How Did I Become an F1 Driver?

Chapter 933 369: The First Yellow Flag (Part 2)

This completely comes off as the kind of playful banter among friends. Despite falling behind Qin Miao, Qin Miao's duel with the car in front can effectively increase exposure for the Mercedes team sponsor, but it conflicts with the team's own interests. Frankie saw that Qin Miao was lonely cruising the track in both races and gave Qin Miao this idea.Qin Miao actually considered Frankie's suggestion for a bit, but ultimately shook his head and said, "Possible, but unnecessary. Given that my tires might be a bit tight in this race, I'll likely remain in tire-conservation mode."

"Of course, I'm just offering a suggestion…"

"Qin Miao! The car is ready, come over for acceptance." Reyes's voice came over.

Qin Miao reached out and patted Frankie's shoulder, then dragged his chair away.

...

After completing the final inspection of the car, Qin Miao went to the track with his car.

By the time Five-Star Sports' broadcast camera cut to the track, Qin Miao was already sitting in the car adjusting his gloves and helmet.

Soon, the warm-up lap began.

"Haoran, in this race we see that Qin Miao is still starting with soft tires. But we all know the three tires for this race are jump tires: C5C3C2. Thus, we know the C5 soft tires don't have the same endurance as normal soft tires. In normal conditions, how many laps can this C5 soft tire last in the main stage of the race?" The commentators covering the race for Five-Star Sports naturally used Qin Miao as the primary topic for today's job.

Zhou Haoran didn't even look at his recorded notes, and directly said, "Actually the use of jump tires in this race was because this season's C4 at Albert Park has grip almost identical to C3, thus the speeds of both tires are the same, but the durability varies greatly. Therefore, the committee ultimately chose to use C5 as the soft tire option for this race."

After stating that, Zhou Haoran went back to the main topic: "Under normal circumstances, C5 can last a maximum of 13 laps, even then it's under light fuel conditions.

But if it's the starting phase, when the cars are fully fueled, this number would decrease, perhaps only about 10 laps. Hence, I'm curious why Qin Miao chose to start with soft tires."

"Is it possible that Qin Miao plans to use a two-stop strategy in the main race stage?" Fei curiously posed another hypothesis.

But Bing quickly dispelled it: "Actually, given Mercedes team's current speed, this choice is completely unnecessary. For long-distance speed, Mercedes team can't catch up with Ferrari and Red Bull. Throughout this race, they may just cruise. There's no need to complicate things, generating more risk for scores that could have been steadily secured.

In any case, we still hope that this race will bring some surprises from Qin Miao and Mercedes. We hope the upgrades introduced by Mercedes this week will have their expected effect." Bing conveyed this while all drivers had completed their warm-up lap and parked their cars in position, with Qin Miao included.

On the track, Qin Miao glanced at Hamilton's position.

Among all the races today, only Qin Miao started with soft tires; the rest of the top ten drivers besides Qin Miao were using medium tires.

Thus, in the starting phase, he shouldn't need to face Hamilton's attack, as for the three ahead...

Qin Miao focused on Perez.

Verstappen was directly ahead, and the two-car length distance wasn't something Qin Miao could easily close. So Qin Miao set his goal for this race to attempt to overtake Perez in front, aiming for a podium position.

Soon, the five red lights gradually illuminated and Qin Miao started giving it throttle, increasing engine revs.

Once the five red lights were fully lit and then extinguished, Qin Miao sharply released the clutch button on his steering wheel, and the car instantly launched.

After the start, Qin Miao's speed was significantly faster than Hamilton, quickly widening the distance between them, meanwhile Perez didn't start well for this race, seemingly feeling the pressure from Qin Miao.

And as the four drivers ahead approached T1, Qin Miao had already wedged half a car body into Perez's inside line.

During the T1 phase, Qin Miao braked normally into the turn, and at the turn's core, Qin Miao and Perez were already wheel-to-wheel.

After exiting the turn, Qin Miao naturally maximized the advantage of the soft tires, accelerating at least 5 meters earlier than Perez.

The Mercedes engine's low-speed acceleration is faster than Honda's engine, even though the Mercedes car has certain aerodynamic flaws on the undertray, it hasn't reached conditions where the ground effects are realized in such low-speed turns.

Thus, after exiting the turn, Qin Miao came ahead of Perez, upgrading his position to third.

"Beautiful! Qin Miao! Incredible start, tough move into T1! Directly overtook Perez, reached third!" At this time the commentators also forgot Qin Miao was using soft tires, seeing Qin Miao's position out loud: "Could Qin Miao achieve another podium in this race?"

On the track, after overtaking Perez, Qin Miao's inner desire grew. If overtaking Perez was so easy, could he also attempt to overtake Verstappen ahead?

Thus, Qin Miao stayed closely behind Verstappen, persistently squeezing his soft tire set, wanting to remain in Verstappen's DRS zone, waiting for DRS to be enabled by the committee.

Only, in Lap 2's T12, Sainz, who's been losing positions since the start, made an error at this location, driving off the track. The entire car went into the grass, and then due to inertia, it traversed the whole track, ultimately stuck in the off-track sand trap.

Although after Sainz's car stopped he attempted restarting.

But the car sunk, and the undertray contacted the sand trap. No matter how hard Sainz pressed the accelerator, only his rear wheels spun idle, unable to provide any power.

Sandy tracks are known in F1; once a car goes in and stops, it practically guarantees a withdrawal from the race.

Therefore, in the second lap of the race, Ferrari, who's performed stunningly this season, had a driver withdraw from podium contention.

The yellow flag on the track soon evolved into a virtual safety car, and finally became a real safety car.

Notably, Zhou Guanyu was right behind Sainz, witnessing Sainz attempting to overtake at T11, missing the braking point, and rushing into the outside T11 grass losing grip, then directly charging into the outside sand trap of T12.

Many might think how could Sainz drive off the track like that, it's too amateur.

Yet Ferrari insiders know this mishap can't wholly blame Sainz, as his main steering wheel discovered wouldn't power-on during checks on the track.

With less than five minutes to the race start, there wasn't time to repair that steering wheel. So the team hastily swapped Sainz to a backup one, which didn't include the setup recorded from Sainz's practice runs. Thus, this race for Sainz was like wielding unfamiliar weaponry in battle.

Therefore, Sainz's withdrawal could be partly justified.

ps. Happy New Year to everyone, may the Dragon Year bring prosperity!

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