How did I become an F1 driver?

And it's not just Leclerc. Leclerc's teammate Sainz also missed the press conference for today's race due to physical reasons.

With both Ferrari drivers absent, the fans began to wonder if someone had drugged the food prepared for Ferrari.

But it turned out that except for the two Ferrari drivers, the other Ferrari team members were safe.

This also ruled out the possibility that someone had put drugs in the convoy's food.

In fact, this is true. It was just a coincidence that they both got sick.

Strictly speaking, Leclerc was not sick, but Sainz was.

Leclerc ate ​​too much yesterday and didn't feel unwell when he went home at night, but the first thing he did when he woke up the next day was poop.

Then I started to have diarrhea and almost fainted.

Leclerc also suspected that there might be something wrong with the meal Qin Miao cooked yesterday.

But after calling to ask, I found out that except for myself, the other three people were fine after returning home. Even Gasley, who usually doesn't eat spicy food, was full of energy the next day.

After Qin Miao and the others found out, they were also confused. When did the fourth brother's body resistance become so weak?

Afterwards, Ferrari checked what Leclerc had eaten on Wednesday and Thursday and found that Leclerc's diarrhea was not caused by his diet.

It was Leclerc's own carelessness.

After eating, Leclerc did some exercise and then drank a bottle of ice water.

In fact, normally speaking, given Leclerc's physical fitness, this set of small combos wouldn't be a big deal.

But the key is that chili is also an irritant to Leclerc's stomach and intestines. With these two factors combined, Leclerc started to have diarrhea.

To be honest, the fact that Lao Si didn't even jump onto the bed in the hotel already meant that his anus was tightly closed. If it was Lao Zhan, he would have probably ejaculated directly.

Of course, the two Ferrari drivers only missed the pre-race press conference. They can still participate in the practice and race stages normally.

Even after completing his work on Thursday, Qin Miao met Leclerc in the Ferrari P room.

However, seeing that he was communicating with the team staff, he was probably a bit busy, so Qin Miao did not go over to laugh at him.

Time passed and soon it was Friday, the time for the first and second training sessions to begin.

There was not much worth mentioning during the practice session. Both Mercedes drivers Qin Miao and Lao Han conducted short-distance tests during this stage, but the results of several tests were satisfactory to everyone.

The two drivers did not encounter any accidents during the practice session and completed all the work in the first practice session smoothly.

Of course, after the first practice session, the two drivers' results were not outstanding, but the fans of the Mercedes team have become accustomed to this.

In the past, when the old man's car performance was strong enough, he would often beat all drivers during the practice session.

No matter how good your results are in the practice match, they are not a real reference, after all, no one will go all out in the practice match.

But since Qin Miao came to Mercedes-Benz, the old man has become a little incompetent in the practice session because of Qin Miao's leadership.

During this period, the two Mercedes drivers were not too concerned about their own lap speed and ranking in the leaderboard. They were more concerned about how to allow the team to collect more data during the practice session and try their best to find the most comfortable tuning settings for themselves.

In the second practice phase, everyone conducted long-distance tests on the track.

After all, the pressure during the long-distance testing phase was not great, so the drivers did not make any irreparable mistakes on the track during the second practice phase.

The best you can do is draw a spinning top on the track.

Therefore, the second training session ended uneventfully.

The third practice session on Saturday was to finish up the tests that had not been completed in yesterday's two practice sessions. Qin Miao clocked out early with 20 minutes left before the end of the third practice session.

This is the efficiency of the working god.

Soon it was time for qualifying.

I won’t go into details about Q1 and Q2 here, there is no reason for the two Mercedes drivers to be eliminated at this stage.

Although it is not to say that they can get into Q3 with their eyes closed, it is indeed easy for them to get into Q3 by driving more conservatively.

The only thing worth mentioning is that in this qualifying race, Sauber actually advanced both cars to Q3.

As for why...

Perhaps it is because Mexico City is at too high an altitude, and the overall air resistance encountered by the Sauber car in Mexico City is much smaller than that at low-altitude tracks.

With less resistance, the load on Sauber's broken gearbox is naturally not as heavy as on a normal track, so the acceleration capability of the Ferrari engine can be brought into play.

The speed naturally increased.

In fact, to be honest, the Sauber team has a solid foundation, so they are very good at designing the aerodynamics of the car.

But the point is, that crappy gearbox they built to save money is really holding the car back.

If Sauber gave up developing its own gearbox and purchased Ferrari's gearbox, although it might be much more expensive, at least it would not lag behind in terms of straight-line acceleration and starting.

The team can also have more hope.

But then again, if Sauber really did this, they wouldn't have that much money to invest in research on aerodynamic components for racing cars.

On the contrary, the lap time may be even slower.

I can only say that this is the tragedy of small teams.

Other big teams are complaining that the budget cap limit given by the FIA ​​is simply not enough, and small teams like Sauber's annual investment does not even reach the edge of the budget cap.

In Q3, Qin Miao performed very well in the first flying lap.

He immediately took first place, 0.1 second faster than Leclerc who was in second place.

However, when the qualifying race came to the last flying lap of Q3, Qin Miao discovered somewhat helplessly that the engines of these old Ferraris seemed a bit too powerful.

After arriving at the high altitude area, W14 was more or less affected by the high altitude.

Although the team upgraded the intake efficiency and heat dissipation capacity of the racing engine during this period.

However, the effect was limited, but Ferrari seemed to be unaffected, and its final speed in the qualifying round directly exceeded that of Mercedes' W14.

At the end of T1, the car reached a final speed of 358 kilometers per hour.

The Mercedes-Benz only ran 355 on the starting straight this weekend. At the end of Q3, because of this small difference in speed, Qin Miao only ranked second in the qualifying rankings, 0.009 seconds slower than Leclerc.

The qualifying race was over, and Qin Miao, who was running back to the track, felt a little numb when he heard the news while sitting in the car.

Is this bastard Leclerc trying to mess with my mentality?
You said you are not competing for the world championship or the constructors' championship or anything like that.

It's the end of the season now, why are you here to join in the fun?
Once would be fine, but it happened twice in a row. Are you trying to put pressure on me?
Can't you just give me the pole position? You said that even if you get the pole position, you can't win the race. Isn't this reducing your chances of winning?

After seeing Leclerc's results, Qin Miao complained a lot in his helmet.

But he didn't turn on the mic.

Moreover, during the post-race interview after the qualifying race, Qin Miao did not say anything to Leclerc.

Because of Qin Miao's understanding of Leclerc, he knew that if he went to complain to Leclerc at this time, Leclerc would not comfort him or say a few words of modesty. This guy would definitely show off in front of him and then pretend to be awesome.

Qin Miao can accept his failure on the track.

After all, the sport of F1 is not an individual performance. Many times, what determines the outcome of a race is not just the performance of the driver, but also the performance of the team staff and the performance of the car.

Qin Miao was willing to accept his failure, but he could not accept that after his failure, Leclerc would jump in his face and mock him.

I don't want to see this guy showing off in front of me.

Seeing Leclerc defeating him and then showing off in front of him really made him feel more uncomfortable than killing Qin Miao.

After the game, Qin Miao went through the normal post-game procedures, wiping his sweat and weighing himself.

Qin Miao had just finished most of the work at hand and was about to go to the post-race interview when he saw Leclerc walking up from the corner of his eye.

After noticing the faint smile on Leclerc's face, Qin Miao went straight to Rosberg at lightning speed and started his post-race interview.

After seeing Qin Miao's smooth little combo, Leclerc made a displeased sound.

But he couldn't really disturb Qin Miao's post-match interview.

So I can only pretend again after a while.

Then, after Qin Miao finished the post-race interview, he slipped away before Leclerc and Sainz finished their post-race interviews.

Leclerc, who had finished his post-race interview and was about to chat with Qin Miao, turned around and saw.

?

Where is Qin Miao?

No, buddy?
No chance at all???
To be honest, Leclerc felt uncomfortable for not being able to show off in front of Qin Miao after getting the pole position.

Finally, after the qualifying session, the drivers' rankings in the qualifying session and the starting order for tomorrow's race are as follows:
1: Charles Leclerc (1:17.166)

2: Qin Miao

3: Sainz
4: Hamilton

5: Verstappen

6: Ricardo
7: Perez
8: Piastri
9: Bottas
10: Zhou Guanyu
There is nothing much to say about the first two drivers, as I have just said.

Sainz, who was in third place, beat Hamilton by 3 second to get this position. It can only be said that sometimes it depends not only on your own strength, but luck is also part of strength.

And from the situation in today's qualifying race, it can be seen that at the Rodriguez Brothers Circuit, at least in terms of single lap speed in qualifying, the performance of Ferrari and Mercedes cars is basically the same.

As for Verstappen, it can only be said that the Red Bull car is indeed limited on this high-altitude track. In addition, most of the corners on the Mexico City circuit are right-angle turns, and the grip demand for the car in medium and high-speed corners is not that great.

It can be said that Mexico City is the least suitable track for Red Bull RB19.

During the qualifying round, a star also appeared, that was Ricardo from the Lynk & Co team.

He appeared in a ranking position where, under normal circumstances, it would be difficult to see his name.

In today's race, Lynk & Co's performance actually exceeded everyone's expectations.

Before the qualifying session began, Lynk & Co replaced new engine parts for Yuki Tsunoda. Because they exceeded the FIA's usage restrictions, no matter what results Yuki Tsunoda achieved in the qualifying session, he would be penalized and start at the end of the team.

Therefore, in the Q1 stage of qualifying, Yuki Tsunoda did not think about achieving any results for himself. Instead, under the instructions of the team, he helped Ricciardo to create a slipstream on the track.

However, even though he only ran one flying lap on the track while helping Ricardo to pull the slipstream, the result of that flying lap directly allowed Yuki Tsunoda to enter Q2.

Although Yuki Tsunoda did not continue running after entering Q2, this is enough to prove how strong the Lynk & Co car is on a high-altitude track like Mexico City.

Ricciardo did not disappoint the team's expectations of him. After entering Q3, he finished sixth, even surpassing Red Bull's Perez.

In fact, compared to Lynk & Co after seeing Ricciardo finish sixth, Red Bull was more surprised and happy.

If Ricciardo's performance in the race is good enough, he may not even need to defeat Perez on the track. After all, there is an objectively huge performance gap between Red Bull and Lynk & Co.

Therefore, Red Bull's expectation for Ricciardo is just that his performance in the race is outstanding enough.

As long as Ricciardo performs well in today's game, he will be back in Red Bull's sights.

Red Bull's top brass will also consider replacing Perez with Ricciardo.

As for the driver contract that Red Bull just signed with Perez after this really happened...

Doesn't Ferrari have a driver who is on the bench? As long as Ricciardo's ability is up to expectations, what's the problem with Perez being on the bench?

Moreover, Red Bull has changed drivers in the middle of the season many times, and everyone must have expected this.

So if Ricciardo's performance in this race is really good enough, the most likely thing that will happen between Red Bull and Lynk & Co is that Ricciardo and Perez will exchange positions.

As for why Lynk & Co agreed to the exchange with Red Bull...

Lynk & Co's acquisition of Red Bull's second team will definitely require some blending, and this blending process will naturally involve some harmless concessions.

After all, Red Bull didn't want to sell at the time, but because of the instigation of the FIA ​​and the other eight teams in the paddock, as well as various external pressures and political factors, Red Bull had to sell.

During this process, Red Bull must have found a way to make some money for itself. Red Bull already had this privilege during its early days as a toro Rosso player.

Besides, Ricardo is not Qin Miao, so it’s not that difficult to give up.

Even Lynk & Co may not want Perez, after all, there is still Ye Yifei coveting the position of Lynk & Co. (End of this chapter)