How did I become an F1 driver?

Unfortunately, this season Mercedes' biggest rival, Red Bull's RB19, is a particularly balanced car.

It can be said that the RB19 is the most suitable car for the Catalan circuit.

It is foreseeable that this Grand Prix weekend will not be easy for the two Mercedes drivers.

The only good news is that the team will bring new upgrades this week, but we don’t know how effective the upgrades will be.

After landing in Spain, Qin Miao's agency called Qin Miao.

The other party informed Qin Miao that the contract between him and Ferrari had been drafted.

Now we can find a time to sign.

After signing, Qin Miao will officially become a regular driver of Ferrari next season.

The purpose of this call was not only to tell Qin Miao about this matter, but also to ask Qin Miao whether he needed to finalize this matter as soon as possible, or wait until the end of the year when there is another Italian Grand Prix, and then go to Ferrari's headquarters to sign the contract.

Qin Miao thought about it and decided that if the news of his joining Ferrari had not been revealed, he could indeed sign the contract before the Italian Grand Prix started and give all Ferrari fans a surprise.

But everyone in the paddock knows that he will be going to Ferrari next season, so there is nothing to hide.

So Qin Miao planned to finalize the matter right away during this Grand Prix weekend to avoid any further complications.

So it was Wednesday, a very ordinary day.

On the second floor of a restaurant opened by Ferrari fans in Spain, Qin Miao, fully armed, knocked on the door of the room in front of him, then pushed it open and walked in.

After opening the door, we saw Vasseur in casual clothes, Ferrari's racing performance director David Sanchez, and Ferrari's lawyer sitting in the restaurant with smiles on their faces, chatting in a relaxed manner.

After all, most of the contract terms have been negotiated at this point, and there is no pressure on them now. All they need to do is sign the contract between both parties.

Seeing Qin Miao coming in, Wasser stopped chatting, smiled, stood up and hugged Qin Miao.

After exchanging some greetings with David Sanchez, the three of them sat down in their respective seats.

Soon, Wasser handed Qin Miao's contract to Qin Miao with a smile.

"This is your 24-year contract. Take a look at it. If there are any clauses that need to be added, we still have time to modify them."

Although Qin Miao already had a general idea of ​​the contents of the contract and had someone from his agency to help confirm it, he still carefully read the terms of the contract after receiving it.

There is a lot of content, so I will just talk about the key points here.

First of all, this is a 2+1+1 contract.

The contract is for two years, from 2024 to 2025, which is the season before the next FIA changes the aerodynamic regulations.

The other year is a team option, that is to say, if the team feels that Qin Miao has good ability, they can continue to keep Qin Miao with the same treatment, and Qin Miao cannot change jobs.

The last year is the driver's option. This year Qin Miao has the initiative. If he wants to stay, he can continue to stay and the team cannot refuse.

It can be said that the only thing that is somewhat disadvantageous to Qin Miao in this contract is the term of the contract.

All the remaining terms are favorable to Qin Miao.

After all, Ferrari is not sure whether its gamble will succeed. What if Qin Miao is given such great preferential treatment, but his performance after joining Ferrari is not satisfactory, then this deal of Ferrari may become the biggest joke in the ground effect era.

Ferrari is unsure, so the contract is only for two years, with the third year being a team option.

In addition, after Qin Miao joined Ferrari, his annual salary was 3000 million US dollars.

There is also an incentive bonus for winning the same race as Mercedes, but it is much less than when I was with Mercedes, only $10,000 for winning a race.

It's really just a literal way of asking for good luck.

However, this is nothing to Qin Miao and Ferrari, at least compared to the following terms.

Many people must have become anxious after seeing this. After all, during the last negotiation, the contract between Ferrari and Qin Miao clearly agreed on an annual salary of 5000 million US dollars. How come it became less when it was officially confirmed?

In fact, the remaining 2000 million US dollars of Qin Miao was converted into 0.7% of Ferrari shares.

That's right, not the Ferrari F1 team, but shares in Ferrari Automobiles.

In fact, Ferrari originally planned to give 3%.

However, Ferrari only gave Qin Miao shares for participating in dividends. After Qin Miao's contract with Ferrari expires, the shares will be taken back and he will no longer enjoy dividends.

However, thanks to the efforts of Qin Miao's economic team, the price was negotiated down to 0.7%.

Although these 0.7% of shares will still be recovered, they will be converted into Ferrari team shares and given to Qin Miao according to the price of Ferrari shares at that time.

The shares of the Ferrari team given to Qin Miao are permanent.

This is a very ordinary team share. If the share ratio is relatively high, Qin Miao can also get a seat on the board of directors and attend board meetings.

Naturally, you will also enjoy dividends from the team's income.

So as long as Qin Miao confirms this contract and signs it, Qin Miao will become a shareholder of Ferrari.

at the same time.

Qin Miao has the right not to participate in any commercial activities.

Can decide on the appointment and dismissal of Qin Miao’s own crew members.

On the track, Qin Miao can actively reject the Ferrari Strategy Group's team instructions to exchange positions.

Qin Miao can also ignore the team's pit stop instructions on the track.

Qin Miao can participate in Ferrari's team meetings and decide the direction of racing car research and development.

The team should actively adapt the development direction of the car to Qin Miao's driving habits.

The right to Qin Miao's portrait belongs to Qin Miao himself, and Ferrari must pay Qin Miao for using Qin Miao's portrait for publicity.

At the same time, Qin Miao became Ferrari's global ambassador, and he will also be given some money.

When Qin Miao participates in Ferrari's commercial activities, Ferrari needs to pay Qin Miao a corresponding appearance fee.

You should know that when a normal driver attends a corresponding event for the team's promotion, the team does not have to pay the driver. Because the driver's contract includes a clause that requires him to cooperate with the team's promotion, but Qin Miao is an exception.

The last one is also the most important one.

Qin Miao can impeach all Ferrari executives except Vasseur.

After receiving Qin Miao's impeachment, Ferrari must take it seriously and conduct a thorough investigation of the person Qin Miao impeached. If any problems are found, the person will be fired immediately.

At the same time, in order to prevent Qin Miao from messing around within Ferrari, this clause of Qin Miao also has an error correction mechanism, that is, if the impeachment is wrong three times, Qin Miao's right will be revoked.

But in fact, with this right, no one will make Qin Miao unhappy in work or life.

Qin Miao is unlikely to use this right.

But to be honest, all the previous clauses are just small fry, and the reason why Qin Miao really returned to Ferrari was because of this last clause.

Because of this clause, Qin Miao does not need to worry about political struggles when driving a Ferrari.

Because Qin Miao's position in Ferrari is basically second only to Vasseur.

If someone really wants to target Qin Miao, Qin Miao will impeach him directly.

At this time, someone will say that your impeachment, Qin Miao, is at most like a nuclear weapon. It does have a certain deterrent effect before it is used, but it is actually just like that after it is used. If you impeach someone without any foundation, the other party will have too many ways to deal with it.

But you have to know that F1 is a business alliance. Ferrari is the team that has been operating the longest and has been troubled by internal political struggles for the longest time.

Everyone is trying their best to join the Ferrari team, it must be because there is profit to be made within Ferrari.

Over the years, few senior executives within the Ferrari team have clean bottoms.

They all have some shit in them.

It won't stand up to scrutiny.

These are all well known to everyone, and even within Ferrari it is tacitly acknowledged that the team's top management can take some advantage of Ferrari, but the prerequisite is that you have to do things well.

Since you are focusing on the internal affairs of the team, you will definitely not be able to provide Ferrari with a good enough car like before, because the team is no longer pure.

This is equivalent to the Ferrari executives handing a knife to Qin Miao's hand. Under normal circumstances, Qin Miao would not use it, so it would be useless for him to hold it.

But once someone jumps in front of Qin Miao, Qin Miao can stab them.

After signing this contract, Qin Miao became somewhat like Erlang Xiansheng Zhenjun in Ferrari. Although I work in your heaven, I only obey orders and not announcements.

These are basically the main terms of Qin Miao's contract.

If you tell these terms to people who don't watch F1 races, they will most likely think that this is a rich young man who has been parachuted into the second-in-command position of the company.

My daily work life is nothing but playing games and slacking off in the company.

But if these terms were revealed to other teams in the paddock, the teams in the upper and middle groups would basically have no other ideas except Ferrari. They would just unanimously think that Ferrari is crazy.

Because they really can't offer such conditions.

But there are mid- and lower-level teams like Sauber, Lynk & Co, Haas and Williams.

They might not mind offering the same conditions to Qin Miao. Even if Qin Miao is willing, as long as he is willing to go, they are willing to give Qin Miao the position of team leader, or even more than 10% of the permanent team shares.

However, Qin Miao still has some aspirations. He wants to gain a superior team status and have a car that can compete for the world championship. Who would be willing to be the pillar of a weak team?

All in all, the above are probably the conditions that the Ferrari team offered to Qin Miao.

It can be considered very generous, and it is almost enough to give it directly to Qin Miao.

After reading the contract and confirming that the terms had been negotiated in advance and no additions or reductions had been made, Qin Miao handed the contract to the lawyer he brought with him.

Although it has been confirmed by someone from his own agency, there is an old Chinese saying that goes, "It is better to be safe than sorry."

After all, the amount involved in this contract is really too large. A difference in punctuation and words may very likely make this contract have completely different effects and functions. Therefore, after Qin Miao, the party concerned, confirms that there are no problems with the contract terms, he still needs someone to confirm that there are no problems with the text and punctuation, and that there are no ambiguities before he can sign.

While the lawyers Qin Miao brought were confirming the terms and conditions, Wasser and Qin Miao also left the room, found a place to sit down in the lobby outside and ordered some food.

Since it is a restaurant for Ferrari fans, the food served here is naturally Italian.

Qin Miao also lived in Maranello for quite some time, so he was familiar with the taste of Italian food and had no difficulty adapting.

While sitting down and waiting for the food to be served, Vasseur asked Qin Miao, "How have you been recently? I see that your situation in the driver's standings is not optimistic."

Qin Miao took off his mask after finding that there were no customers on the second floor. He said, "There's nothing I can do. The Red Bull cars this season are absolutely too powerful. They are fast and balanced. On those relatively balanced tracks, the W14's advantages can't be brought into play at all. On tracks like Monaco, it can't even outperform Aston Martin."

"So what kind of car do you want to drive next season? We can optimize the car's performance on the track for you in advance, which can at least reduce some of your adaptation time." Vasseur looked at Qin Miao and said.

Qin Miao scratched his head. To be honest, he was really flattered by Ferrari's behavior.

It can be seen that Ferrari really values ​​me and wants me to win another driver's world championship for Ferrari.

Vasseur's concern is basically the problem that every driver will encounter more or less after joining a new team, that is, not adapting to the characteristics of the team's car.

But Qin Miao has the system after all, and he also has skills, so he is basically not afraid of the rookie wall problem of getting familiar with racing from scratch.

No matter what car he is given, he can adapt to it quickly and bring out all the performance of the car.

So Qin Miao thought about it and said, "Actually, you don't have to waste too much time on this."

Wasser looked at Qin Miao with a truth-seeking look, wanting Qin Miao to give an answer.

Qin Miao said: "Do you know what Verstappen's greatest characteristic is?"

Vasseur briefly recalled the information Ferrari had collected about Verstappen, and then said: "Outstanding ability and stability in rain battles?"

Qin Miao was stunned, then nodded and said: "It is undeniable that this is also one of Verstappen's advantages, but Verstappen's real strength is actually his ability to adapt.

In fact, many times the cars designed by Red Bull are not that easy to drive, but at the same time, the performance of the car is indeed very strong. The point where Verstappen is better than his previous teammates is that he can adapt to this kind of car that is not easy to control and bring out the performance of the car.

Therefore, Red Bull can recklessly increase the performance of the car without considering the degree of adaptation between the car and the driver, because no matter how difficult they design it to drive, as long as the consistency of the car is the same, Verstappen can control it. "

Wasser's eyes lit up: "What do you mean?" (End of this chapter)