How did I become an F1 driver?

Although he felt a little uncomfortable after having to chase so much more distance for no reason, Qin Miao still kept himself calm and started the pursuit while protecting the tires.

On the 6th lap, Qin Miao caught up with Alonso and took advantage of DRS to overtake Alonso.

The boss had no intention of defending Qin Miao at all, and he let Qin Miao pass before the braking point of T17.

Qin Miao came second.

At the same time, Hamilton surpassed Sainz and came in fourth, and Verstappen also surpassed Magnussen and came in sixth.

The three drivers were chasing each other madly.

However, according to the data provided by the FIA, Verstappen's average lap speed is about 0.2 faster than the two Mercedes drivers.

This was when Verstappen never had the chance to run a normal unopposed lap time.

On the 13th lap, Qin Miao finally caught up to the DRS zone behind Perez.

The Red Bull used in today's race was actually upgraded, but before the race started, no one knew how much of an improvement this upgrade would bring to the performance of their car.

However, judging from Perez's performance today, the improvement brought by Red Bull's upgrade this time is extremely huge.

Because in the first four races, Perez's speed was not only unable to match that of his teammates, but he was even unable to match that of Qin Miao and Hamilton. Judging from Perez's condition in today's race, he at least has the strength to fight with Qin Miao on the track.

On the same lap, Hamilton also overtook Alonso.

Compared to letting Qin Miao go directly, the old man Alonso was obviously more interested in the other old man.

Alonso put all his attention and energy into defending Hamilton, as if he was back at the Hungaroring that year.

In fact, with the performance of the Mercedes-Benz car, it is not too difficult for Hamilton to overtake Alonso on the track.

But unfortunately, Alonso was really serious in defending Hamilton in today's game, and blocked many of Hamilton's good opportunities to overtake.

Coupled with the deliberate braking test and rhythm change before entering the straight, Hamilton was very sick and the performance of the W14 on the straight was also limited.

After all, before entering the straight every time, the original 0.3 second time gap between Hamilton and Alonso would be deliberately reduced by Alonso to 0.5 second or 0.6 second.

With such a huge time gap, no matter how powerful the Mercedes car is, it will not be able to catch up with Alonso and overtake him at the same time.

It was also because Alonso and Hamilton were in a fight on the track that Verstappen, who started in ninth place, finally overtook Sainz and came behind Hamilton.

This process took only 13 laps.

Verstappen felt somewhat happy as he watched the two people in front of him fighting hard. At least Alonso had helped him delay Hamilton for a long time. However, after Verstappen saw the time gap between Qin Miao and Alonso, he was no longer happy.

Although Qin Miao caught up with Perez, he didn't have a good way to deal with Perez for a while. Looking at Qin Miao's lap speed and the time gap between him and Perez, Verstappen judged that Qin Miao was charging his car at this time, waiting for an opportunity to achieve success in one fell swoop.

That would be fine, but how did the 5-second time gap between Qin Miao and Alonso come about?

After Verstappen was surprised, it was Qin Miao's turn to be surprised.

Because as the race reached the 18th lap and it was almost time to pit, Qin Miao still hadn't overtaken Perez.

It’s not that Qin Miao doesn’t want to, nor is it that Qin Miao has any defensive strategy.

It was true that Qin Miao couldn't find a way to surpass Perez for a while.

During this process, Qin Miao fully charged the battery of his racing car twice and thought about completing the task in one go many times, but he failed every time.

Perez's Red Bull car's tail speed was also amazing, and no one knew where Perez learned this, but he started to show all kinds of flaws when defending.

Many times, Qin Miao himself couldn't help himself.

However, Qin Miao quickly regained his inner peace.

Because Qin Miao knew that he would surpass Sainz sooner or later. After all, the pressure value hanging on Sainz's head at this time was [71%]

Now all he needs to do is wait for Perez to make a mistake.

And the driver behind him is still Alonso.

Although Miami is not an easy track to defend.

But as Verstappen appeared behind Hamilton and the tires of Hamilton's car began to fail, it became easier and easier for Alonso to defend Hamilton.

Verstappen also provided DRS to Hamilton at all times because Alonso was in front of Hamilton.

It is not easy for Verstappen to overtake Hamilton.

So in general the advantage is on our side.

Now I just need to run at the rhythm I am most familiar with and wait for Perez to make mistakes.

However, on the track, Qin Miao did not wait for Perez to make a mistake on his own initiative, but waited for the pit window to open.

At the end of the 18th lap, Sainz was the first to blow the horn for the leading group of drivers to pit.

The drivers in front also entered the pits to change tires under the pressure of Sainz.

Even Perez, who was in front of Qin Miao, chose to pit to change tires.

In fact, given the time gap between Perez and Verstappen, and the Red Bull team's strong tire-changing capabilities, there would be no problem even if both of them entered the pit together.

But in today's race Verstappen used hard tires at the start. After all, he started from such a back position. If he used soft tires like other drivers' pit stop strategies, it would be easy to waste time on overtaking. It would be better to start with hard tires and directly undercut most drivers who were slower than him in most laps, as he did now.

So at this point in time, Verstappen's tires still had plenty of room, and it would have been completely unwise to pit at this time.

Soon, as the race reached the 20th lap, after the drivers in front had pitted, Qin Miao became the leading driver.

And also actually completed the under cut for Perez on the track.

After all, Qin Miao came behind Perez and had no way to overtake Perez. In addition to the upgrades brought about by the Red Bull Racing in this Grand Prix, which greatly increased the straight-line speed of the Red Bull Racing, Perez also created a lot of turbulence in front.

This makes the downforce of Qin Miao's car, which was not very effective in the cornering phase, even better than nothing.

Therefore, Qin Miao was unable to catch up with Perez and get to a position behind him that could pose a threat to him before the DRS zone in the middle of the second and third periods.

It's a vicious cycle, and one could even say that this is the nature of the Miami track.

Because there is always a winding curve before the DRS zone of the Miami Circuit, and the DRS zone begins after the curve. This makes it easier for cars that are not used to straight roads to defend in the DRS zone.

Now Qin Miao no longer has Perez blocking him, and he is using neutral tires. With his ability to protect his tires, his current lap speed is even faster than Perez's new hard tires, although it is only 0.09 seconds faster per lap.

At this point, some people may be curious, why doesn't Red Bull let Perez stay in front of Qin Miao to slow down Qin Miao's race pace, and wait until Verstappen catches up to a position that poses a threat to Qin Miao, or until Perez's tires are really no good before letting Perez pit?
Let’s put it this way, Perez is also a human being, and Red Bull is barely satisfied with Perez’s performance this season and has no intention of giving up on Perez directly.

It is also impossible for them to allow Perez to seamlessly move into the second driver position.

On the other hand, Red Bull believes that Perez can compete for the championship in today's race, while Verstappen is trapped in the DRS train.

Although there is indeed a certain gap in strength between the two drivers, under the circumstances at the time, Perez had a greater chance of winning the race than Verstappen.

In the following time, Qin Miao took the lead smoothly, and after there was no obstruction, he began to slowly widen the time gap between himself and Verstappen.

But the expansion speed is very slow, about 0.1 seconds per lap.

On the 25th lap, the time gap between Qin Miao and Verstappen was fixed at 5.2 seconds.

Qin Miao was first, Verstappen was second, Perez was third, Hamilton was fourth, and the leader was already fifth.

During this period of time, the time gap between Qin Miao and Verstappen remained unchanged, and sometimes Verstappen's single lap speed was even faster than Qin Miao.

It was obvious that even someone as strong as Qin Miao's tires had begun to fail.

If he had pitted on this lap, Qin Miao would have been 17 seconds behind Verstappen and 1.7 seconds ahead of Perez.

This meant that Qin Miao had created a suitable pit stop window on the track.

If there was no mistake in the tire change and it was completed within 3 seconds, Qin Miao would be about 1.3 seconds ahead of Perez after coming out.

But if it exceeds 3 seconds, it is hard to say where Qin Miao will appear.

After all, when Qin Miao just came out of the maintenance area, the temperature of Qin Miao's tires did not reach the most suitable working temperature, which would put him at a disadvantage on both offense and defense.

Qin Miao would be in trouble if he was blocked by Perez.

"Okay, we see that Qin Miao is about to enter the station."

"A set of soft tires lasted for 25 laps, which was a normal pit stop for Qin Miao," said Zhou Haoran.

"Let's see how long it takes for Mercedes to change tires during this pit stop..."

In fact, a lot of coincidences happened in the Five Star Sports studio during last week's game.

For example, just after the commentators of Five Star Sports praised the performances of Guanyu and Qin Miao on the track last week, the two Chinese drivers retired one after another.

Although it is obvious that this incident has nothing to do with the commentators of Five Star Sports, the key point is that this incident is really too coincidental.

Although it was not as severe as Norris's devastating victory, Norris had an accident before he finished speaking, and the wreckage of the McLaren car was scattered all over the ground.

But it was almost the same. As soon as he finished speaking, the two drivers encountered problems one after another.

As a result, many domestic car fans who believe in this aspect have criticized several commentators from Five Star Sports.

Although the three commentators did not want to believe these things subjectively, the pragmatism in the bones of the Chinese still made the three commentators cautious when explaining Qin Miao's game.

Therefore, at this critical moment, the commentators of Five Star Sports in the live broadcast room did not dare to make decisive judgments as they did in the past.

Slowing down, entering the maintenance area, turning on the speed limit button, Qin Miao slowly drove his car into the tire changing position in front of the Mercedes team's P room.

At this time, the team's technicians were all ready and were just waiting for Qin Miao to park the car.

Qin Miao's parking spot was still perfect.

It just happened that the tires and front wing were delivered to the team's tire changer at the right time.

Therefore, before Qin Miao's car had even come to a complete stop, the racing car was lifted up, and the bolts and tires were removed almost at the same time.

After the four tires were removed, four new hard tires were installed on the car.

The moment the four tires were installed, the front and rear jack technicians released their jacks at the same time.

While the car was falling, the four technicians responsible for locking the bolts had already tightened the bolts of Qin Miao's car.

After completing this series of operations, the four air cannon operators raised the air cannons in their hands to indicate that the tire change was completed.

Then Reyes gave the signal to let go, and Qin Miao stepped on the accelerator and left the place where he had parked to change tires.

At the same time, the total time it took Qin Miao to change the tire popped up in the upper right corner of the broadcast screen, which had been closely watching Qin Miao's tire change.

【2.0】

"Pretty!"

"This pit stop was perfect. Qin Miao successfully cut off Perez. Now it's time for Qin Miao to take advantage of his long-distance speed!"

……

After seeing the tire change time, the Five Star Sports commentators, who were originally hesitant, opened the champagne with confidence.

Because the Miami circuit does not consume much tires, and Pirelli provided three tires of medium hardness for this race, the durability is also sufficient. Therefore, under normal circumstances, the drivers all adopt a one-stop pit strategy.

And Qin Miao changed to hard tires, which was very obvious. Qin Miao prepared a set of hard tires to run the entire race and would not enter the maintenance area to change tires.

There is no risk of accidents happening in the maintenance area, and the three commentators can naturally open champagne in the studio.

On the track, Qin Miao also felt that the tire change was very fast this time. When he left the maintenance area, he praised the TR team: "Awesome."

Franky smiled and said, "It's up to you now."

"Look!"

Because the team performed a perfect tire change this time, Qin Miao not only got ahead of Perez after coming out of the maintenance area, but the originally expected time gap of 1.7 seconds between him and Perez was also increased to 2.0 seconds because of this excellent tire change.

Perez sighed as he looked at the Mercedes car in front of him. It was over. The Grand Prix championship was gone...

ps. Dads, please take a day off tomorrow (end of this chapter)