How did I become an F1 driver?

Soon, as the countdown to the start of the race approached, Qin Miao changed into his racing suit and went to the team's P room with his equipment.

After a whole set of complicated preparations, Qin Miao had already parked his car on the track.

At this time, all drivers are making final preparations before the start of the race.

Soon, following the reminder from the race stewards, Qin Miao and other drivers also got into their cars.

Qin Miao rested his head on the left headrest to secure it, then found a reference point on the guardrail of the track through the rearview mirror on the right side of his car.

When I start the car later, I will plan to park it here.

This position just happens to be slightly above the white line of the starting grid, but does not exceed the starting position of the white line.

Once everything is ready, the warm-up lap begins.

After the warm-up lap, Qin Miao drove the car to his fourth starting grid position.

I checked the reference point on the right side of my track.

Yeah, no problem.

After making sure all these were done, Qin Miao began to wait for the driver behind him to park the car.

Qin Miao was not idle during this time. He opened the telemetry data interface of his steering wheel and looked at the tire temperature of his racing car.

Estimate where you should brake when you reach the braking point of T1 after starting.

As the last driver Russell stopped his car at the starting grid, five red lights began to light up one by one.

At this point someone will ask, where is Perez? Didn't he have no results in qualifying? Why can't he even get on the starting grid today?
In fact, Perez started last in today's race anyway, so the Red Bull team simply replaced Perez with a new set of batteries and electronic controls before the start of the race. As a result, Perez was penalized to start in the maintenance area.

At the same time, there is Bottas. The Arrow team modified Bottas' suspension adjustment settings after the qualifying session, so Bottas was penalized to start in the maintenance area at the start.

However, there is a high probability that Perez had little interaction with Qin Miao in today's game, so I will not go into details here.

Soon, five red lights lit up and went out one by one.

“The 2023 Australian Grand Prix has officially begun!”

The moment the five red lights went out, Qin Miao released the clutch and the racing engine began to output full power to the tires.

Qin Miao, who had an excellent start, quickly caught up with his teammate Hamilton in front of him.

In today's race, Verstappen's start was only average, with no mistakes, but not fast either. Compared with Hamilton and Qin Miao, it was even relatively slow.

T1 at the Albert Park Circuit is a right turn, but the pole position driver starts on the left side of the track, so this is undoubtedly huge good news for Hamilton, who starts second and is still on the inside.

After the start, Hamilton relied on his faster starting speed than Verstappen and the car's terrifying straight-line acceleration ability to overtake Verstappen on the inside before T1.

When entering T1 later, Hamilton did not give way. Qin Miao found that Hamilton and Verstappen blocked his best exit route, so he started from the outside, which was not as good as his. Now he was squeezed by Alonso who had also been pulled ahead of him.

Qin Miao's advantage in the inside and his control ability just pushed Alonso behind Hamilton and Verstappen. In addition, with Qin Miao on the outside, Alonso was directly shut out by Qin Miao after a not-so-ideal start.

At the T1 corner, Qin Miao and Hamilton overtook the drivers in front of them.

Both moved up one place.

After seeing this grand start, everyone in the Mercedes team cheered and applauded the two drivers for their brilliant start performance on the track.

Toto was also delighted when he saw this scene.

But perhaps only Toto himself knows how much bitterness was hidden in the smile on his face when he was applauding.

After seeing this scene, everyone in the Mercedes strategy team had a smile on their face, but the smile did not last long.

Because when the race came to T3, Qin Miao relied on the powerful straight-line acceleration ability of his car to force his way into Verstappen's inside line at the braking point of T3.

At this time, Alonso did not start well and was blocked by Qin Miao and Verstappen in T1. At this time, he had already gone to join his teammate Stroll.

The two Ferraris that started from the back have now caught up.

In T3, Qin Miao held off Verstappen in the inside.

When exiting the corner, Qin Miao's line was very strong, and he was always putting pressure on Verstappen on the outside.

Verstappen was pushed directly onto the shoulder of the road by Qin Miao.

Because he was pushed onto the shoulder of the road by Qin Miao, Verstappen panicked for a moment, because he didn't want to be overtaken by Qin Miao so easily.

After all, there is a consensus in the paddock now, that is, it is extremely difficult to regain the position after being overtaken by Qin Miao.

So Verstappen wanted to leave the curb as quickly as possible, but because he was too eager, he stepped on the accelerator too hard, causing the car to skid slightly on the curb.

Although Verstappen quickly adjusted the car's posture and brought it under control, this slip completely deprived Verstappen of all possibilities of maintaining his position in the T3 exit phase.

After exiting the corner, Verstappen naturally fell behind Qin Miao.

Qin Miao overtook two people before he even finished the first timed section.

This was also Qin Miao's most amazing overtaking at the start of this season. He did not waste his soft tires, nor did he waste his excellent start.

But at the same time, a red shadow suddenly floated through the buffer zone outside T3 behind him.

This is nothing, after all, under normal circumstances, it is common to fail to brake in T3 and rush into the buffer zone. But this time it was different, because the car that rushed into the buffer zone rushed in backwards.

The reason...

Leclerc collided with Stroll, and the young master made Leclerc spin around the track and then rushed into the buffer zone backwards.

Although Leclerc stepped on the gas as soon as the car stopped, trying to struggle out of the buffer zone.

However, it is much more difficult to exit the buffer zone when parked backwards on the track than to drive forward into it, as all the inertia of your car itself will be of no use.

Even top drivers like Qin Miao and Verstappen are not sure they can drive the car out in such a situation. Qin Miao has also tried to train in this aspect in the simulator of the Mercedes team, but Qin Miao has been practicing for almost three years, and the success rate is still only 10%.

That is to say, even if they practice 100 times in the simulator, even someone as strong as Hamilton or Qin Miao can only successfully rescue the car 10 times.

So not surprisingly, Leclerc got stuck.

The car stopped in the buffer zone and couldn't get out. A yellow flag appeared on the track. After half a lap, the yellow flag turned into a safety car.

Leclerc also left his car.

Leclerc is indeed unlucky. There have been three races this season, and so far, Leclerc has retired twice and been penalized once.

Leclerc has not had even a normal Grand Prix weekend so far this season.

This is also the worst start for a Ferrari driver since 2012.

Mekkis, who was sitting on the Ferrari team's podium, also had a solemn expression on his face, and Vasseur even covered his face with his hands.

On the other hand, Zhou Guanyu, Bottas, Ocon and others chose to pit to change tires.

But this is not surprising. After all, they are all drivers in the mid-stream group, and changing tires at this time will not affect their ranking.

But the drivers in the front row cannot do that. Coming into the pit to change tires at this time is equivalent to telling everyone that they are ready to start again from the last place.

So at this time Qin Miao's ranking still remains second.

The safety car then stayed on the track for the fourth lap before leaving.

After the game continued.

Hamilton, Qin Miao and Verstappen quickly widened the time gap between themselves and Alonso, who was in fourth place.

Verstappen has been following Qin Miao in the DRS zone to put pressure on Qin Miao during this period. Now Verstappen is waiting for the race to turn on DRS before taking action against Qin Miao.

Then on the sixth lap, just when everyone thought that the lap was over, they could see the offensive and defensive battle between Qin Miao and Verstappen on the track, while Hamilton could run his flying laps at his best on the track.

On the seventh lap, DRS was just turned on, but at this time, Albon, who was ranked 6th, made a mistake and drove onto the curb at the high-speed corner T6. The car lost control on the spot and rushed directly into the buffer zone. Then, because the car was going too fast, Albon's car hit the guardrail outside the buffer zone and slid backwards onto the track under the action of inertia.

At the same time, Albon's mistake and crash also brought a lot of fine sand from the buffer zone outside the track onto the track.

The safety car was deployed immediately at the race.

At the same time, the race organizers also gave the total time for the pit stop at this time, a total of 13 seconds, which is a full 22 seconds less than the normal pit stop time of 9 seconds.

There is no doubt that now is a good time to make a pit stop.

In addition, Qin Miao's tires did have wear problems.

The team still wanted Qin Miao to run a stint on the track, so after discovering the safety car on the track, the team hoped that Qin Miao would pit and change to a set of hard tires.

This set of hard tires is the best choice for Qin Miao now. With Qin Miao's ability, it is not impossible for him to run the entire race with this set of tires.

Even if Qin Miao entered the pit and Red Bull saw him changing to hard tires, they would probably take some action.

After all, the two races this year have proved that although the Red Bull car is fast, Qin Miao's incredible ability to protect the tire is enough to pose a great threat to Red Bull.

So after Qin Miao entered the pit, in order to let Verstappen get the lead, Red Bull either let Verstappen enter the pit behind Qin Miao, or let Verstappen run a short and fast stint, and then enter the pit after creating a certain distance between himself and Qin Miao.

In short, after two games, Red Bull has already known the iron rule on the field, that is, if you want Verstappen to win a game, then Verstappen cannot go behind Qin Miao.

Qin Miao himself also felt that it would be a good choice to take this opportunity to pit for a tire change and then run the entire race on a set of hard tires.

So when Qin Miao passed the entrance to the maintenance area, he chose to enter the pit to change tires.

Verstappen, who had been following Qin Miao, did not choose to follow Qin Miao in after seeing Qin Miao enter the pit. Instead, the joy in his heart erupted like a volcano.

Pit stop? What pit stop? No, I’m not going in!
If he pitted at this time, he would definitely fall behind Qin Miao, but if he didn't pit, he would most likely not fall behind Qin Miao. Verstappen had enough of the feeling of being blocked behind by Qin Miao and being severely ravaged.

Verstappen would rather not be able to withstand Qin Miao's attack in the later stages of the race due to tire failure than have his tires have an advantage over Qin Miao, but no matter what he could not overtake him on the track.

The feeling of being blocked by Qin Miao was so frustrating.

The Red Bull team had the same idea as Verstappen, so Verstappen did not take advantage of the safety car to pit.

Qin Miao's parking skills have always been excellent, and there were no accidents this time. He just parked the car in the most convenient tire changing position for tire changers.

Mercedes-Benz did not make any mistakes in the tire change this time. The tire changers even performed beyond their expectations and completed the tire change in just 2.1 seconds.

After Qin Miao changed the tires and came out of the maintenance area, he fell to seventh place, ahead of Tsunoda and behind Hulkenberg.

These two people posed no threat to Qin Miao. All Qin Miao needed to do was to wait for the game to restart while protecting the fetus and catching up.

After the race restarted, all Qin Miao needed to do was to wait patiently for the race to reach the later stages. As the race entered the later stages, the tire grip of all the drivers in front of him would drop significantly, and that would be when his set of hard tires would come into play.

After Qin Miao came out of the maintenance area, the commentators of Five Star Sports began to discuss the current status of Hamilton and Verstappen, and what prerequisites Qin Miao needed to meet in order to defeat them.

At this time, their judgment was similar to Qin Miao's. They were all waiting for the game to enter the later stage and for Qin Miao to show his advantage in preserving the fetus.

Then on the eighth lap, the safety car on the track suddenly turned into a red flag.

"Ah? It's a red flag!" The three commentators of Five Star Sports were originally discussing the advantages of Mercedes' pit stop strategy arranged for Qin Miao in today's race. Suddenly, they saw the red flag, and all three were surprised for a moment.

But after a brief silence, the three commentators from Five Star Sports all let out sharp explosions.

"Qin Miao! He entered the station too early!"

"Oh my, Qin Miao originally had such a good position, why did it become a red flag?"

"What is the organizer doing? There's no need to raise a red flag!" (End of this chapter)