How did I become an F1 driver?

Even at the beginning of this Grand Prix weekend, Qin Miao felt a little unlucky. After all, Qin Miao was almost exhausted on Thursday. After returning to the hotel, Qin Miao was dragged over by the hungry Qiu Meng and squeezed for two hours.

Fortunately, Qin Miao is in good health, otherwise after meeting Leclerc on Friday, Leclerc would have teased Qin Miao for his bad complexion, asking him to take care of his health and not overindulge himself.

"I'm sorry, I was wrong." Qin Miao knelt down at lightning speed: "Please Mr. Leclerc take back the bad luck attached to me. My little shoulders as a two-time world champion really can't bear such a great blessing of luck."

When he heard the previous part, Leclerc was a little surprised. After all, he had known Qin Miao for almost four years. Although Qin Miao was not a rebellious person, Leclerc had never seen Qin Miao take the initiative to say such serious words as sorry to anyone.

However, after hearing the latter part, Leclerc felt relieved, because the person who said the latter part was the Qin Miao he was familiar with.

Lazy and stuffy.

Although it is true that he is a two-time world champion, have you ever seen a good person showing off his world championship honor on the street?
After joking, Qin Miao reached out and patted Leclerc on the back and said, "If you don't say anything, I'll take it as your consent. I'll give you back your bad luck. No need to thank me."

"Get lost!" Leclerc cursed with a smile.

Then Leclerc hugged Qin Miao's arm and asked curiously, "How is my goddaughter now?"

"Everything I eat tastes delicious. The three old people spoil me so much that they want to hold me in their hands all the time." Qin Miao thought for a while and said, "I just like to spit up milk."

"By the way, running a race so far away from your children, don't you miss your little Muqiu and Qiumeng?"

Qin Miao nodded: "Of course I thought about it, so I went back to China after the last Grand Prix weekend."

"Ah? With the back-to-back races so tight, you can actually go back?" Leclerc was very surprised: "Mercedes-Benz team won't pass? We are willing to let you go back."

Then Leclerc denied his own guess: "No, your Mercedes-Benz team cannot be such a makeshift team."

Qin Miao did not let Leclerc continue to guess, and explained directly: "Remember the Azerbaijan Grand Prix?
At that time, I retired because of the problem with the team's car, so the team gave me two days off to compensate me, and I went back."

Hearing this, Leclerc shook his head: "Mercedes really dares to take a holiday, and you really dare to rest too."

"This is the confidence of a two-time world champion." Qin Miao said with a smile.

"Are you not afraid of your grades dropping?"

Qin Miao shrugged: "I am confident, and who said I would abandon my training after returning home?"

"Then I'll be looking forward to your performance this weekend. I hope I can outrun you on the track."

Qin Miao smiled and said, "You'd better take care of yourself first. Given the characteristics of the Ferrari, it's a question whether you can finish the race smoothly. Don't let the car break down on the track during the race."

Leclerc: ...

can you speak?

……

After chatting with Leclerc for a while, the two walked to the door of the Ferrari team's P room. Qin Miao still had to walk forward about ten meters to reach the Mercedes team's P room, so the two said goodbye to each other and separated here.

After returning to the team's P room, the team meeting was held as usual on Friday morning.

Because of too many business activities on Thursday, neither Qin Miao nor Hamilton had time to walk the track.

So today's practice session is very important for both drivers.

Both Qin Miao and Hamilton plan to spend more time familiarizing themselves with the track in today's two practice sessions.

As time went by, it was time for the practice match to begin.

There is nothing much to say at this stage. As soon as the practice session started, Qin Miao and Hamilton were very active and went on the track to start their practice.

It is worth mentioning that compared with last year, the asphalt of the Miami circuit was repaved this year, so Qin Miao and Hamilton found that the feedback from the car on the first lap on the track was completely different from that from the team's simulator.

Well, the tuning settings that I spent so much time looking for in the team simulator are basically useless now, and even the original baseline tuning settings are useless now.
It took three practice sessions to find the right tuning settings again.

I won’t go into too much detail about the next two practice sessions here, as they were mainly about finding the tuning settings and collecting data.

After the sprint race was over, it was not too difficult for Qin Miao to find a setting that was comfortable for him.

The same goes for other drivers.

The only thing worth mentioning in the entire practice session was that Leclerc pushed too hastily in the second practice and ran off the track and hit the guardrail.

A red flag was shown during the practice session.

Qin Miao had just finished repairing in the team's P room and was about to leave the maintenance area, but after seeing the red flag, he was rushed over by the team's technicians and pushed directly back to the team's P room.

Then when the display screen was re-mounted in the middle of Qin Miao's racing flip-flops, Qin Miao saw Leclerc climbed out of his car on the track.

I frowned. Is Leclerc's bad luck so bad? He really started to have bad luck after I gave it back to him?
What the fuck are these rules!

Of course, Leclerc's accident was just an ordinary track accident, and it couldn't even be considered bad luck for Leclerc.

Leclerc ran off the track because he was pushing his limits during the practice session and exceeded his limits and lost control.

Friday passed quickly.

Qin Miao was quite satisfied with today's work progress.

In two practice sessions, Qin Miao ran at least 50 laps on the track.

After finding the tuning for the car and becoming familiar with the repaved asphalt track, Qin Miao also knew some of the details on the track.

The braking points and tire durability have all been tested, and the details will be finalized in the first practice session tomorrow, Saturday. Qin Miao will be able to use the complete model of the car in this Grand Prix weekend.

At the same time, the team's car has also been upgraded this week, but the upgrade is very small. It only changes the structure of the car's floor vortex generator and replaces the air intake of the car's side box.

The changes in the vortex generator are actually very small, and you can't even see them if you don't look carefully.

The really big change is the air intakes on the racing sidepods.

Originally, the W14's side air intake had a vertical Arabic numeral one, but after the upgrade it has been changed to a Chinese numeral one.

It's a bit like the grey hopper-shaped air intake on a Red Bull racing car.

It’s just that the bucket below is about half shorter than that of the Red Bull racing car.

On the one hand, this upgrade enhances the car's heat dissipation efficiency, and on the other hand, it lays the foundation for subsequent upgrades.

After all, this season's Mercedes cars have very obvious shortcomings, and the team naturally wants to make up for this shortcoming.

The next major upgrade to the car's aerodynamics will be implemented in Monaco.

After all, the Monte Carlo in Monaco really requires a car's aerodynamic efficiency and mechanical grip.

Of course, this upgrade does have a certain effect, otherwise it would not be applied to the car at this time. However, Qin Miao did not ask about the main work process, but only knew that the protruding side box that looks like the wing of the F104 aircraft can enhance the aerodynamic downforce of the car while optimizing the airflow at the rear of the car.

However, Qin Miao did not feel any difference in the two practice sessions, perhaps because the Miami track had been re-asphalted.

Saturday is the day for the third practice session and the start of qualifying.

There is actually not much to say about the third practice session. The only thing worth mentioning is that before the third practice session, the team gave Qin Miao the second internal combustion engine of the season.

Normally, if two internal combustion engines are used, Qin Miao can only use one more internal combustion engine within the scope permitted by the rules this season.

After all, you can only run three internal combustion engines in a season within the scope allowed by the rules. If you use more than three, you will have to accept a penalty during the race or sprint race.

But this season is a bit special, because this season's sprint races are a bit too much. Considering the wear and tear of the car parts in the sprint races, F1 has increased the number of power unit components such as the internal combustion engine, turbine, MGU-K, and MGU-H to four sets.

So Qin Miao still had two sets of reserves at this time.

The reason for starting the internal combustion engine at this time instead of waiting until the qualifying round is that the team is also worried that Qin Miao's internal combustion engine will encounter the problems from the previous race during the qualifying round. The time of a practice race is just enough for Qin Miao's internal combustion engine to complete the test on the car in advance.

In the qualifying stage, Qin Miao ran easily in the first two quarters and easily advanced to Q3.

After watching Qin Miao's competition for such a long time, everyone knows that Qin Miao's results are of no reference at all in the qualifying stage. If you really want to know the approximate speed of the Mercedes-Benz car, you have to look at Hamilton's performance on the field.

As for the old man, his performance in the first two sections of today's qualifying session was only average. Although he was still hovering in the top four, the gap between him and Red Bull in a single lap had reached 0.2 seconds.

It can be seen that Mercedes' cars are indeed not suitable for a track like Miami.

Although the Miami circuit has two very long straights, the second time zone of this track is a bit too torturous for the W14.

When Qin Miao finished Q2 and returned to the team's P room to look at the lap time comparison, it could be seen that the first timing segment of the old man's fastest lap in Q2 was 0.4 seconds slower than the Red Bull, the second timing segment was basically the same speed as the Red Bull car, and the final third timing segment was able to catch up by about 0.2 thanks to the super long straight.

……

However, despite the disadvantage compared to Red Bull's car, Mercedes is not without the possibility of a comeback.

After all, this track has two very long straights.

So like other teams, Mercedes also implemented the towing tactics in Q3.

In order to execute the towing tactics, the two Mercedes cars even came out of the team's P room at the same time.

The process of executing the towing tactics for today's race was decided at the team meeting this morning.

So the process is not complicated.

In the first flying lap, the old man helped Qin Miao to pull the wake. After Qin Miao finished his flying lap, he ran back to the field circle. At this time, Hamilton also started his own flying lap. When the old man came to the straight area, he was running back to the field circle and could help Hamilton to pull the wake again.

Using this method, both drivers helped each other to pull slipstream twice in Q3.

But the F1 arena is full of uncertainties. Even in practice sessions, people may run off the track, not to mention Q3 where almost everyone is pursuing the limit.

At the end of Q3, Qin Miao and Hamilton did not break their own record in Q1.

The old man was not going that fast because he was helping Qin Miao to create a slipstream on the track.

The reason why I didn’t finish running…

Because Leclerc ran off the track again.

Even Leclerc went off the track in exactly the same position as he did in Q2 yesterday.

The guard walls they hit were all the same.

A yellow flag appeared on the track with 1 minute and 58 seconds left to the end of the race, and then it turned into a red flag.

Lao Si's piano music at this time accurately reflected his state when he got off the racing car.

Seriously, let’s put aside the metaphysical stuff.

After the qualifying race, when Qin Miao watched the accident replay, he really felt that Leclerc had a shortcoming that was difficult to ignore, that is, Leclerc's stability was too poor.

It cannot be said that Leclerc has poor stability, as that would be biased.

In fact, Leclerc may be pushing the limits of racing too far.

Then he couldn't control his car as accurately as Qin Miao, Verstappen, Hamilton and others, pushing the car to the limit while also pulling it back from the extreme state.

Although the race committee put out a red flag and stopped the race after Leclerc made this mistake, there was only 1 minute and 58 seconds left.

This time is enough for the driver to drive out of the maintenance area, cross the finish line and run a final flying lap.

However, this warm-up lap does not allow the driver to successfully raise the temperature of the car's tires to an appropriate level.

Moreover, after completing a lap so quickly, the drivers' tires will definitely be worn out in the process.

Therefore, even if you cross the finish line, neither the tires nor the engine temperature can reach the optimal state, and naturally you cannot refresh the best lap time.

Therefore, after the red flag appeared this time, the qualifying session ended immediately.

No driver was doing lap times on the track.

In the end, the ranking of this qualifying match is as follows:

1: Perez 1:26.841
2: Alonso
3: Sainz
4: Magnus

5: Qin Miao

6: Hamilton

7: Leclerc

8: Zhou Guanyu
9: Verstappen

10: Bottas
The ranking of today's race is very abstract. First of all, Magnussen crushed a number of drivers from top teams and won fourth place in the qualifying stage.

There was jubilation inside the Haas team.

Although they also know that Ma, who has not yet become the legendary penalty-endurance king, will definitely set a new record for being overtaken in today's race.

But life is only 30,000 days long, so enjoy every day you can.

The fun is over. (End of this chapter)