How Did I Become an F1 Driver?

Chapter 943 373: Surprises Abound in Qualifying

In any case, after the first practice ended, Qin Miao also completed all the testing tasks assigned by the team.The speed of the car was roughly the same as the speed given by the team's simulator.

The good news is that by the time of the qualifying race, the rain had stopped, the track had dried up, and Qin Miao's testing efficiency was restored.

And because it rained during the first practice, Qin Miao's dry tires were almost completely unused. Seeing so many of his tires intact, Qin Miao felt a subtle sense of reassurance.

Is this what it means to feel secure with resources in hand?

There's no need to elaborate much on the second and third practice sessions, and time quickly arrived at the qualifying race.

Today's qualifying race, like yesterday's, had rain.

However, the rain was light, and after running two laps, a clear driving line appeared on the track.

Seeing this, many who were familiar with Qin Miao's characteristics began to wonder whether his speed on such a semi-dry, semi-wet track would resemble his performance on dry ground or wet conditions?

Inside the car, after hearing Frankie discuss today's qualifying stage weather and track conditions, Q1 began.

It is worth mentioning that in today's race, both the Mercedes and Alfa Romeo cars were the first to come out and run.

However, whether it was Qin Miao or the other three drivers, the results at the start were not very good, after all, there was still some water on the track.

As a result, after completing their first flying lap, Qin Miao and Hamilton, the two Mercedes drivers, did not choose to return to the pit for a break. Instead, they entered the pit area like during the race and switched to a new set of tires before returning to the track to continue running.

Because as time goes on, track conditions improve, and naturally, the qualifying single-lap speed will get faster.

Therefore, the team had Qin Miao and Hamilton continue to stay on the track.

It's just that shortly after Qin Miao started using the second set of soft tires, an unexpected incident occurred on the track.

Albon's car's right rear tire caught fire, and the car ran wildly on the track with a long trail of flames.

Although Albon quickly learned about the issue through the team radio and slowed down, during the time he tried to drive his car back to the pit area, Albon's car brake disc exploded due to excessive temperature.

Because Albon's right rear brake disc exploded directly, scattering debris on the track, the race committee deployed a safety car.

Fortunately, the soft tires on Qin Miao's side hadn't officially started flying laps yet, and after returning to the pit area, with a little warming, they could still be used.

The red flag duration was not very long, just about 20 minutes.

After the race resumed, no other incidents occurred during the Q1 stage.

However, after completing their first flying lap, Mercedes discovered a problem.

The issue was that Mercedes' W13 still exhibited porpoising on this type of high-speed track.

Especially, Imola is a high-speed track with long straights, and the starting straight is considered one of the longest straights in this year's calendar.

Therefore, although both Qin Miao and Hamilton advanced to Q2, Qin Miao advanced in tenth place into Q2, and Hamilton only narrowly made it in fifteenth place.

In contrast to the poor performance of Qin Miao and Hamilton in Q1, it was surprising that Zhou Guanyu actually advanced in fourth place to Q2, 0.7 seconds faster than his teammate Bottas.

Of course, this might also be because other teams' drivers didn't fully unleash their strength during the Q1 stage.

In the Q2 stage, no surprises occurred, though there were no crashes in Q2.

However, Mercedes' cars seemed to be lackluster in this qualifying race, even though Qin Miao unprecedentedly used three sets of new soft tires in Q2, it still couldn't change the final results of this qualifying Q2.

Both Mercedes drivers were eliminated in eleventh and twelfth positions.

Actually, the folks at Mercedes also knew that this race wasn't due to any issue with the car, as this week's team updates focused more on weight reduction.

Many F1 car updates might be regressive, but not weight reduction.

No matter how much you reduce the weight, as long as you don't disrupt the overall balance of the car, it is a positive upgrade for the car.

And those small wings on both sides of the cockpit were mainly to guide the airflow, and the car's overall speed wasn't affected by losing those wings.

Nonetheless, even the two Mercedes cars were eliminated in Q2, which only indicates that Mercedes' current car is indeed not suitable for ultra-fast tracks like Imola.

In the end, the drivers eliminated in Q2 were: Qin Miao, Hamilton, Zhou Guanyu, Mick, Stroll.

Upon receiving this news, both Five-Star Sports and domestic fans were initially somewhat incredulous.

However, they quickly accepted the result, after all, before today, Qin Miao's teammate Hamilton had already experienced elimination in Q1 once, so fans were mentally prepared.

When Qin Miao drove his car back to the pit area and parked it, Frankie and others surrounded him.

They knew that now was not the time to feel bad for themselves. More important than their own surprise at both drivers being eliminated in Q2 was to take good care of Qin Miao's emotions at this moment.