How did I become an F1 driver?

Chapter 537 541: Leclerc Tulle Qin Miao

After the pre-race team meeting, Qin Miao and Hamilton both went to attend the pre-race press conference.

At the meeting, although people would occasionally congratulate Qin Miao on becoming a father, Qin Miao's daily working hours had returned to normal.

After the press conference, we walked the track.

But this time Qin Miao rode a scooter on the track.

After all, the straight road in the Baku circuit is too long, and there are not many places to observe on that straight road. There is only one driving lane, and there is basically no place to overtake in the front part of the straight road. It is only possible to overtake after reaching the DRS area. Therefore, too much time is wasted on that straight road.

So riding a scooter is a lot easier.

While walking on the track, Qin Miao, riding a scooter, just caught up with Leclerc, who was walking, in the second timing section of the track.

In fact, it is not a strange thing to meet other drivers when driving on the track under normal circumstances. After all, Qin Miao often meets other drivers at this stage.

Leclerc also caught up with Qin Miao from behind.

But the Baku track, plus Leclerc, and the second time sector of this track.

This can be said to have brought together all the elements.

After catching up with Leclerc, Qin Miao stopped riding his scooter and instead pushed the scooter on the track with Leclerc.

If it was any other track, even the Baku track, but after the second timing section, when he met Qin Miao in the third timing section, Leclerc would not have any resistance.

He was even happy to see Qin Miao come over and share his understanding of this track with him.

But when this damn bastard came over during the second timing period, Leclerc had already guessed what this bastard was going to do.

Damn, he's already a father, but he's still not stable at all.

Looking at Qin Miao who was walking beside him with a grin on his face, Leclerc was complaining wildly in his heart.

"We still have some internal discussions involving Ferrari's secrets. It's not appropriate for you to follow us. Go first." Leclerc also tried to drive Qin Miao away.

But Qin Miao didn't buy it at all.

What secrets can you tell by walking a track?
Even if you really talked about confidential topics, I, Qin Miao, will be your Leclerc's teammate next season. Is there anything I can't listen to?
So Qin Miao directly hooked Leclerc's shoulder and said, "Don't be so formal. You know me. I am a very tight-lipped person and I won't say anything outside."

Leclerc was about to roll his eyes when Qin Miao's deliberately lowered voice came into Leclerc's ears again.

"And maybe, we'll be teammates next season?"

Qin Miao spoke in a low voice, and only Leclerc could hear it. Moreover, when he said this, Qin Miao was looking at the front of the track, and no one noticed anything unusual.

However, after hearing Qin Miao's words, Leclerc was stunned.

Because damn, this news is a bit too explosive.

Leclerc knew that Qin Miao was currently negotiating a contract with Ferrari. After all, Qin Miao's contract with Mercedes-Benz would expire next year, and many teams that were in need of top drivers were really eager to make a move on Qin Miao, the big fish in the transfer market.

Leclerc's brain inevitably froze for a while, because he couldn't imagine how he and Qin Miao would get along if they became teammates.

But Leclerc soon realized that there was a premise before Qin Miao said this. Qin Miao said: "And maybe..."

Leclerc let out a long sigh and pushed Qin Miao away: "Shut the ***!"

Qin Miao shrugged and stopped pestering Leclerc, but still followed him.

If Qin Miao doesn't play this joke, he will definitely not be able to sleep today.

Leclerc couldn't persuade Qin Miao and could only let him stay beside him.

Then the group walked to a well-known check-in point in the second timing section of the Baku Circuit, T2, where Leclerc’s famous scene was born, AKA: I am stupid corner.

Standing in front of the red buffer wall, Qin Miao imitated Leclerc's tone when he was in the TR team and said with some frustration: "I am stupid."

This is intolerable. When Leclerc saw Qin Miao following him, he had a feeling that nothing good was going to happen.

Now Qin Miao was almost driving the car close to his face, and Leclerc couldn't hold it anymore.

He simply picked up the scooter that Qin Miao had placed there, lifted it up and chased after Qin Miao.

He cursed: "Fuck you! I'm going to kill you!"

Qin Miao's reaction as an F1 driver played a crucial role at this time. Qin Miao had already reacted when Leclerc reached out to take the scooter.

Qin Miao turned and ran, but his colleague was still talking: "Fuck, are you serious?!"

……

This Grand Prix weekend is a sprint race weekend.

And this Grand Prix applies the new sprint race rules.

From this race onwards, every race with a sprint will be:

Friday's qualifying session determines the starting order for Sunday's race, while the third practice session is changed to sprint qualifying, which only determines the starting order for Saturday's sprint race.

The time of sprint qualifying is shortened to varying degrees compared to normal qualifying.

At the same time, the number of tires for the sprint race weekend has become 12 sets, including 2 sets of hard tires, 4 sets of medium tires, and 6 sets of soft tires.

At the same time, only neutral tires can be used in Q1 and Q2 of the sprint qualifying, and only soft tires can be used in Q3.

The DRS rules for the sprint race have also changed, with DRS being turned on one lap earlier than in the main race.

However, this set of rules only applies to the sprint race on Saturday and not the main race.

There are many detailed rules, which will not be discussed here.

Anyway, these are the rules for the time sprint race over the next few years.

To be honest, the rules of this sprint race are indeed a bit too complicated. Qin Miao read it for a long time and even recalled the fear he felt when he was dominated by textbooks when he was in school.

However, Qin Miao still knew one thing, that is, as long as he could finish this Grand Prix weekend normally and do his best in every qualifying and sprint qualifying, it would be fine.

At the same time, the Baku Grand Prix track was also modified this year, with the DRS area on the starting straight shortened by 100 meters.

To be honest, this season we know that the original intention of the FIA ​​in designing ground effect cars has gone astray. Of course, this is not a problem of the FIA, but a problem of other teams in the paddock.

The FIA's goal in pushing racing cars into the ground effect era is to reduce turbulence behind the car, making it easier for the following car to follow and creating more overtaking opportunities on the track.

This is true for the 2022, which has just entered the ground effect era. Almost all cars on the track have done this.

When the downforce of a racing car is mainly provided by the ground effect floor, it can indeed discharge less turbulence to the rear of the car.

However, as the season comes to an end, there will always be teams that come up with upgrade parts, and these upgrade parts will not only improve the performance of their cars, but will also emit more turbulence to the rear of their cars.

Even Mercedes is doing this.

After all, it is within the scope allowed by the rules, and everyone else is doing it. If you don't do it, you will suffer and fall behind.

After finishing the first three races of the 23rd season, Qin Miao clearly felt that his car was struggling a lot in terms of following other cars compared to last season.

But despite this, the FIA ​​is still cutting the length of the DRS zone, and Qin Miao doesn't know what they are thinking.

At the same time, what made Qin Miao a little uncomfortable, or even insecure, was that there was one set of tires missing this Grand Prix weekend, and it was impossible for Qin Miao to stock up so many tires during the race.

However, when Friday came and the strategy team calculated the tire usage for this Grand Prix weekend, Qin Miao breathed a sigh of relief.

Because according to the calculations of the strategy team, after two fewer practice sessions, Qin Miao will actually have more tire reserves in the race stage than in a normal Grand Prix weekend.

It's not just Qin Miao. Almost all drivers will have plenty of tire reserves for the race this Grand Prix weekend.

The tire consumption in the two practice sessions is very high, and in the sprint race, unless the car has a flat tire on the track, no one will come in to change tires. Even in the sprint qualifying race, which consumes the most tires, at most only four sets of tires can be used.

Because the time of SQ2 and SQ3 is much shorter than that of normal qualifying, the drivers have no time to stop and change tires. In order to avoid congestion in SQ1, it is unlikely that the drivers will stop and change tires.

Qin Miao felt a lot more relaxed after receiving this news.

As time went by, Friday's practice began.

Because the Baku circuit has little consumption on car tires. After all, there are not many high-speed curves on this track. Most of them are right-angle curves and long straights.

Consuming tires also mainly consumes the durability of the rear wheels.

Therefore, the tire compounds given by Pirelli for this Grand Prix weekend are the three softest tires C3-C5.

Sprint race weekends are actually very difficult for the team, because one practice session will determine the car's tuning for the entire Grand Prix weekend, and then all subsequent qualifying, sprint qualifying and sprint races will have to use this set of tuning.

This is undoubtedly a daunting challenge for the team and the drivers.

So everyone was nervous all Friday.

The same is true for Qin Miao.

Known for his unhurried pace during practice sessions, he was also busy during this Grand Prix weekend. After all, Qin Miao and the team wanted to get more data during the first practice session so that they could adjust the car to its best condition before qualifying began.

There were many accidents on the track during this practice session, and red flags appeared, but these had little to do with Qin Miao.

The only thing worth mentioning is the final speed Qin Miao ran during the practice session.

Although the final speed this time was not as high as the one Qin Miao achieved on the team simulator, it also reached a final speed of 343 kilometers per hour.

This is the speed Qin Miao achieved when his racing car was filled with nearly 40 kilograms of fuel.

When the practice session was over, the official gave a comparison test of the final speed of this practice session. Mercedes-Benz's W14 had a huge lead in the final speed on the track.

It was 8 kilometers per hour faster than the Red Bull car of Verstappen, who was in second place.

Of course, despite such a big advantage, Qin Miao's lap time was not much faster than that of the Red Bull car, only 0.08 seconds faster.

However, this is just a simulation of the flying lap results of the practice session. Whether there is a specific gap between the two drivers and how big the gap is are still unknown.

Of course, during the practice session on Friday, Qin Miao also found a set of training settings that he was comfortable using.

Although there are still many areas that can be optimized visibly in this training, time does not allow Qin Miao to make more adjustments. If he makes blind adjustments at this time, it may backfire.

So Qin Miao and his crew simply came up with a set of tuning settings based on the existing data.

By the time Qin Miao's final training settings were determined, the time had come for the qualifying round.

In the past, Qin Miao was very calm during the qualifying rounds.

After three practice sessions, Qin Miao has fully understood the characteristics of his car on the current track. He also knows the limits of his car and how to push it to the limit.

So Qin Miao had confidence during the competition.

But this car now...

It can only be said that Qin Miao was really good at controlling the car, but Qin Miao didn't dare to test the limit of the car. After all, Qin Miao was not sure whether the car would break through the limit and give him a surprise if he drove a little faster.

If he made a low-level mistake like Leclerc's famous scene in qualifying because he pushed himself too far, Qin Miao felt that he could just find a place to die.

Damn, I just drove very close to Leclerc and now I made a mistake again. I guess every year at this time, Leclerc will stare at me when I'm driving on the track, and mock me when I reach the corner where I made a mistake.

……

Therefore, when the qualifying session just started, Qin Miao was still a little nervous, worried that something unexpected would happen in this qualifying session. Of course, he was more worried that his lap time would not be as good as Red Bull's.

But when the qualifying round started, Qin Miao found that he had been overthinking.

Because with Qin Miao's ability, he is not fully familiar with the characteristics and features of his car on the track, and the drivers of other teams are worse than Qin Miao.

After the first flying lap of Q1, Qin Miao ran a time of 1:41.555. Just when Qin Miao thought this result was average, he discovered that this result would allow him to enter Q2 directly.

And this is just the base circle Qin Miao made after adding a little water.

On a normal Grand Prix weekend, Qin Miao's lap time would usually rank seventh or below.

But after Qin Miao finished his first flying lap, he directly took first place, 0.1 second faster than Verstappen who was in second place.

When Qin Miao finished the first flying lap of Q1 and returned to the team to rest, Reyes asked curiously: "Why did you change your nature today? You ran so fast in Q1? Didn't you say before that you would hide your strength in the first stage of Q?"

Qin Miao scratched his head and was a little surprised himself: "You may not believe it, but my running style in today's race didn't change much... It was the same as my normal running style in Q1 of qualifying. Logically speaking, my results should not be so good..."

Reyes was also a little surprised: "Are you sure? You are a little faster than Verstappen."

Qin Miao reached out and opened his helmet goggles: "Are you sure? I have no reason to lie to you..."

"Maybe it's because the others didn't perform well..." This was the only explanation Qin Miao could think of at this time.

(End of this chapter)