How did I become an F1 driver?

So apart from constantly putting pressure on the team, all Frank could do at this time was to comfort Qin Miao through the team TR: "We all believe in your ability, you can do it, Lewis's tires are no longer good."

Hearing Franky's comfort, Qin Miao was a little surprised that the team did not agree to this matter, but Qin Miao soon realized that this was the consequence of telling Toto in advance that he would leave Mercedes next season.

Of course, Qin Miao did not regret telling Toto about this matter. After all, it had to be told sooner or later.

And strictly speaking, he is already a two-time champion at a young age. Although he does not have as many world championships as his teammate Hamilton, no one in the paddock dares to say that their ability is not as good as Hamilton.

Even if they are screwed by Mercedes this season, it will be a lose-lose situation at most. With one less world champion, Mercedes will completely lose the possibility of competing for the constructors' championship this year.

But after this season, he can still go to Ferrari and get a high salary.

You have a way out.

Qin Miao didn't believe that Toto, a businessman, would be willing to give up such a huge profit from the team championship.

Qin Miao followed Hamilton in two DRS zones. During this process, Qin Miao kept putting pressure on Hamilton.

For example, in the two not-so-long DRS zones, Qin Miao would pull away on the inside before each braking point.

Since the old man wants to defend Qin Miao, he will definitely do his best, so as soon as Qin Miao moves his head, the old man will go inside to defend.

After Qin Miao came behind Hamilton, Hamilton would change lanes to the inside to defend Qin Miao's attack at almost every braking point in the DRS zone.

As for the old man, he completely ignored the threat posed by Qin Miao and just ran at his normal pace...

This is not impossible, but the consequence is that Qin Miao will take over the DRS zone.

Just kidding, although Qin Miao's tires ran one more lap than Hamilton's, the grip of Qin Miao's tires was much stronger than Hamilton's.

Qin Miao wanted to strangle Hamilton to death in one go and then run away.

The pressure is also intended to consume Hamilton's tires and car power.

If Hamilton really dared to ignore Qin Miao's tap, Qin Miao would use the grip advantage of his tires to brake late on the inside line and force his way into Hamilton's inside line, letting the old man see what a true tire-protecting master is.

Although Hamilton was the one who initiated the fight, he did not dare to let his guard down and take Qin Miao lightly.

As for Qin Miao, he followed Hamilton for a lap and finally started his attack in the DRS zone between T51 and T8 on lap 9.

It is worth mentioning that before Qin Miao caught up with Hamilton, the old man gave Qin Miao a brake test at the T6 position.

It is the same method that Qin Miao used against Verstappen, suddenly slowing down in the combination bend when there is no way to overtake.

This type of brake test will obviously interfere with the racing rhythm of the car behind, and will also affect the opponent's mentality to a certain extent.

In addition, in order to be more confident when attacking Hamilton in the next DRS zone, Qin Miao drove very closely to Hamilton, and the distance between the two cars was probably only 0.2 seconds.

So Hamilton felt that it would be difficult for Qin Miao to avoid his braking test this time.

It will definitely greatly interfere with Qin Miao's game rhythm.

Although he knew that doing so was somewhat unethical, Hamilton really had no choice. Qin Miao's ability to protect the tire was too incredible. In order to maintain his current position, Hamilton had no choice but to resort to this last resort.

As for what happens after the game, we’ll talk about it after the game.

As for Qin Miao, although he did not expect Hamilton to brake to test him, Qin Miao was not affected by Hamilton's brake test.

After all, he is a young man. Despite having run more than 50 laps of high-intensity competition, Qin Miao's reaction speed is still online. So Qin Miao stepped on the brakes almost the moment he found that Hamilton's car slowed down, and then he was even faster than Hamilton when exiting the corner.

After entering T7 and before reaching the DRS start point, Qin Miao began to visibly shorten the distance between himself and Hamilton.

Hamilton, who had been watching his rearview mirror, suddenly smiled with relief after seeing this scene, and then shook his head helplessly in the car.

A braking test that used to give many new drivers a headache when overtaking the car in front of them was now as easy for Qin Miao to solve as eating and drinking.

Even based on Hamilton's understanding of Qin Miao's character, he estimated that after he tested Qin Miao with the brakes, he would not go to the team to complain.

Hamilton was right.

Although Qin Miao felt that Hamilton's brake test was a bit unethical, it was after all part of the race, and the FIA ​​had no rules explicitly stipulating that this skill could not be used on other drivers.

What's more, Qin Miao has used this technique many times.

So the eldest brother doesn’t talk about the second brother.

After this failed brake test, the old man knew he couldn't hold on.

So the old man simply stopped defending Qin Miao and started running the race normally on the driving lane.

Qin Miao had already overtaken Hamilton on the inside before turning on DRS. Just after halfway through the DRS zone, he had already overtaken Hamilton by half a car body. 50 meters before the braking point, he completely surpassed Hamilton.

Although in the eyes of the audience, Qin Miao's overtaking Hamilton this time did not delay anything.

But in fact, after running a lap behind Hamilton, the time gap between Hamilton and Verstappen, which was originally about 2.5 seconds, became 3.4 seconds after Qin Miao surpassed Hamilton because of the fight in this lap.

With a sigh, Qin Miao said helplessly: "Why bother?"

Shaking his head, Qin Miao knew that now was not the time to complain about the old man, and began to maintain his own pace to chase Verstappen in front.

There are still 7 laps left to the end of the race, so I still have a chance.

On the other side, in the Mercedes team's P room, everyone noticed that the atmosphere was not right.

The people in the strategy team were observing Toto's face out of the corner of their eyes, but Toto's expression was as calm as usual, without any emotion fluctuations.

Seeing that the team leader did not express any opinion, everyone looked at each other and went back to their work.

……

“Franky, what’s my closing rate on Verstappen?”

"The lap time you just caught up with Hamilton was 0.4 seconds faster than Verstappen. We don't know the situation in the latest lap yet, but your advantage will become bigger and bigger as the race progresses. You will definitely catch up with Verstappen before the end of the race." Franky accurately gave all the information Qin Miao wanted to know now.

After hearing this, Qin Miao's depression caused by being blocked by Hamilton for a lap almost dissipated. Of course, it can also be said that Qin Miao didn't care about his depression at all at this time and began to chase Verstappen with all his strength.

On the 53rd lap, the time gap between Qin Miao and Verstappen was shortened to 2.8 seconds by Qin Miao.

Qin Miao overtook Verstappen by 0.6 in one lap.

However, Qin Miao had just finished this lap when Frankie reminded Qin Miao: "You are running too fast. Slow down a little. We still have time. There is no need to rush."

Qin Miao could only control his temper and gradually slow down.

On the 54th lap, Qin Miao shortened the time gap between himself and Verstappen to 2 seconds. This time Qin Miao was 0.8 faster.

Franky scratched his head and was about to remind Qin Miao that he didn't need to be so anxious. If you use your tires too much at this time, you will be a little nervous when attacking Verstappen. But Franky subconsciously glanced at Qin Miao's lap speed.

The color displayed for all timing points was yellow, and Qin Miao didn't push at all in this lap.

At this time, Franky realized that it was not Qin Miao who was speeding up, but Verstappen who slowed down and his tires reached the cliff point!
But Franky was not sure either, he needed to continue observing.

On the 55th lap, Qin Miao also clearly noticed that Verstappen's speed had slowed down. In this lap, Qin Miao caught up with Verstappen in the DRS zone behind him.

He overtook Verstappen by more than 1 second in one lap.

Verstappen was also sweating profusely at this time.

Although Qin Miao did not put any substantial pressure on Verstappen during this period, Verstappen has always been protecting the tires of the car.

Otherwise it wouldn't have taken so long, he only left Hamilton behind by a little over three seconds.

During this process, Verstappen was trying to protect his tires.

But unfortunately, Qin Miao's ability to protect the tire has always been like a mountain pressing on Verstappen's heart.

When the hard tire comes into my hands, it is the Belenken version; when it comes into Qin Miao's hands, it is the Belenken version.

Anyone who faces Qin Miao like this will feel somewhat uneasy.

Everyone on the Red Bull team was in a low mood at the moment. There was no way. Judging from the current situation on the field, Verstappen might not be able to keep the championship. No one would be happy seeing this scene.

However, just as Mercedes was in ecstasy and Red Bull was in deathly silence, and Red Bull's strategy team was frantically scratching their heads trying to remedy everything, a yellow flag suddenly appeared on the track.

Everyone was stunned, and finally the director showed the picture.

Magnussen's car had a flat left rear tire.

Soon the director also gave the playback footage.

During the replay, the audience saw that while Qin Miao was chasing Verstappen, Zhou Guanyu at the back of the track had been putting pressure on Haas's Magnussen.

He was always 0.3 seconds behind Magnussen.

In fact, this scene is quite interesting. The reason why no one noticed it is mainly because the chase between Qin Miao and Verstappen was more eye-catching.

During this process, perhaps Zhou Guanyu put too much pressure on him, or perhaps it was Magruson's own mistake.

He went too wide when exiting the T2 turn in this lap, and the right rear wheel of the car hit the guardrail. The tire burst and the car flew off, and the right rear suspension also broke on the spot.

Although Magnussen had a flat tire and the right rear suspension was broken, the three-wheeled F1 was still able to drive on the track.

So after the car had a flat tire, Magnussen still drove his car to the Matthew entrance before stopping and getting out.

But before Magnussen retired, he still left some things on the track.

That's his tire.

As expected, the safety car was deployed.

Although the spot where Magrusen's tire fell was next to the Matthew intersection, under the yellow flag, Matthew on the side of the track was not allowed to enter the track to clean up the debris.

And it wasn't just the tires left on the track. There were also a lot of carbon fiber fragments, but they were very small and not easy to see clearly during the broadcast.

The placement of these carbon fiber fragments is not so good.

So the race brought out the safety car.

The appearance of the safety car immediately made the staff of the Mercedes strategy team and the Red Bull strategy team very worried.

Safety car in the trench!

Groove the FIA!

After cursing, this group of people hurriedly started to calculate whether Qin Miao needed to pit during this safety car period?
However, Mercedes quickly came to a conclusion on this issue, which was that neither Qin Miao nor Hamilton needed to pit.

Because at this time, no matter what Verstappen chooses, Qin Miao has the initiative.

If Verstappen pitted to change tires at this time, Qin Miao would naturally take the lead, and Hamilton would be more than 2 seconds behind Qin Miao.

Even if Verstappen came out of the pit area with a new set of soft tires, he had to overtake Hamilton before attacking Qin Miao.

Not to mention that Alonso was actually 7 seconds behind Hamilton.

If Verstappen takes advantage of the safety car pit stop to change tires, the safe distance between Verstappen and Alonso will only be two seconds.

That is to say, if there is any mistake when changing tires, Verstappen may fall directly behind Alonso.

By then, with Alonso's defensive ability, Verstappen might not even get a podium.

If Verstappen didn't pit, Qin Miao would suffer a little.

Because DRS will not be activated within three laps after the safety car restarts, Qin Miao did not use DRS until the end of the race.

He could only rely on the car's straight-line speed and the advantage in tires to attack Verstappen, but despite this, it was not particularly difficult for Qin Miao to defeat Verstappen.

It's just that the difficulty is slightly higher than with DRS.

The only thing Qin Miao is worried about now is that the FIA ​​will directly let the safety car go to the finish line.

Because if the FIA ​​really did that, he wouldn't even have the chance to attack Verstappen.

But soon Frankie also gave Qin Miao a reassurance: "Wait patiently for the game to restart, we still have a chance!"

Although Frankie didn't say it explicitly, this sentence reminded Qin Miao.

The FIA ​​has clear race rules, which is that if possible, try not to let the safety car lead the entire race.

Because this practice will affect the viewing experience of the race and will also kill the possibility of all drivers making a last-ditch effort.

Qin Miao nodded, then began to slow down and get out of the slow car.

Then, as they were running, a situation occurred that no one had expected, and the race committee raised the red flag.

At this time, not only Qin Miao, Verstappen, Hamilton, Alonso, but most of the drivers have full of question marks in their minds.

How come it suddenly became a red flag? (End of this chapter)