How did I become an F1 driver?

The news of Verstappen's retirement was a shot in the arm for everyone at Mercedes.

Although the starting position at the Jeddah circuit is not as critical as Monaco or Hungaroring.

Your qualifying ranking will most likely determine your finishing position in tomorrow's race.

But starting from 15th place, coupled with the strong performance of Qin Miao and Hamilton this season, Verstappen has most likely lost all chances of competing with Qin Miao and Hamilton for the championship in today's race.

Even if Verstappen can catch up in the later stages of the race, under the defense of Hamilton and Qin Miao, Verstappen will most likely not be able to improve his ranking beyond the two Mercedes drivers.

In the next race, Qin Miao and Hamilton only need to consider Perez and their opponents.

As for Ferrari?
Good luck to them.

Speaking of Ferrari, in today's race, Ferrari still did some very abstract things.

Leclerc changed the electronic control system again as a precaution during the first practice session.

This is the third set of electronic control that Leclerc has replaced this season.

You have to know that there are only two games in this season.

In a season, F1 is only allowed to replace two sets of electronic controls within the scope permitted by the rules.

So in only the second race of the 23rd season, Leclerc was penalized and relegated ten places from the starting line because he replaced too many electronic control systems.

I can only say that you are worthy of being a Ferrari.

Even the whole life is so fresh and refined.

As for Ferrari, who loves to do things so much, will Qin Miao be worried after he goes there?

That's not the case.

After all, strictly speaking, the current Ferrari is still the same team as its teacher, and Vasseur has just moved into Maranello.

A winter break is not enough time for Vassell to...

No, ever since Qin Miao was offered such generous conditions for joining the team that even Qin Miao himself found it unbelievable, Wasser has become the Saint Wasser in Qin Miao's heart!
A winter break is not enough time for Waldner to sort out and adjust Ferrari's internal personnel structure and administrative processes from top to bottom.

Even if Waldner wants to carry out internal reforms and optimizations on the current Ferrari team, it will be a gradual process.

Next season's Ferrari can be considered a team built by Walcott.

As for Qin Miao's willingness to go to Ferrari, in addition to the fact that Ferrari gave too much, there was also the reason of Waldron.

It was not because of Wa Sheng that this contract was made;

After all, in 21 years, Saint Wa did bring A Luo to a height that did not belong to them.

At least the sudden rise of the Arrow team proves that Washeng is a man of strength and ability.

Qin Miao was also willing to believe that Wa Sheng, who had the courage to give him such a big contract, was a truly capable team leader.

Of course, this is off topic.

After a short break at halftime, time came to Q3.

In the first lap of Q3, Qin Miao used the soft tires that he had used for three laps in Q2.

Tires with this degree of wear would be considered semi-wasteful in the hands of other drivers, and they might only be used as an emergency measure when there were no more tires available in the race. However, for Qin Miao, this set of tires can still be used to run a flying lap in the qualifying race.

The fact is that Qin Miao did not let this set of tires down. After the first flying lap, Qin Miao's result was 1:28.665.

Straight to first place.

Of course, it is Q3 now, Qin Miao has unlocked all the limiters of his car, and he is trying his best to set the lap time in this lap.

Such results are not surprising.

Soon, time came to the last lap of Q3.

For safety reasons, Qin Miao did not run the last lap before the countdown for Q3 ended.

Instead, he crossed the finish line with more than 3 seconds left on the Q50 stop clock and started his final flying lap.

Before that, Perez finished his flying lap earlier than Qin Miao.

Perhaps it was his teammate's retirement that made Perez feel this was an opportunity, coupled with the considerable pressure from Qin Miao and Hamilton.

After all, the old man also ran 3:1 in the first flying lap of Q28.697.

Not much slower than Qin Miao.

So Perez exploded and ran a terrifying time of 3:1 in the last flying lap of Q28.077.

Almost to the 27 second mark.

This time difference of nearly 0.6 seconds made Qin Miao deeply aware of how powerful Red Bull's racing car is this season.

Qin Miao knew that with his ability, it would not be difficult for him to control a small Perez in the race by protecting his tires when Verstappen started from 15th place.

But there is also aspiration for double champions. Why only win one race when you can pole to win the race?
Wouldn't it be nice to take all the honors you can get?
So Qin Miao's driving style was quite aggressive during this lap.

Qin Miao's lines on many bends were extremely extreme. Basically, Qin Miao had never tried this kind of running method in either the practice session or Q1 and Q2 of the qualifying session.

Of course, this way of running is risky, but Qin Miao is not panicked.

After all, Qin Miao currently has a fourth place as a basis, and Jeddah is not a particularly difficult track to overtake, so Qin Miao ran more freely.

Even if he made a mistake and the lap was invalidated, Qin Miao had the confidence to catch up in the later stages of the race.

Sometimes it's like this, the more you worry, the more likely you are to make mistakes.

On the contrary, the more indifferent you are and the less you take something, the more likely you are to accomplish it easily.

Qin Miao did not make any mistakes in this lap, and even his lap speed improved greatly, which was a terrifying 0.546 seconds faster than his first flying lap.

The final result was 1:28.151.

But despite this, Qin Miao still failed to get the pole position in qualifying.

When the Q3 countdown stopped and Qin Miao heard the news, he was a little bit unbelievable.

After all, I have really tried my best in this round.

"How come they are so fast?" Qin Miao asked with some confusion.

Franky's voice was also full of helplessness: "We will discuss this matter after the game."

Then, just as Franchi finished speaking, Hamilton crossed the finish line with a time of 1:28.100.

This time, the old man was even more violent. His result in the last flying lap was 0.051 seconds faster than Qin Miao, and Qin Miao couldn't even maintain his second place.

If Verstappen had not retired due to car failure, Qin Miao probably wouldn't have been able to attend the post-race interview in today's qualifying race.

After turning down the engine power of the racing car, Qin Miao sighed and said, "Okay."

Finally, the qualifying rankings are as follows:
1: Perez 1:28.077
2: Hamilton

3: Qin Miao 4: Leclerc

5: Alonso
6: Sainz
7: Stroll

8: O'Connell

9: Piastri
10: Zhou Guanyu
There is no need to say much about Perez. For him, this is the race with the best chance of winning the championship after his teammate retired.

Naturally, the competition is more aggressive.

And Master Pei lives up to his reputation as the king of street racing.

It indeed showed a terrifying speed that attracted the attention of both Qin Miao and Hamilton.

Hamilton: Seven-time champion, greatness needs no words.

Qin Miao: Double champion, may be a bug in qualifying, but always a dragon in the race!
Leclerc: Leclerc finally returned to his loyal fourth place!

As for Zhou Guanyu, he performed well in today's qualifying match and entered the top ten.

But that was all. In the subsequent qualifying rounds, Zhou Guanyu gave up the fight for the Q3 ranking in disguise, because he knew that even if he tried his best in Q3, a stage where there were many rovers, it would be unlikely for him to get out of the tenth position.

Rather than wasting your tyres on the track, you might as well switch to a set of old soft tyres and do a long test on the track.

See how the soft tire wears in the middle and late stages.

After completing the post-race interview and returning to the team to review the situation, Qin Miao received the news and felt that Arrow now had some merits. At least Arrow was very pragmatic at this time.

Of course, Qin Miao only found out about this when he met Zhou Guanyu after the Saudi Grand Prix. This request was actually made by Zhou Guanyu himself. Arrow still wanted Zhou Guanyu to fight for a place in the qualifying round.

But Zhou Guanyu refused.

After qualifying, Qin Miao completed a series of post-match interviews.

The content of the interview is the same old stuff, so I won’t go into details here.

After finishing the post-race interview, I returned to the team’s P room.

Qin Miao couldn't wait to find Franky, he really wanted an answer now.

"Why are Red Bull cars so fast?" After seeing Franky, Qin Miao couldn't wait to ask the biggest question in his heart.

While Qin Miao and the others were being interviewed after the match, Franky sorted out the satellite images and all the public information they could search for.

When Qin Miao arrived, he handed the documents he had already sorted out to Qin Miao: "Yes, they are all here."

After Qin Miao took the document, Frankie said, "The main advantages of our car this season are acceleration and straight-line speed."

Qin Miao nodded. This was a well-known fact within the Mercedes-Benz team.

Then Franchi said: "According to the satellite images we retrieved from Red Bull Racing, we found that Red Bull's RB19 is indeed not as good as ours in terms of straight-line speed and acceleration, but their DRS is extremely efficient."

Qin Miao looked up at Frankie: "Very tall? How tall?"

"When the RB19's DRS is turned on, it can provide the Red Bull car with a straight-line speed of at least 35 kilometers per hour." Franky spread his hands and said, "It's more efficient than our DRS."

A black question mark expression appeared on Qin Miao's face.

"So fast?"

Franky nodded: "I was surprised too. We didn't see it in Bahrain, but now in Saudi Arabia, after Red Bull replaced the low-drag kit, they completely showed their fangs."

"After all, Red Bull has a great man like Newey, who has unique capabilities in aerodynamics."

Thinking that there was a great player like Newey in the Red Bull team, Qin Miao was no longer surprised.

After all, the Red Bull Racing team is particularly good at aerodynamic design.

The ground effect era was specially prepared for Red Bull.

As the saying goes, times make heroes.

However, Qin Miao still lowered his voice and asked, "Have you started the research?"

Although the two were in a closed environment at the time, they were still quite cautious when talking about this topic.

Franchi said: "Since the beginning of this season, Toto has always sent people to monitor Red Bull and report any situation as soon as possible."

Just like all business wars are simple and plain, the competition between teams in the F1 arena is sometimes also very simple.

They will keep a close eye on your car, study every detail of your car, and report to the FIA ​​if they find any non-compliance.

If reporting is useless, then I will take your design and study it. If I can copy it, then I will copy it.

If I really can't copy it, I would also like to know the purpose and function of your design. It would be good to keep it as a technical reserve.

If that doesn't work, join other racing teams and make a joint complaint and report on your car.

In short, they will target you on the court and they will target you outside the court as well.

Qin Miao nodded and roughly read the document that Frankie handed to him.

After making sure that I couldn't understand much, I put the file down.

Then Qin Miao suddenly asked as if he had a sudden thought: "By the way, Frankie, how many years is your current contract at Mercedes-Benz?"

Franky was stunned. Why were they suddenly talking about this?
To be honest, the gap between the two topics was a bit too big, and Franky couldn't react for a moment.

However, Franky didn't think too deeply about it at this time. He just thought it was just a casual chat between two colleagues after the game, so he said directly: "Although this information is confidential, my contract is actually signed for one year."

Qin Miao nodded, then asked curiously, "What about the salary? As a legendary track engineer, you must have an annual salary of over a million Euros, right?"

Franky waved his hand and said, "How can I be a legendary track engineer? I just got the upper hand from you. But my annual salary is not much different from what you think. Mercedes pays me 70 euros a year."

Qin Miao nodded, this is easy to handle.

Ferrari would not deny itself the right to bring a few people to live in Maranello.

"Well, what if you were asked to live in a different environment? For example, in Italy?"

Franky just thought that Qin Miao was just chatting with him, but after hearing what Qin Miao said, he completely understood what Qin Miao wanted to express.

Franky lowered his voice even lower than before: "You? You signed a contract with Ferrari? I was just wondering why you suddenly asked me this question. Now I understand. You are going to Ferrari after your contract with Mercedes expires this year?!"

Qin Miao did not hide anything, nodded and said bluntly: "Ferrari offered me a price that I couldn't refuse."

Franky nodded directly and said, "If you really want to go to Ferrari, I will go with you."

"And you don't have to worry about my family. Have you forgotten that I came from Prema with you, and Prema is an Italian team. I don't mind living in Maranello.

Even as an Italian, being able to work for Ferrari is a dream for those of us who work in the automotive industry.”

Well, now there is no need to worry at all.

But Qin Miao still warned him a few times: "You must not tell anyone about this kind of thing. If this news is released in advance, it may affect the unity and competitive state of the team."

"I know, don't worry." (End of this chapter)