How did I become an F1 driver?

Verstappen has a lot to consider. He has to chase Qin Miao as fast as possible, and on the other hand he has to pay attention to the consumption of his tires.

He couldn't catch up with Qin Miao with great difficulty because his tires had lost their grip.

In addition, fuel quantity is also an issue that Verstappen needs to consider.

However, these problems are not difficult for Verstappen to solve.

After all, he is Verstappen, who could barely compete with Hamilton during the period when Mercedes-Benz was strong, and who is capable of competing with Qin Miao for the championship, and who has suppressed Qin Miao for nearly a season.

Not to mention that this season Red Bull's car has clearly shown signs of recovery, and both its speed and balance have reached the limit.

In addition to feeling strong pressure, Verstappen also had strong confidence in winning the race.

The director was also very understanding and put the lap time charts of Qin Miao and Verstappen together, and also put a comparison chart below, so that the audience can see in real time the narrowing gap between Qin Miao and Verstappen.

In the next few laps, the main focus was on Verstappen and Qin Miao.

Everyone was watching nervously.

Lap 17.8: The time gap between the two was 1.2. Verstappen caught up with Qin Miao by - in one lap.

Lap 16.8: Time difference 1. -.

Lap 15.5: Time difference 1.3. -.

Lap 14.8: Time difference 0.7. -.

It may be that Ferrari feels it is unfair that all the spots are now taken away by Red Bull and Mercedes.

As an old factory team, it is time for our sponsors to make their presence felt on the field.

So Ferrari started to make some changes.

On the 5st lap, Leclerc, who had been in 13th place, suddenly slowed down, then slowed down on the straight behind T, and finally slowly stopped at the entrance of Mathieu.

It was clear that something was wrong with Leclerc's car.

It can also be learned from the team TR that this stop was most likely due to problems with Leclerc's car's electronic control system.

It is also worth mentioning that before the start of today's race, Ferrari replaced Leclerc's car with an electronic control system in advance for preventive reasons.

From this we can see that during the practice and qualifying sessions, Ferrari discovered that there was a problem with Leclerc's electronic control system.

However, there was no way to eliminate this problem in a short period of time, so for safety reasons, Leclerc was replaced with a new electronic control system.

Then on the track, the electronic control had problems again and Leclerc retired.

Forty-one laps in one race were wasted.

Vasseur's first race as Ferrari team leader started off badly.

The French old man, Wasser, who had been behaving like a naughty boy in the paddock, could no longer laugh at this moment and his face looked solemn.

But there is good news for Ferrari, at least the team is aware of the problem with the electronic control.

It’s just that the cost of trial and error and finding errors is a little high.

Lap 14.1: The time gap between Verstappen and Qin Miao is 0.7. -.

Lap 10.8: The time gap between Verstappen and Qin Miao is .

During these three laps, Verstappen caught up with Qin Miao by 3.3 seconds, an average of 1.1 seconds per lap.

The reason why I pursued her so much was because of Qin Miao.

After all, there is someone chasing you from behind at a speed of about one second per lap. No matter how strong Qin Miao's heart is and he knows that his defensive ability is incredible, he will still be a little anxious when he sees the aggressive Verstappen behind him.

In addition, Qin Miao now has no one in front of him to provide him with a reference except for the slow car.

So Qin Miao couldn't help but speed up a little bit.

So Qin Miao's tire consumption was a little more than expected.

The Mercedes team could only remind Qin Miao through the team TR.

Then Qin Miao began to slow down reluctantly, and Verstappen was able to bring the closing rate, which had originally dropped below one second, back to over one second.

On the same lap, Ferrari began to expose the problem of insufficient durability of its car tires this season.

Although Sainz's speed did not drop much, compared with the Aston Martin team, whose cars became lighter and faster as time went on, Ferrari's fatigue was clearly evident.

So Alonso overtook Sainz directly in this lap.

The old man still has some resentment towards his old boss.

Now that Ferrari's No. 1 driver is gone, the old man can only kill a No. 2 driver to add to the fun.

After overtaking Sainz, Alonso happily shouted: "Yes! bye bye!"

In the following races, there were no surprises. Except for a few drivers in the midfield group, most drivers had a time gap of at least 3 seconds with the drivers in front and behind them.

The drivers in the middle group really don't have any good way to deal with the drivers in front of them.

So the director turned his attention back to Qin Miao and Verstappen.

Under the suppression of Team TR, Qin Miao's speed began to slow down, and Verstappen's pursuit speed began to speed up.

Lap 9.8: The time gap between Verstappen and Qin Miao is .

Lap 8.6: The time gap between Verstappen and Qin Miao is 1.2. -
Lap 7.4: The time gap between Verstappen and Qin Miao is 1.2. -
Lap 6.2: The time gap between Verstappen and Qin Miao is 1.2. -
However, when the race reached the 49th lap, Verstappen's tires began to struggle.

After all, after coming out of the maintenance area, Verstappen didn't think about saving his tires, and was always chasing Qin Miao in front.

Although Verstappen's lap speed was still faster than Qin Miao's due to his advantage of late pit stops, his lap speed inevitably began to decline at this time.

At this time, Qin Miao heard the news from the team strategy group from TR: "We expect Verstappen to catch up to the DRS zone behind you on lap 53."

According to the team's strategy group's estimates, if Qin Miao wants to win today's race, he will need to defend Verstappen for four laps on the track.

This news is like a bolt from the blue for ordinary F1 drivers.

After all, you have worked hard on the field for so long, but in the end, the championship you have been fighting for is unlikely to be yours.

After all, Verstappen's lap time is faster than yours, and he still has 4 laps to attack after catching up with you. Any normal driver knows that there is a high probability that he will not be able to hold on.

But at this moment, Qin Miao was still calm.

Although Verstappen was in high spirits at the moment, Qin Miao was confident in himself.

Just relying on his 101-point defensive ability that exceeds the limits of human beings.

Moreover, Qin Miao is not a careless person. During the time when Verstappen was chasing him, Qin Miao had been charging his racing battery while waiting for the opportunity.

Starting from the 46th lap, Qin Miao's ERS strategy was adjusted to a mode in which only as much electricity as the kinetic energy recovery system generated in this lap was used, and the power in the battery reserve was not used.

This mode was also added by Mercedes-Benz after the ERS mode was updated during the winter break this year. It can even be said that the Mercedes-Benz team designed this function specifically for Qin Miao according to his driving characteristics and habits. At this time, Qin Miao's ERS battery power is 79%.

As for why it is not 100%?

The battery of an F1 car actually has a service life, but the battery of an F1 car has a longer service life than those components on the car engine.

If there is no accident, the two battery packs allowed by the FIA ​​can be used for a season if used sparingly.

Of course, the premise is that you have to take good care of your battery.

I believe that many people who have read marketing accounts know that there are two conditions that are most harmful to the battery.

The first is to fully charge the battery, or even keep it above 90% for a long time, while the other is to use the battery power below 10%.

The two extreme conditions have the greatest impact on battery damage and service life.

The most direct impact is the reduction in discharge volume and the reduction in battery power storage capacity.

This is also the reason why mobile phone batteries become less durable as time goes by.

The batteries of F1 cars are no exception.

Even the battery of an F1 car is more valuable than that of a mobile phone.

If you want to extend the battery life and energy storage, you should try to avoid fully charging the battery or using up all the power in the battery during the competition.

So Qin Miao locked the power at 79%.

Just wait for Verstappen to come up and use the battery power of his car to defeat him.

Qin Miao didn't believe that Verstappen still had power in his battery after he had worked so hard to catch up.

If Verstappen really still has some energy left, Qin Miao would have lost the race today with a convinced conscience.

Soon the race came to the 2.4rd lap, when the time gap between Qin Miao and Verstappen reached seconds.

In the last lap, Verstappen overtook Qin Miao by 0.9 seconds.

Although Qin Miao had made all the preparations at this time, while protecting the tire, he would still subconsciously look at his rearview mirror to determine the specific location of Verstappen.

On the 1.7th lap, the time gap between Qin Miao and Verstappen reached seconds.

"Okay, we see Verstappen is about to enter the tailstream behind Qin Miao. If nothing unexpected happens, Verstappen will be hit by Qin Miao's DRS in the next lap. Now we can only hope that Qin Miao, who is good at defense, can withstand the pressure from Verstappen at this time."

On the Five Star Sports side, the three commentators were all worried about Qin Miao.

After all, as Chinese people, they naturally stand on Qin Miao's side.

Zhou Haoran made a rational analysis and said, "Verstappen's lap times in the last few laps chasing Qin Miao were very stable, but they were always on a downward trend. Although Verstappen entered the DRS zone behind Qin Miao around the 55th lap, Qin Miao only needed to withstand Verstappen's attack for two laps. In the last lap, Verstappen probably didn't have the speed to attack Qin Miao."

"Come on, Qin Miao, you must hold on!"

[Please, stop milking]

[Qin Miao was driving well, but suddenly found that milk started to leak out of his steering wheel]

[Sanshui is still pretty stable, and his defense has always been very good. ]

……

On the 55th lap, Qin Miao could even vaguely see Verstappen's helmet and goggles reflecting the lights of the Sakhir circuit through the rearview mirror.

At this time, Verstappen has officially entered the DRS zone behind Qin Miao.

Verstappen, who had been chasing Qin Miao for 21 laps, couldn't help but curse: "FK!"

For Verstappen, these 21 laps were too frustrating, just like trying to catch a train during the Spring Festival travel rush.

Verstappen is indeed under a lot of pressure. Now he has finally caught up to the DRS area behind Qin Miao and can take action against Qin Miao. How can Verstappen not be excited?

There were three laps left to the end of the race.

You don’t have to think about the following offense and defense, it will definitely be exciting.

Qin Miao, who had been crushed by Verstappen all the way, was not nervous anymore after Verstappen really entered the DRS zone behind him. At this moment, Qin Miao was more calm.

Now that we are here, whether it is a mule or a horse, it is time to take it out for a walk.

The place where Verstappen actually sucked in Qin Miao's slipstream and also obtained DRS was in the DRS zone on the starting straight.

As we all know, the DRS efficiency of Red Bull's car this season is extremely high.

Qin Miao was naturally well aware of this, so after Verstappen appeared in the DRS area behind him and turned on DRS, Qin Miao directly drew a dragon in front of Verstappen.

When it comes to the competition for the championship of the individual races, Qin Miao, who basically never wandered in this gray area before, has now begun to find ways to use all the rules he can to try to seize the opportunity.

Verstappen naturally turned on DRS and followed Qin Miao's rhythm to draw a dragon. Anyway, I was sure to absorb Qin Miao's wake.

It's no use resisting.

But what Qin Miao actually wanted was that Verstappen could draw a dragon with him.

A little more rubber and dust will have a huge impact on Verstappen's DRS efficiency.

Finally, before the braking point of T1, Verstappen only shortened the time gap between the two to 0.2 seconds.

In fact, if Verstappen braked late at this corner, there is a chance that he could threaten Qin Miao.

It has been almost two years since Verstappen and Qin Miao have been fighting on the track. After the final battle of 22, Verstappen spent the entire winter break at home with his father, Joe Verstappen, analyzing every frame of the videos of the fight between Verstappen and Qin Miao over the past two years.

Verstappen is now full of confidence.

At the same time, he also knew that if he wanted to truly surpass Qin Miao, the most important thing was not to be impatient.

You have to accumulate a large amount of advantages, and then put all your chips on the table at once at the last moment. This is the most likely way to surpass Qin Miao.

The opportunity that suddenly appears in front of you due to Qin Miao's mistake is most likely a trap left by Qin Miao.

No one makes a sound when you step on them.

So Verstappen held back a little.

Even because there were still three laps to the end of the race, Verstappen had already prepared himself mentally for the fact that there would not be much chance in the remaining two DRS zones on this track, and he would overtake Qin Miao again with the DRS at the start of the next lap.

After passing the first DRS zone safely, Qin Miao was faced with the second and third DRS zones.

The second DRS zone is very close to the first DRS zone, with only three turns between them.

Moreover, before the DRS checkpoint, Verstappen was not side by side with Qin Miao at all, and Qin Miao could not get DRS.

So Qin Miao has to rely on himself in this DRS area.

Then Qin Miao prepared to give Verstappen a brake test. (End of this chapter)