How did I become an F1 driver?

Finally, on the 23rd lap, with the Pirelli staff calm and the Red Bull and Ferrari strategy teams looking solemn, Qin Miao's speed in the first and second timing segments of this lap began to drop sharply.

Qin Miao also clearly felt at this time that the car's grip began to drop sharply, just like his own lap speed.

The team's strategy group found that Qin Miao's speed in both timing sections was about 0.3 seconds slower than the previous lap, which added up to 0.6 seconds faster or slower. Naturally, they knew that Qin Miao's tires had reached the cliff point.

The first thing he did was to say to the TR in the team: "BOX! BOX! Pit in this lap."

Although Qin Miao did not answer, he entered the maintenance area.

After entering the maintenance area, Qin Miao's parking position was just right. The Mercedes team's tire-changing staff didn't even need to adjust. They could just push the pneumatic cannon forward to remove the bolts of Qin Miao's racing tires.

In fact, changing tires is not the job of just one department in the tire changing team. If you want to change tires quickly enough, it also requires the cooperation of the driver himself, and you have to park in the right place.

If you don't park your car in a position where the team's tire changing team can do their best, how can you expect them to change tires fast enough?

Then Qin Miao made a standard textbook parking stop, and the tire changer at Mercedes-Benz changed the tire for Qin Miao in 2.7 seconds.

Close to three seconds.

Qin Miao:......

He suddenly felt as if all his passion had been wasted.

But what can I say? It's slow, so be it. At least Mercedes' tire changing process takes less time, and there were no mistakes when I changed tires last season.

Of course, if we have to compare, Hamilton's tire change time in today's race was also very long.

Qin Miao had no idea what the reason was.

However, for Qin Miao, the 2.7-second tire change is not unacceptable.

Anyway, I have the advantage of having to make one less pit stop, so what I need to do next is not to overtake or attack or anything like that. I just need to protect the tire, protect it madly, at any cost.

After coming out of the maintenance area, Qin Miao's position inevitably dropped significantly.

Before the pit window was opened, Qin Miao was ranked third. Now that Qin Miao came out of the maintenance area, he fell directly between Leclerc and Sainz.

Even because of Qin Miao's tactical choice in today's race, when Qin Miao entered the pit, he did not look at whether there was a clean window behind him after entering the pit, but to see when Qin Miao's tires would reach the cliff point.

So after Qin Miao came out of the maintenance area, he was not only stuck between the two Ferraris, but the time gap between Qin Miao and Leclerc in front of him was only 1.4 seconds.

Normally, when being so close to the car in front, Qin Miao basically has no room to fully utilize the speed of his hard tires.

However, the current situation is not normal, and Leclerc in front of him is not a difficult problem for Qin Miao to deal with.

After all, Qin Miao entered the pit 10 laps later than Leclerc, and both of them used hard tires. In addition, the performance of Mercedes-Benz cars is much stronger than that of Ferrari this season, so it is not too difficult for Qin Miao to control Leclerc.

This was also well confirmed by the first lap after Qin Miao came out. Qin Miao's single lap speed was 0.3 seconds faster than Leclerc, and this was the lap speed Qin Miao set before the temperature of his tires came up.

At the same time, Qin Miao was also saving his tires. If he didn't save his tires, Qin Miao estimated that he could narrow the speed gap between himself and Leclerc by 0.7 seconds in one lap.

This is the difference between having no sword and having a sword but not using it.

If Qin Miao's single lap speed is not much faster than Leclerc, Qin Miao will really start to have a headache when encountering this situation.

What Qin Miao needs to do now is to keep driving to protect the tires, and after catching up with Leclerc, he can use the tires a little more to overtake him.

At the same time, it was also the lap in which Qin Miao found his own single-lap speed. Gasly, the first driver to pit in the entire race, started his second pit stop for tire change in today's race.

The last driver to make a first stop and the first driver to make a second stop entered the pits only one lap apart. This scene looks somewhat abstract.

Many car fans complained after seeing this: [Specially tuned by Pirelli, nothing much to say. ]

[Special blend of Pirelli? Want to know more about the power of Pirelli? ]

[Pirelli's credibility is still declining]

[Do you understand the value of Pirelli tires’ record-breaking sales in China? ! ]

……

"This is Qin Miao. He ran 0.2 laps on a set of soft tires, but his lap time was still faster than Lynk & Co's new De Vries hard tires." Zhou Haoran complained after seeing Qin Miao enter the pit on Five Star Sports.

Although De Vries' current performance in F1 is not as impressive as when he was a substitute, De Vries is indeed a little too weak now.

However, no matter how bad De Vries is, he is now a driver of China's first F1 team, so Brother Bing still said a few good words for him.

"No matter what, this is also De Vries' first official F1 season. It is inevitable that he will be a little nervous and perform poorly. After all, not everyone is Qin Miao. Once he gets used to a few races, I believe his performance will be very different from now. After all, his performance as a substitute driver last season cannot be faked."

"And for a rookie driver, the current ranking of fifteenth is not bad."

After the joke, the three commentators turned their attention back to the game.

Qin Miao was in good shape at this time and caught up with Leclerc on the 26th lap.

But just when Qin Miao thought that Leclerc was going to resist to some extent, Qin Miao discovered that Leclerc didn't even defend himself.

He caught up with Leclerc in the DRS zone. Leclerc went to the inside to defend at the braking point. Then Qin Miao relied on the performance of the car and DRS to outstrip Leclerc's Ferrari on the outside.

Obviously, Leclerc on the track didn't even think about defending Qin Miao. After all, the characteristics of Mercedes-Benz's cars this season are no secret. Seeing the closeness between Qin Miao and himself, as well as his offense and defense with Qin Miao in the simulated races and past Grand Prix, Leclerc also knew that he could not defend against Qin Miao's attack.

I simply stopped guarding against Qin Miao.

Although Leclerc did want to find an opportunity to have a thrilling battle with Qin Miao on the track.

But clearly, now is not the time.

And putting aside these personal relationships, Leclerc believed that he would not gain any advantage by forcibly defending Qin Miao.

On the one hand, getting entangled with Qin Miao would inevitably slow down his own game rhythm, and on the other hand, it would also interfere with Qin Miao's pregnancy protection.

This kind of behavior is generally called: a thankless task. Both sides suffer.

So Qin Miao didn't even interrupt his own racing rhythm, and directly overtook Leclerc in the DRS area between T3 and T4.

Leclerc also followed the car to the limit. The sudden release of ERS power allowed Leclerc to stay in two DRS zones within one second behind Qin Miao.

I sucked in a lot of tail wind and got hit by DRS twice.

Finally, when Qin Miao threw Leclerc out of the DRS zone, the time gap of more than 3 seconds between Leclerc and Sainz was directly reduced to 4.9 seconds.

Sainz is in bad shape.

Brother, we have fair competition within the Ferrari team!

What are you doing here, old man?
Sainz, who was sitting in the racing car, had reason to suspect that Qin Miao did this completely on purpose. He deliberately took Leclerc so far away!
Big brother, it's been three seasons, haven't you forgotten? You step on me whenever you get the chance.

As for Qin Miao, he actually had no intention of targeting Sainz.

Leclerc had to endure a period of DRS and slipstream, purely because Qin Miao was trying to protect the tire and was not driving that fast.

And even if he really had a grudge with Sainz because of that incident, two years later he won two world championships in Mercedes, and even the most petty person would take it lightly.

Even Qin Miao in that state would thank Sainz. Without him, Qin Miao would not have been able to go to Mercedes-Benz. If he stayed in Ferrari, Qin Miao would most likely be like those talented drivers who sank in Ferrari, with only a false reputation but no honor.

Leclerc: ?
Who are you picking, kid?

So, this is really just a coincidence. The person who really can't forget it is Sainz himself.

On the 32nd lap, the mid- and lower-level teams opened their own pit windows.

It is worth mentioning that Zhou Guanyu, who ranked tenth, actually received instructions from the team’s strategy group to pit later.

But Zhou Guanyu himself refused.

Zhou Guanyu finally chose his original pit stop strategy and changed to soft tires.

This is the first time that Zhou Guanyu has actively rejected the pit stop strategy of the team strategy group since he entered F1 two years ago.

The reason why Zhou Guanyu is so tough now is that, on the one hand, Zhou Guanyu proved his strength to everyone in the first season of his professional career.

On the other hand, because there is now a Lynk & Co team in the paddock, this is equivalent to Zhou Guanyu's retreat. Even if for various reasons the Arrow team is not going to keep Zhou Guanyu after his contract expires, Zhou Guanyu does not have to worry about losing his job with his current strength.

Moreover, Zhou Guanyu's current strength and the performance of Lynk & Co's current racing cars are a perfect match.

Maybe even after joining Lynk & Co, I can become the number one driver of Lynk & Co.

The advantage of nationality is that you can do whatever you want.

Lynk & Co: Actually, I want Qin...

To shut up!

Link: Oh...

……

In addition, based on Zhou Guanyu's judgment of Arrow's strategy team after he had been in Arrow for a year, that group of people were just a bunch of good-for-nothings and idiots. If you follow their pit stop strategy, there is a high probability that you will not make mistakes, but there is a small probability that you will dig yourself up, and there is an extremely small probability that you will dig yourself up completely.

As for close combat strategy points? If they had this ability, would they still be in Aro?
He was poached by Red Bull, Mercedes-Benz and Ferrari a long time ago.

It was okay when Vasseur was there, because there was someone to put pressure on them. Even if they had some shocking ideas, they had no ground to implement them. If Vasseur thought that a pit stop strategy was inappropriate, he would reject it.

But Bravi was a complete amateur.

If you let him handle administration, that's fine.

But if you let him manage a racing team, he will be responsible for everything from the team's research and development, operations to internal personnel replacement, pit stop strategy selection and communication between drivers.

To describe it with a phrase that all workers today hate, it is a classic case of a layman leading the professionals.

But you know what, Zhou Guanyu's tough choice today actually saved his life.

But these are all things for later.

On the 37th lap, all drivers had completed their pit stops, and no one was active in the second stop of today's race.

Everyone passed through the maintenance area smoothly.

As Verstappen pitted on the 19th lap and changed to hard tires, he appeared seconds behind Qin Miao.

Qin Miao once again came to the first place without any bloodshed.

Qin Miao's teammate Hamilton had a very good speed today, but in front of Verstappen who was driving a Mars rover and Pirelli's biological father Qin Miao, the old man could only be wronged and ranked third.

Moreover, the time gap between Hamilton and the second-placed Verstappen is 8 seconds. Such a large time gap means that Hamilton has completely withdrawn from the competition for the championship in today's race.

However, it is still unclear whether 19 seconds is enough for Qin Miao to finish the next race, because as time goes by, the condition of Qin Miao's tires will definitely get worse.
The only good news is that as time goes by, the fuel in Qin Miao's racing car will become less and less.

After Verstappen came out of the pit area, he ran a lap and everyone saw Verstappen's pace.

The single lap time was 1.2 seconds faster than Qin Miao who was trying to protect the tire the whole time.

At this time, there were still twenty-one laps left to the end of the race.

In other words, Verstappen will catch up with Qin Miao with 5 laps left to the end of the race.

However, there are still variables to consider here. After all, Qin Miao's tire grip is declining linearly, and Verstappen's tire grip is naturally declining linearly as well.

Even because of Qin Miao's ability to protect his tires, it is possible that in the last few laps, Qin Miao's tire grip will be even stronger than Verstappen's.

Many viewers who are watching an F1 race for the first time may feel a little sleepy when they see this.

After all, Qin Miao and Verstappen are so far apart that it really doesn't seem interesting to watch.

But the old audiences were excited. This kind of chasing and competing might not be as thrilling as the wheel-to-wheel fight.

But in the eyes of old car fans, this kind of chase is still very exciting, although it is not as good as Verstappen chasing Hamilton who is driving a three-wheeled car.

In a race where everyone had two stops, Qin Miao's one stop versus Verstappen's two stops was indeed quite interesting to watch.

Veteran fans are also eager to see whether these two drivers will make mistakes under high-pressure conditions.

Because no matter who these two people are, they are now under tremendous pressure.

If you make a mistake, you will lose the possibility of winning the race.

The invisible pressure on the two of them is the greatest.

Of course, strictly speaking, Qin Miao's pressure is slightly less.

After all, Qin Miao was in front of Verstappen at this time. As the race progressed, Verstappen might get closer and closer. Seeing the time advantage he gained by making one less pit stop being eroded little by little by Verstappen behind him, Qin Miao would also feel pressured and more or less anxious.

But Qin Miao is in the leading position after all, so his mentality must be relatively relaxed than Verstappen. In addition, Qin Miao's condition at this time does not require too much from his driving.

Qin Miao does not need to pursue the limit, all he needs to do is protect the tires and hold on until the end of the race. (End of this chapter)