How did I become an F1 driver?

Qin Miao's main opponent in this race, Verstappen, did not run very well in the last lap, with yellow cards in the second and third timing periods, and ultimately only got the first fifth place.

In fact, throughout the sprint qualifying stage, Verstappen's performance was not very good. Not only Verstappen, Perez's performance in today's race was not very good either.

Mercedes' strategy team quickly figured out why Red Bull was in this situation.

The tuning that Red Bull has done for the two cars is most likely only suitable for the track conditions after the track temperature drops at night.

The sprint qualifying before the sprint race is held in the afternoon.

Although the sun was setting, the temperature on the track was still very high.

You should know that even hot melt tires have an optimal working temperature range.

High or low temperature will affect the working condition of the tire.

In such an extremely high temperature track environment, the mechanical grip of the Red Bull car may be relatively poor.

Although the two Mercedes cars encountered the same problem, the two Mercedes drivers had almost adapted to the characteristics of the W14 on the track in a season.

Therefore, when running, the decrease in mechanical grip caused by the ultra-high temperature track did not affect the performance of the two drivers.

The rankings for the final sprint qualifying stage are as follows:
1: Qin Miao (1:23.995)

2: Piastri
3: Hamilton

4: Norris
5: Verstappen

6: Sainz
7: Leclerc

8: Hulkenberg

9: Perez
10: Alonso
The sprint race was held at night, which was a return to Red Bull’s comfort zone.

The top four in this race all started on soft tires, while Verstappen used medium tires.

Qin Miao was in pole position, needless to say. Just by seeing Qin Miao starting from pole position, many fans who knew Qin Miao well already knew who would be the champion of this sprint race.

On those betting sites, the odds of Qin Miao winning this race are pitifully low, but there are still many people flocking to it, because everyone knows that with the performance of the W14 and Qin Miao's lap speed at the moment, unless Qin Miao is torpedoed by Piastri or Hamilton behind him at the start of this race, there is no reason why Qin Miao will not win the championship.

After the start, Qin Miao stabilized his position. Then, using soft tires, Qin Miao began to quickly widen the time gap between him and Hamilton behind him.

On this track, Qin Miao's lap speed is 0.2 seconds faster than the old man.

The old man also asked Qin Miao what the reason was, but Qin Miao himself didn't know why.

In the first 10 laps of the sprint race, the main tone was that Qin Miao quickly widened the time gap between himself and the driver behind him, while Verstappen at the back continued to overtake the driver in front while waiting for DRS to turn on.

In fact, Verstappen's reaction speed at the start is faster than Norris's when he starts from the dirty side.

But the problem is that Norris used soft tires when he started. Even if Verstappen started faster, after entering the curve, Norris still relied on the huge grip advantage brought by the soft tires of his car to overtake Verstappen on the inside.

It was not until the third lap, when the DRS was turned on, that Verstappen began to chop and chop on the track.

Newey really lived up to his reputation as a master of aerodynamics. The incredible DRS efficiency of the RB19 he designed made Mercedes' Elliott very jealous.

If the W14 can have such terrifying DRS efficiency, Mercedes will not be unable to compete with Red Bull even in Monaco.

By the end of the tenth lap, there was a 3.1 second gap between Qin Miao and Hamilton behind him.

At this time, the driver behind the old man had changed from Piastri to Verstappen.

And considering the durability of the old man's soft tires at that time, it would only take two or three laps for him to be defeated by Verstappen.

But on the 11th lap, an accident occurred on the track.

Perez, Ocon and Hulkenberg entered the turn side by side.

No one gave in to anyone.

You have to know that in the F1 arena, when two cars enter a corner side by side it is called wheel-to-wheel, which is a very exciting form of attack and defense.

Under such circumstances, the drivers of both cars will focus their main attention on the car next to them.

In such a situation, unless one driver gets carried away, it is difficult for any accident to happen between the two people fighting on the track.

But it’s different with three cars abreast, you have to pay attention to two cars by yourself, and you have to race on the track, controlling the cars entering and exiting corners and so on.

Under such circumstances, collisions between drivers can easily occur.

Moreover, in this state, if a collision occurs, the worst sufferers are the drivers on both sides, not the driver who is sandwiched in the middle.

The car in the middle knows it is sandwiched and will slow down, but due to the headrests in an F1 car, the driver's field of vision is not very good.

The drivers on both sides did not know that the car in the middle had slowed down.

Even if they knew that the car in the middle had slowed down, they couldn't always stare at the rearview mirror when entering the corner to determine the position of the car behind them.

Then the three cars collided on the track due to distance issues.

At that time, Hulkenberg was sandwiched between two cars. After realizing that his position was very dangerous, Hulkenberg immediately tried to slow down in an attempt to escape the fate of being sandwiched.

He didn't want to be stuck between the two drivers and explode with them.

But at the same time, Ocon on the inside noticed that Hulkenberg had slowed down, so he moved closer to the outside, trying to get more space to enter the corner so that he could enter the corner faster.

But he misjudged the extent of Hulkenberg's deceleration.

While Hulkenberg was still wheel-to-wheel with Ocon, Ocon was still squeezing towards the inside, so that Hulkenberg had nowhere to hide in the end.

As a result, the two collided on the track.

After the collision, the suspension of the right rear wheel of Ocon's car broke on the spot, and the rear of the car swung towards Perez on the right.

The collision between Hulkenberg and Ocon was a standard front wheel hitting rear wheel.

So there's actually nothing big going on with Hulkenberg's car.

It was only because of that collision that the car had more speed, so it ran off the track, but compared to the two in front of him, Hulkenberg was in much better condition.

As for the two drivers in front of him... After Ocon's car deviated, its tail swung directly onto the side box of Perez's car like a dragon's tail, knocking Perez directly off the track.

Both of them rushed into the sand and gravel buffer zone on the outside of the track.

The gravel runoff zone at the Qatar Grand Prix track is real sand.

The filling in the buffer zone is extremely fine, and if the car's speed is not high enough, you literally cannot get out once you drive in.

Regardless of the damage to their cars, after sliding into the buffer zone and coming to a stop there, their retirement was already inevitable.

Hulkenberg escaped because he was not fast enough.

Of course, the person who was happiest about this accident was actually Gasly who was behind the three of them. Not only did the three people in front of him rush off the track, but he himself also came directly to the entrance of the points area.

If this was the race, Gasly would at least get two points.

It’s a pity that today’s race is a sprint race and only the top eight will get points.

But Gasly believes that with the current weak performance of Alonso's car, it is only a matter of time before he surpasses him on the track.

This accident involving the three drivers in front was a complete windfall for Gasly.

The most important thing is that among those unlucky people there are your teammates, which makes me even more happy.

After the accident, the race committee deployed yellow flags and the safety car. Ocon and Perez's cars retired after getting stuck in the sand and gravel. Although Hulkenberg escaped, the Haas car he was driving was not a Mercedes after all, and did not have such a strong suspension.

After the collision, although Hulkenberg's car was still able to drive, the front of the car was slightly tilted. For the driver's safety, Haas finally let Hulkenberg return to the maintenance area and retire.

The safety car was on the track for four laps and was not restarted until the 15th lap.

The sprint race only has 19 laps in total.

There were only four laps left in the race, and Verstappen was still trapped behind Hamilton.

With Qin Miao's help and without DRS, Verstappen was naturally unable to move forward behind Hamilton.

And the DRS of the race was turned on on the 18th lap, when there was only one lap left until the end of the sprint race.

The final result is self-evident.

Verstappen didn't even overtake Hamilton in front of him at the end of the race.

The final sprint race ended, and the rankings and scores of the drivers are as follows:

P1: Qin Miao +8
P2: Hamilton +7
P3: Verstappen +6
P4: Piastri +5
P5: Norris +4
P6: Sainz +3
P7: Albon +2
P8: Alonso +1
I won’t go into details about the award ceremony after the game.

In the driver's standings, the points gap between Qin Miao and Verstappen was narrowed by two points.

Although these two points are not a lot, they add up to a lot. If Qin Miao scores in every sprint race or every game, he can narrow the two-point gap between himself and Verstappen in the standings.

Then when the season ends... Well, narrowing the gap by two points per game is not enough. If Qin Miao wants to beat Verstappen by the end of the season, he must at least narrow the gap by three points per game...

All in all, Qin Miao didn't celebrate much after the race. After receiving the trophy for the championship and returning to the team's P room, Qin Miao and the old man wanted to start processing the data collected from the sprint stage of this Grand Prix weekend.

Although both drivers wanted to improve, they were the only ones to win this race, so after the race, they were pulled over by other team staff to have a drink.

Qin Miao didn't drink alcohol at first, and everyone knew that he didn't drink alcohol. But Qin Miao broke his rules when he was on the podium. After taking a sip of champagne, everyone seemed to have caught something extraordinary and wouldn't let go of Qin Miao's pigtails.

From then on, almost every time there was a dinner party, Mercedes-Benz's standard entertainment program included asking Qin Miao to drink.

Of course, everyone knows that as an F1 driver, Qin Miao’s reaction speed is the foundation of his success.

So despite the commotion, the drink Qin Miao received was wheat juice with a very low alcohol content, so it wouldn't cause any trouble.

After a brief celebration, Qin Miao and the old man continued to discuss racing car tuning.

Soon it was the second day, Sunday's main race.

But before the game started, the organizers came up with a new rule.

According to Pirelli's inspection of tire recycling after the sprint race, they found that even though the three hardest sets of tires, C1~C3, were given out during this Grand Prix weekend to prevent excessive wear of the tires, the tires still showed varying degrees of excessive wear after the sprint race.

If some drivers continue to run in the normal way, there is a high possibility of a tire blowout on the track during the race.

So for safety reasons, Pirelli and the FIA ​​have decided that all drivers will need to make three stops during the main race of this Grand Prix weekend.

To be honest, when the FIA ​​and Pirelli announced this news, their reasons and rationality were impeccable.

But for some reason, Qin Miao always felt that the rules introduced by the FIA ​​and Pirelli were aimed at him.

Qin Miao has a strong premonition that if his performance in this race is not as good as before, the FIA ​​will most likely normalize this rule in the near future.

Qin Miao even thought of the reason for them: [In order to increase the viewing and fun of F1 races and save the ratings of F1 races which have been gradually declining, the race committee has decided that starting from next season, the number of pit stops for tire changes in each race must not be less than two.]

Of course, if this situation really happened, Qin Miao would not panic.

Anyway, I won't be staying in Mercedes next season. If I go to Ferrari, the FIA ​​will have no reason to keep an eye on me.

Even the FIA ​​and Pirelli wish they could be in Ferrari and bring a drivers' championship for Ferrari.

In this way, those old fans who had abandoned Ferrari because of its increasingly poor performance will definitely come back to take a look.

Won’t the ratings come back by then?

However, what happened in the next race made Qin Miao and the FIA ​​realize that this race did not produce the results the FIA ​​wanted to see because of their attempts.

Before the start of the race on Sunday, the sun was no longer on the track and the temperature that remained on the track during the day was slowly fading away.

Compared to the main race last night, the temperature on the track is more comfortable at this time.

But it was still a bit hot, plus the track was built right on the seaside and there was basically no wind on the track today, so the whole scene seemed a bit stuffy.

It’s similar to the feeling when I ran the Singapore Grand Prix.

Of course, under normal circumstances, drivers are able to overcome the changes in temperature and humidity on these tracks. (End of this chapter)