How did I become an F1 driver?

Chapter 529 533: Lost
Like the three commentators from Five Star Sports, domestic car fans who were watching today's race also felt puzzled and angry about the sudden red flag issued by the FIA.

At this time, they didn't care whether there was gravel that needed to be cleared on the track. They only knew that this red flag caused Qin Miao to suffer a great loss on the track.

On the court, Qin Miao was also feeling a little upset at this time.

“Are you sure it’s a red flag?”

Franky's voice was filled with helplessness when he answered: "Although we don't want to see this happen, there is nothing we can do. The race stewards did give the red flag."

"Okay." Qin Miao answered helplessly and finally chose to accept the result.

After all, Qin Miao himself agreed to stop in the pit to change tires this time.

In fact, running one more lap on this new set of hard tires was the least loss for Qin Miao. What really made Qin Miao nervous was that he did nothing but pit stop to change tires at a wrong time, and he dropped directly from second to seventh.

The time difference between these five positions when converted to the competition field is roughly 10 seconds.

What a loss.

Therefore, Qin Miao returned to the maintenance area with a very upset mood.

However, after Qin Miao parked the car in the maintenance area, the depressed mood in his heart almost dissipated.

After all, Qin Miao is not a person who easily gets stuck in a rut, and his self-regulation ability is also excellent enough.

So when I came back, I had already adjusted my mindset.

Moreover, the loss was only a little late, and the game was still long. Qin Miao felt that he still had the possibility of catching up with the gap.

After parking the car, Qin Miao got out.

Qin Miao likes the feeling of being confined in a single shell because it makes him feel safe.

But if you sit in a racing car for half an hour, even someone as physically fit as Qin Miao would feel a little uncomfortable.

So after parking the car, Qin Miao took off his gloves and got out.

Coincidentally, the Ferrari team's P room was next to where Qin Miao parked his car. After Qin Miao got off the Mercedes-Benz car, he saw Vasseur looking at him with a smile.

At this time, Vasseur's face no longer had the sadness that he had just felt after Leclerc retired from the race.

After seeing Qin Miao looking over, Wasser nodded at Qin Miao imperceptibly.

However, Qin Miao ignored him. After all, if he had too much interaction with Vasal at this time, it would easily arouse public opinion. After all, this year is his contract year.

Many people are speculating whether he will renew his contract with Mercedes, and which team he will go to if he does not. If he has too much interaction with Vassell at this time, the news of his upcoming transfer to Ferrari will be exposed in advance, which will not be good news for both him and Ferrari.

Qin Miao set his sights on Leclerc who was standing next to the Ferrari podium.

At this time, Leclerc had already retired from the race and returned to the team's P room. He had changed his racing suit into a Ferrari team shirt. After seeing Qin Miao, he nodded to Qin Miao as a greeting.

Qin Miao pointed at Leclerc.

Qin Miao had reason to suspect that the red flag that caused him to lose so many positions was caused by the bad luck that Leclerc passed on to him yesterday.

However, Leclerc was just playing a joke with Qin Miao yesterday. After being pointed at by Qin Miao, Leclerc looked innocent, as if he didn't know why Qin Miao was pointing at him.

Of course, Qin Miao did not explain to Leclerc. After taking the water handed over by Barber, he drank the water while walking back to the team's P room.

Leclerc was left alone, confused.

No, why would this bastard point fingers at me for no reason?
After arriving at the team's P room, Frankie found Qin Miao and explained the situation: "Although the current situation is very unfavorable to you, according to the calculations of the team's strategy team, we still have the possibility of winning today's game.

What you need to do next is to protect your tires. The real competition of this race will start from the 45th lap.

By then your average lap time will be the fastest in the field."

Qin Miao asked curiously: "After the race restarts, no one will enter the pit?"

Frank nodded: "Yes, that's the case from the current state. Therefore, you will have a huge tire advantage in the later stages of the race. We may catch up with Verstappen and surpass him."

Although it was not stated explicitly, Franky's words naturally included Hamilton. However, because Qin Miao was in the Mercedes-Benz team's P room at that time, it was somewhat inappropriate to say it directly.

But both of them understood the meaning.

……

The red flag did not last long this time, and Qin Miao soon received a notice from the team. After putting on his equipment again, he returned to his racing car and got in.

After waiting in the car for more than ten minutes, the race steward turned the light at the entrance to the maintenance area green, and the AMG safety car driven by Maylander led the drivers out of the maintenance area one after another.

All the drivers except Qin Miao, De Vries and Sargent have already changed into a new set of hard tires. In fact, everyone has the same idea at this time, which is to complete all the remaining races on a set of hard tires.

Verstappen is prepared to rely on the absolute speed of his car being faster than Qin Miao's to accumulate enough advantages before Qin Miao's car becomes faster than Verstappen.

And this advantage must be so great that Qin Miao cannot catch up even with the tire advantage.

Because after the red flag you need to start again statically.

And it was at this time that someone started to have some tricks on the track.

During the warm-up lap, in order to make his tire temperature higher than the car in front, Hulkenberg began to slow down significantly at the T7 position where Albon had the accident.

The purpose is to increase the distance between yourself and the car in front, so that the other car can stop at the starting grid first. In this way, when you start, you will have a temperature advantage on the tires compared to the car in front, and your grip will be stronger.

But his slowing down directly opened Pandora's box.

All the drivers behind him began to slow down, Qin Miao, Tsunoda, Perez and Ocon next to him even stopped on the track.

For the drivers behind, T6 behind T7 is actually a blind turn.

In other words, you cannot see the track conditions after T6 before passing T7.

Therefore, after Zhou Guanyu came out of T6, he suddenly saw a large group of cars parked outside T7. After seeing so many slow cars, he almost crashed into them because he failed to brake in time.

Zhou Guanyu, who was frightened, naturally cursed in the team TR.

However, if nothing unexpected happens, there will be no punishment for gathering to block traffic.

Because no driver was actually injured in the process.

After this little episode, the driver spent the next period of time running warm-up laps and finally returned to the parking position.

Qin Miao also profited during this period because of Hulkenberg's operations.

When Qin Miao parked the car, he was almost five seconds later than Hulkenberg in front of him.

Compared to Stroll who was in front of Hulkenberg, Qin Miao parked his car at the starting grid at least 10 seconds later.

Therefore, the temperature of Qin Miao's car tires was at least 10 degrees Celsius higher than that of the driver in front, and at least 20 degrees Celsius higher than that of Verstappen, who stopped first on the starting grid.

The most direct effect was that as the five red lights lit up and went out, after the race was restarted, Qin Miao's start instantly surpassed Hulkenberg and Gasly in front of him.

At that time, Qin Miao relied on his absolute speed at the start to get alongside Hulkenberg in front of him on the outside line, and then took advantage of the moment when Hulkenberg was overtaken by him to insert into the gap between Hulkenberg and Gasly and come from the outside line to the inside line.

At this time, Gasly also saw Qin Miao in the inside line.

Although Gasly knew that he was no match for Qin Miao, he couldn't just lose the position he had at the start. How embarrassing it would be to tell others about it?

So before T1, Gasly squeezed towards Qin Miao in the inside and almost pushed Qin Miao onto the grass at the exit of the maintenance area.

Qin Miao also knew that he had no line rights on the track at this time. When Gasly squeezed towards him, Qin Miao chose to be cowardly and gradually gave up his position on the track.

But Qin Miao was not in a hurry. It was okay even if the tire slightly pressed on the grass at the exit of the maintenance area.

As the car approaches the braking point of T1, Gasly has no choice but to return to the outside line to brake into the corner in order to have a wider cornering line and a later braking point.

At this time, it was Qin Miao's turn to drive his car closely behind Gasly.

Even because Qin Miao's car tires were hotter than Gasly's, and the Mercedes' braking efficiency was higher than the Alpine's, Qin Miao braked late directly on the inside line of Gasly.

When entering the corner, Qin Miao had already completed the lead on Gasly on the inside.

Just now when facing the pressure from Gasly, Qin Miao was timid.

But now Qin Miao entered the corner earlier than Gasly and also got the line rights, so Qin Miao has the reason and capital to be arrogant.

After exiting the corner, Gasly was pushed directly towards the buffer zone outside the track.

However, Qin Miao's push was in vain, because Gasly found that Qin Miao gave up struggling when he tried to brake late in his inside lane.

How the hell do you fight this?
Putting aside the issue of the drivers' personal abilities, the performance gap of the cars alone was so big that Gasly felt a little desperate.

He couldn't beat Qin Miao in acceleration, and he couldn't compete in braking. If Gasly still insisted on being stubborn on Qin Miao's outside line at this time, he would not get any benefit except being pushed off the track by Qin Miao and wasting his tire remaining time.

Just let him go.

But at the same time, Gasly also had some emotions.

He had never had the chance to compete with Qin Miao before. As soon as Qin Miao entered the F1 paddock, he went to a very high position. They, the mid-level drivers, could not reach the top drivers like Qin Miao at all.

It’s hard to believe that Gasly and Qin Miao are both F1 drivers, but the topic they talk about most is games, and they talk more in the game than in real life.

The two also quickly developed a harmonious relationship when they played COD together with Leclerc.

This was the first time the two had a brief moment of attack and defense on the track.

Gasly felt a huge sense of oppression coming from Qin Miao.

The feeling of being calm when you squeeze the opponent and being unstoppable when the opponent squeezes you both made Gasly feel stunned.

Why the hell can he see the momentum from a racing car?
Gasly had a strong feeling that Qin Miao was too calm when fighting with him. It was as if when you were defending him, he could see through your heart through so many mechanical parts of the car and accurately predict what you were going to do next.

I know nothing about him.

What kind of monster are Hamilton and Verstappen facing?
Different from Gasly's sentiments.

After seeing Qin Miao overtake Gasly, the commentators of Five Star Sports began to praise him.

"Great! He took advantage of every opportunity, threaded the needle, and braked late. With this combination of skills, Qin Miao jumped up two positions to fifth place right from the start!"

"This start was excellent, and Qin Miao also did a good job with the details of the start. Basically, there were no mistakes. It was just right."

……

"Great overtaking, we are now in P5, keep it up." After overtaking Gasly, Franky also gave timely encouragement.

Qin Miao was relatively calm. With the huge tire temperature advantage brought by Magrusen's sudden deceleration, plus his usual starting ability, Qin Miao would have had emotional fluctuations if he had not overtaken in this stage.

"Easy." In response to Franky's praise, Qin Miao just said this.

Franky was not angry either. In his opinion, it was a good thing that Qin Miao was still in the mood to joke. It was much better than having his mentality affected by the red flag incident.

At this time, in front of Qin Miao were the young master and the eldest brother.

To be honest, Qin Miao didn't feel very nervous when he overtook Hulkenberg and Gasly.

But facing the young master in front of him, Qin Miao was even a little hesitant for a moment.

It is undeniable that the young master is indeed a qualified F1 driver.

After all, he can often score points in F1 and is considered to be one of the more capable drivers in the mid-range group.

But this guy has an obvious disadvantage compared to other drivers, that is, his stability is too poor.

You never know if the young master will do something that will make you go dark when you are in a fight with him.

So even a two-time world champion would inevitably feel a little nervous when facing the young master.

After all, this person is uncontrollable.

Qin Miao was even considering whether to wait until DRS was turned on before taking action.

But when Qin Miao really caught up with the young master and was 0.4 seconds behind him, a position where he could launch an attack on the young master, he saw that the time gap between him and Verstappen had reached 1.2 seconds, and Hamilton had reached 1.6 seconds.

Qin Miao knew that the longer he was trapped in this position, the more difficult it would be for him to catch up with these two animals in the later stages of the game.

So Qin Miao finally gritted his teeth and decided to take action on the 11th lap.

Because there was no DRS, Qin Miao knew he had the chance to attack when he came 8 seconds behind Stroll after exiting turn T0.3.

Then Qin Miao controlled the car, maintaining a time gap of 0.3 seconds, and followed Stroll's car to the third timing section.

After exiting the T9 and T10 combination turns, Qin Miao shortened the time gap between himself and Stroll to 0.2 seconds.

But Qin Miao did not let his guard down. After all, attacking Stroll was a very risky thing.

So Qin Miao came behind Stroll and shot to the outside line immediately after 0.2 seconds.

Qin Miao’s idea was very simple, that is, with the young master’s temper, it was impossible for him not to defend himself.

So Qin Miao wanted to make a move to get the young master to the outside, and then move himself to the inside.

I just don’t know whether the young master didn’t want to defend Qin Miao at all, or he didn’t react at all when Qin Miao shook him from behind.

The young master was not moved at all by Qin Miao's change of direction.

Qin Miao was a little surprised, but since the young master did not make any defensive moves, Qin Miao went to the outside.

And relying on the car's absolute straight-line speed, it had overtaken the young master's car by more than half its body before reaching the braking point.

Then, relying on his stronger car control than the young master, Qin Miao chose to brake very late at the braking point.

Moreover, the young master had no intention of competing with Qin Miao in late braking, and Qin Miao eventually surpassed the young master easily and came in fourth.

After overtaking the young master, Qin Miao breathed a sigh of relief. He did not expect that the driver who gave him the most pressure in today's race was Stroll.

But we finally got through this difficult time.

(End of this chapter)