How did I become an F1 driver?

Under normal circumstances, the team leader will not come to the team on Thursday. Toto and others usually come to the paddock on Friday.

But in the paddock today, the media were surprised to find that Toto and Vassell had arrived on Thursday.

And when Toto passed by the door of the Ferrari team's home, he happened to meet Vasseur, and the two started chatting on the street.

At least from the outside, the two of them seemed to be chatting happily and harmoniously.

There was no classic Horner change your fucking car.

Finally, before leaving, Toto smiled and shook hands with Vasseur, and this scene was also captured by reporters in the paddock.

But from Qin Miao's perspective, when Toto shook hands with Wasser, why did Wasser's already slightly curved mouth corners become even more curved, and the crow's feet near his eyes wrinkled together? This expression didn't look like a polite smile... but rather a bit like he was twitching in pain?
Qin Miao didn't know that Toto had this side, but if the best driver under his command was poached, then he would probably behave in the same way, right?
Maybe I would squeeze Wasser's hand a little harder.

After looking at it with emotion for a while, Qin Miao put away his phone and went out to accept the interview.

Today's F1 paddock is no different from those of the past. Everyone is busy doing their own things, but when Qin Miao walked out of the team's house and turned his head to look at the team's P room with the red Ferrari on the left, he felt a little complicated.

Originally, after leaving in anger, Qin Miao thought that he might not return to Ferrari in a short time.

Did not expect ah did not expect.

Maybe this is life. After all, who would have thought that Ferrari would be willing to pay such a high price for itself?
Just as Qin Miao was sighing, Hamilton, who came out of the team's home, suddenly reached out from behind Qin Miao and patted him on the shoulder: "Why are you in a daze here? The reporters are waiting."

Qin Miao was stunned for a moment before saying, "I'm thinking about something and feeling a little emotional."

"You are a kid in your early twenties, what is there to be sentimental about?" Hamilton shook his head to express his incomprehension: "When I was your age, all I thought about was how to win the race and how to be faster."

Hamilton paused here, and looking at Qin Miao's somewhat unsettled expression, Hamilton's eyes began to wander.

Come to think of it, when I was 21 years old, I was still racing GP2, the predecessor of F2.

Although he also won the GP2 championship, compared with Qin Miao's results in F2, his performance in GP2 seemed to lack some dominance.

When Qin Miao was 21 years old, he was already a two-time world champion.

Then think about Qin Miao's expression.

Hamilton suddenly felt a little embarrassed.

But you can't blame Hamilton for walking into Qin Miao's trap. For a good guy like him, winning the world championship at such a young age is as easy as eating and drinking.

"Ahem." After coughing to cover up his embarrassment, the old man changed the subject: "Have you heard? McLaren announced last week that it has reorganized its entire technical department and is preparing to launch the B version of the car this season."

"Lewis, your change of topic is a bit abrupt." Qin Miao made a joke, but Qin Miao also knew the principle of knowing when to stop, so after making a joke, he followed Hamilton's words and said: "McLaren's financial situation should be much better now, and it is normal to want to regain competitiveness on the track."

"I hope they can regain their previous competitiveness. I'm really looking forward to seeing that day." The old man said calmly.

Qin Miao shrugged his shoulders: "You have sentimental bonus, after all, you came from McLaren, so naturally you hope they can get better.

By the way, speaking of your old club, I'm curious what it felt like when you parked your Mercedes in the McLaren tire changing area and found that they didn't change your tires? "

Hamilton was a little embarrassed at first, but when Qin Miao asked him this question, he immediately fell into memories.

"It's embarrassing, actually, I knew I was already working for the Mercedes team, but when I saw the McLaren guys parked on the track ready to go, I couldn't control the impulse in my heart, and I stopped the car without thinking."

"Yeah, I've also encountered this kind of sudden brain-twitch, but it happened on the court..."

Before Qin Miao finished speaking, Hamilton waved his hand and said, "Okay, let's stop with this embarrassing topic."

……

Qin Miao spent the following period of time in the paddock.

Because the layout of the Albert Park circuit has not changed at all compared to last season and the asphalt has not been repaved, Qin Miao did not waste too much time on the track in today's race.

I rode my scooter around the track to see if the marking point I found here last season was still there. If it was, I would make sure whether the position of the mark had changed. If not, I would find a new marking point nearby.

After completing the whole process, it was done in half an hour.

After that it’s back to the team house and then a pre-race meeting before going off duty.

That concludes Thursday's workday.

Qin Miao left the paddock amid the farewell cheers from the fans who had entered the paddock early.

The next day, Friday, practice one and two.

This week, the Mercedes team also brought new upgrades, but the upgrades are not large. They mainly focus on the optimization of the gearbox housing and the upgrade of the front suspension of the car.

The optimization of the gearbox housing mainly focuses on reducing the weight of the gearbox, bringing the car back to the FIA's minimum weight limit standards.

As for the upgrade of the front suspension, this is the upgrade idea provided by Hamilton.

Hamilton complained that the car was a bit top-light to drive and had too much understeer.

So the team added structural strength to the suspension at the front of the car, which also added a little weight.

This completely confirms the claim of Mercedes-Benz's vibranium suspension.

As a driver of the Mercedes-Benz team, Qin Miao indeed feels that the front suspension of his racing car is particularly stiff.

Of course, the strength of the suspension is only a byproduct of this upgrade. The main upgrade goal is actually to optimize the front and rear balance of the car.

Now that the front suspension has been strengthened and the rear gearbox housing has become lighter, the overall driving feel of the car should change significantly.

Therefore, when the first practice session started on Friday, Hamilton started the practice session very actively.

He was the first one to go on the track for practice.

Qin Miao was also curious about how the optimized W14 felt.

As for his evaluation of the upgraded car, although the old man did not praise it highly, he was very satisfied.

At least the upgrade met his expectations.

Qin Miao was quite comfortable driving, at least the overall driving feel of the car did not change much, and it still had the characteristic of understeer.

At the end of the final practice session, Hamilton unsurprisingly took first place in the session with a lap time of 1:18.500.

0.29 seconds faster than Verstappen, who was second.

And Qin Miao...

During a practice run simulating the qualifying race, Qin Miao happened to encounter a red flag.

The qualifying simulation of this practice session was hastily ended just halfway through the run. In the second practice, Qin Miao ran a flying lap.

After completing this flying lap, Qin Miao came in second place, 0.191 seconds slower than Alonso who was in first place.

The main reason was that Qin Miao used old soft tires for this flying lap. The team was just letting Qin Miao get used to the feeling of running in a qualifying race and did not really expect Qin Miao to achieve any results in this lap.

Moreover, the other drivers did not do any qualifying simulation on this lap.

However, on the other side, Wasser was still very happy after seeing Qin Miao's results.

Although Qin Miao's performance on the track in the past few seasons has proved to everyone that Qin Miao is not a person with a bad mentality.

But after all, Wasser had never really worked with Qin Miao, and he was a little worried that the sudden transfer would affect Qin Miao's condition.

After all, he was the one who pushed Ferrari to place a heavy bet on Qin Miao. Now he and Qin Miao really share the same fate.

He might be one of the few people in the paddock who hopes Qin Miao can maintain his abilities.

But the facts have proved that Qin Miao is Qin Miao, and not everyone can question his status as a two-time champion.

Speaking of Qin Miao’s contract with Ferrari, it’s quite interesting.

When Qin Miao joined Mercedes, he directly squeezed out Bottas' position, making Bottas sit on the bench in the Mercedes team for a year.

Of course, this is not because Mercedes did not want to let Bottas go. The main reason is that Mercedes found Qin Miao too late, and there was no other team in the paddock that had room for Bottas.

In addition to the internal tests, Qin Miao completely crushed Bottas, so the team did not let Bottas go and kept him for another year.

The salary and other things were not reduced, but the competition bonus was lost.

But this time when Qin Miao joined Ferrari, just like when Qin Miao joined Mercedes, the driver that Qin Miao was about to replace still had one year on his contract.

Now Qin Miao is looking forward to how Ferrari will deal with Sainz.

Should he negotiate directly with Sainz's team to let Sainz go, or should he stay with the team for one season and serve as a test driver for one season, just like Mercedes PUA Bottas?

Of course, if Qin Miao were to make the decision, he would probably let Sainz go.

Although Sainz took away his Ferrari seat, in the final analysis, Sainz is just an employee.

Maybe he really wanted that seat subjectively, but in the final analysis, he was just a tool in the internal political struggle within Ferrari at the time.

Moreover, now he has completely crushed Sainz in terms of honors and net worth. No matter how big the hatred is, it will disappear into thin air at this time because of the different levels of drivers.

After all, there is an old saying in China that goes, "Forgive others when you can, and leave a way out for others so that you can meet again in the future."

All these words are a warning to future generations not to do anything to the extreme.

However, although Ferrari gave Qin Miao very relaxed conditions, it even allowed Qin Miao to have full management of his crew members and even the power to fire people.

But Qin Miao didn't think he had the right to decide whether Sainz stayed or left.

At most, you can just put forward your own suggestions, and Ferrari will take them into consideration.

Friday's work ended in a busy and intense manner.

After finishing a day's work, Qin Miao returned to the hotel arranged by the team.

Silent all night.

On Saturday, the third practice session is still the day when qualifying begins.

During the third practice session, dark clouds occasionally floated across the sky above the track, and it also drizzled for a while before the third practice session began.

Fortunately, after the third practice session officially started, the rain on the track stopped.

During the entire third training session, Qin Miao followed the team's instructions step by step and completed the final stage of the test.

However, considering the occasional showers on the track today, and the meteorological department's statement that there may be showers lasting 5 to 10 minutes on the track during the qualifying phase, the temperature of the asphalt on the track will be very low at that time, probably similar to the third practice session now.

So the team started a new set of soft tires and let Qin Miao run a few flying laps when the track temperature was at its lowest.

Because the track temperature was not high, Qin Miao's soft tires wore less, so Qin Miao was able to run two consecutive flying laps that were competitive enough after running two warm-up laps on the track.

However, at the same time, in order to obtain the most realistic data, the team asked Qin Miao to run the two flying laps at his best. However, in order to prevent Qin Miao's speed from being seen by other teams, when Qin Miao was running flying laps on the track, he added 40 kilograms of extra fuel to the fuel tank of his car than during the qualifying round.

After Qin Miao finished these two laps, his single lap time was 1:18.631, ranking him 14th directly and sitting at the same table with Leclerc.

But leaving aside the extra 40 kilograms of fuel, Qin Miao's actual lap time should be around 1:17.4, which would allow him to take first place in the third practice session.

This result may make it a little difficult to pursue pole position, but it should not be a problem to enter the race as one of the top three.

The third training session ended quickly.

Time for qualifying.

Before qualifying started, just as the team's meteorological department said, there was a whole shower of rain in the sky.

However, it stopped before qualifying started, and the weather was only cloudy during Q1.

But the track temperature was very low.

This just happened to give Qin Miao the opportunity to hit the mark with the Mercedes team, which had had special practice in the third practice session.

Qin Miao actually wanted to be the first one to run out during Q1.

Qin Miao was worried about encountering traffic problems during Q1. After all, the Albert Park Circuit is only 5.278 kilometers long, which is not very long. It is also a high-speed circuit built around Albert Park Lake, so the width of the Albert Park Circuit is not very large.

The most direct consequence is that during the race, it is difficult to overtake except in the DRS zone, and it is extremely easy to encounter traffic problems during the qualifying stage.

If the car in front of you does not give way in time, or there are multiple cars driving slowly in front of you, your qualifying lap time will definitely be affected.

Although Qin Miao also knew that in addition to traffic issues, the most important thing in the qualifying stage is the track conditions.

But Qin Miao felt that on this track, it would be more advantageous to run a flying lap first.

However, the team still wanted to wait until other drivers had cleaned up the track after it rained before letting Qin Miao go out.

Qin Miao had no choice but to agree to this.

After all, in terms of strategy, Mercedes' strategy team has never made any big mistakes, at least not like Ferrari, which often gives the team some ruthless things that make people black out. (End of this chapter)