while longer after returning home tonight.

And extra training is painful for every F1 driver.

Qin Miao had no concerns about this at all. After returning to the hotel, he took a shower, chatted with his wife on video for a while, and then went to bed.

The next day, although Qin Miao was driven by the team's young driver Antonelli in the afternoon practice session, Qin Miao still had a lot of business activities, so Qin Miao got up at the same time on Friday morning as usual.

After arriving at the paddock, Qin Miao became busy, but when the time came for training, Qin Miao had no work to do.

After all, this period of time was originally reserved for Qin Miao to participate in the practice race. After this period of time was freed up today, the team did not arrange any other work for Qin Miao, and Qin Miao himself was also happy with this.

Qin Miao is familiar with the Yas Marina Circuit. After all, he ran here last year, and he ran a modified version of the track.

Qin Miao likes this track very much, not only because Qin Miao won the first world championship of his career on this track, but also because the full throttle sections on this track account for more than 1% of the race, making it a very comfortable track to drive.

Basically all drivers like to drive on this kind of track that is smooth and has few low-speed turns.

Monte Carlo: ???
Also because of the existence of the system, Qin Miao has a very deep understanding of this track. The most important thing is that Qin Miao has already won the world championship this season, and Qin Miao is somewhat lazy.

I've been running races for a year, can't I just enjoy myself?

Then play music, then dance!
Then during the first practice, Qin Miao played on the computer for more than an hour in the team lounge.

Or "Civilization". To be honest, this game is really addictive. There is a kind of beauty that you can't stop playing.

But Qin Miao came here to work, not to play games, and time soon came to the time for the second evening training session to begin.

Antonelli did help the team collect some useful data during the first practice session, but as an F2 driver, his unfamiliarity with F1 cars is an objective fact, so he was more focused on getting familiar with the F1 car and brushing up on his F1 car driving mileage during this practice session, and the data he collected was very limited.

However, with Qin Miao's ability, he was able to complete all the tasks he needed to do in one training session, and with 5 minutes left before the end of the second training session, he had determined the training he would use in tomorrow's qualifying round.

To be honest, Antonelli, who was standing next to Toto and watching the game after the training, was stunned by this speed.

Is this the ability of a world champion? Driving Qin Miao's car feels like sitting in an extremely sensitive beast. If you are not careful, the car may lose control. You must concentrate on driving. A mistake may cause the car to spin.

But why is it that after the racing car fell into Qin Miao's hands, it became like an obedient cat, allowing Qin Miao to squeeze and flatten it, and was extremely docile.

Not only did you collect all the data the team needed in a practice session, but you also found your own tuning settings?
What kind of monster is this? (End of this chapter)