How did I become an F1 driver?

Chapter 400 Chapter 403: The brave Mercedes
However, at the Silverstone track, the performance of the Red Bull car is basically the same as that of Ferrari.

This is not a good thing for Ferrari. After all, at the beginning of the season, the performance of the Red Bull car was obviously not as good as Ferrari.

However, at this point in time approaching the middle of the season, Ferrari's car is on par with Red Bull. This can only mean that Ferrari's car is not as fast as Red Bull in its later upgrades.

Afterwards, Leclerc and Verstappen also made some offensive and defensive attempts on the track.

However, the positions among the six people in front did not change in rankings until the end of the first lap and the car formation was straightened out.

However, Leclerc's left front nose end panel was knocked off during the fight with Verstappen.

Perez also broke his right front end plate due to a struggle with Leclerc at the start of the race.

But despite this, the two drivers continued to run on the track with the damaged end plate.

However, when the race came to the third lap and DRS was turned on, Leclerc had already pushed away Perez behind him by 4.7 seconds.

It was clear that Perez's car was more damaged than Leclerc's.

However, T15 is a long right turn after all, so Hamilton on the inside has a route advantage.

Facing Qin Miao's attack, Hamilton's defensive actions were very resolute.

Of course, before Qin Miao joined F1, the title of tire protection master belonged to Perez.

Before the T16 braking point, Qin Miao slammed on the brakes and increased the braking ratio of the front wheels by 15%.

It's possible that Perez was trying to protect his tire, but in any case, Perez has basically missed the fight for the top four.

However, Qin Miao did not follow Hamilton's rhythm. Instead, he accelerated on the driving line of the track, avoiding possible bumps on the track as much as possible, and giving the car and engine the best acceleration conditions.

Qin Miao was actually ready to be squeezed out by Hamilton, but what Qin Miao didn't expect was that Hamilton actually left a place for himself.

At this time, Hamilton no longer had the DRS provided by the driver in front, and the overall speed was not as fast as Qin Miao. He was still a little uncomfortable with the current W13. Although many modifications had been made to the car at this time for Hamilton, it was obviously still to no avail.

The two Mercedes entered T15 almost in tandem.

After entering the DRS area, Qin Miao turned on DRS and fully discharged the battery, which had reached 70% power.

In fact, the reason why the two drivers' cars were damaged was in the same position, but the lap times of the two drivers after the damage were obviously different.

Therefore, even if the left front wing end panel of the Ferrari car is knocked off and the overall aerodynamic layout of the car is affected, it will not affect the speed of Leclerc's car.

On Hamilton's side, although he has broken the ice with Qin Miao, the personal relationship is a personal relationship. Hamilton will not chat with you and Qin Miao on the field.

As a result, Hamilton's car had a longer sliding distance, and he straightened the car earlier than Qin Miao and started to accelerate. However, at the same time, Hamilton also left enough space on the outside for Qin Miao to use when exiting the corner.

Therefore, Hamilton caught up to the position 0.4 seconds behind Perez, and Qin Miao also followed 0.5 seconds behind Hamilton.

I believe that Red Bull Racing is preparing to let Perez run an extra-long long-distance stunt from behind.

And because it wasn't long before the start of the race, Perez fell directly to last place after coming out of the pit area.

Hamilton swayed two or three times and found that Qin Miao behind him was not waiting for an opportunity to try to attack him, and then he stopped trying.

After Perez entered the pits, Qin Miao and Hamilton both moved up one position from fifth to sixth, and this position is their ranking for this game, and there will be no further changes.

The reason why Ferrari is so fast this season is that their engine has at least 20 more horsepower output than other teams.

On the 8th lap, Qin Miao, who had been following Hamilton in the DRS zone within 1 second, finally found an opportunity to attack his teammate.

However, before Hamilton and Qin Miao could take action, Perez, whose speed dropped significantly, was called by the team to pit on the 5th lap and put on medium tires.

The main reason is that Red Bull is fast this season, and it is because of the overall aerodynamic design of their cars.

Both men were prepared to kill Perez while he was ill.

Ferrari directly copied the design concept of the original Mercedes racing car, and what stands out is that it is a powerful car.

As long as he can stay side by side with Hamilton on the outside of T15, he will be the one with the advantage after coming to T16.

Then the two got close at a speed that no one expected, and finally Qin Miao was side by side with Hamilton at the braking point.

Although Qin Miao will suffer a little loss on the outside for the time being, T16 is another left turn, and he will be on the inside by then.

But in the heavy braking area of ​​this right-angle corner, the front wheel brake weight is just right.

Anyway, I haven't reached the braking point yet, so it won't matter if I draw it a few more times.

Seeing that Qin Miao had ideas that surpassed his own, he immediately started drawing dragons on the track.

Although Hamilton wanted to squeeze Qin Miao out of the track by relying on his more forward position when exiting the corner in T15, Hamilton still hesitated at the moment when he was preparing to exit the corner and was slightly slower when applying the gas. Click.

By the way, you can also wait for the safety car.

However, he also knew that Qin Miao's ability to brake late was extremely unparalleled, so he did not give up the inside lane of the track, but firmly occupied the inside lane himself.

However, this does not affect Qin Miao's attack.

Next, when he came to the DRS area between T14 and T15, Qin Miao was pulled away by Hamilton by 0.5 seconds.

In the DRS area between T5 and T6, Qin Miao shortened the time gap between himself and Hamilton from 0.7 seconds to 0.3 seconds.

Once the overall aerodynamic effect of the car is destroyed, the speed of the Red Bull car will naturally drop seriously.

And when the race came to the 7th lap, both Qin Miao and Hamilton's single lap speed was faster than Perez.

In this way, the braking effect is better and the brakes can be applied later. The only disadvantage is that the front wheel of the car is easy to lock and understeer occurs during tracking braking.

Although he didn't understand what Hamilton was thinking at the time, Qin Miao still didn't give up this great opportunity when he came out of the corner. The left front wheel got stuck on Hamilton's side box, and the two of them accelerated towards T16 together.

Therefore, although Qin Miao was behind Hamilton's inside line, after braking late, Qin Miao came to the front of Hamilton and entered the corner in front of Hamilton.

But Hamilton did not give up. After being overtaken by Qin Miao, T16 took a wide angle at the apex. T17 and Qin Miao took the intersection line, preparing to use the car's tail speed on the straight to overtake on the subsequent starting straight.

This time it was Qin Miao's turn to draw the dragon.

Fortunately, the starting straight was too short, and when entering T18, Qin Miao happened to get stuck on Hamilton's best exit line, which was obviously faster than himself, causing Hamilton to lose the position alongside Qin Miao. Chance.

In short, the attack that lasted for two timing periods ended with Qin Miao successfully surpassing Hamilton and reaching fourth place. After being overtaken by Qin Miao, although Hamilton was a little unconvinced, he still said in the team TR: "Good time."

It basically means that the timing when Qin Miao got stuck and Qin Miao was side by side was too good. He happened to get stuck in the direction in which he was about to accelerate out of the corner, blocking the road.

Qin Miao also felt relieved after surpassing Hamilton.

After all, no matter what, the opponent is a seven-time champion who has dominated the paddock for seven seasons. Even if Hamilton is no longer as strong as before and the car has brought him endless torture, as long as he is still in the paddock for one day, his The title and the honors he received will always be there.

After overtaking Hamilton, Qin Miao's race returned to calm and began to chase Leclerc in front of him at a speed of 0.2 seconds per lap.

Although the pursuit speed is very slow, there are still more than 40 laps to go before the end of the game, so Qin Miao still has a chance.

And at this time, Qin Miao was only 5 seconds behind Leclerc.

Coupled with Qin Miao's ability to protect tires, he can still look forward to the podium this season just like he did in the first few games this year.

On lap 10, Sainz, who was leading the race for the first time in his career and was very likely to win the race, saw Verstappen behind him, who was still 1.5 seconds behind him. An unforced error occurred in T4 due to excessive pressure.

After all, as soon as he joined Ferrari, he was compared by countless people with Qin Miao, the abandoned son of Ferrari whom he pushed out.

Sainz admitted that he is indeed not as good as Qin Miao, but he also wants to win a race to prove his strength.

So he made the same mistake as Leclerc, caring too much.

Sainz obviously gave the gas too early when exiting the corner.

The car briefly oversteered and almost lost control.

Fortunately, Sainz was not carried away by the upcoming championship, and his reaction was still there. Sainz rescued his car immediately.

Therefore, Sainz's losses did not increase, he just ran off the track and gave up the first position to Verstappen.

And because of this mistake, the time gap between Sainz and Verstappen in front came to 1 second.

On the 11th lap, the two Toro Rosso cars on the track had an infighting like a novice pecking each other in T3.

Tsunoda was planning to brake late on the inside line of T3, and then use the inside line to exit the corner to overtake his teammate. However, Tsunoda's rear wheel locked up after braking into the corner.

So much so that his left rear wheel, which was originally lined up with his teammate at the corner, hit the right rear wheel of his teammate Gasly, and the two Toro Rossoes just spun around and slid off the track.

Even the outside of Gasly's rear diffuser was damaged due to the impact, and some carbon fiber fragments were left on the track, but because the fragments were so small, they couldn't be seen without getting close.

Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

On lap 12, Verstappen, who was running well in the lead, took a little too much on the road shoulder when passing T3, and then Verstappen's tire pressed on the equipment that Gasly exploded.

Although the small carbon fiber fragments did not puncture Verstappen's tires immediately, Verstappen's absolute car feel made him feel something was wrong for the first time.

The car had slight sideways symptoms and the speed of the car dropped significantly.

As a result, on the not-so-long straight between T12 and T15 on lap 16, Verstappen was directly overtaken by Sainz, who did not have DRS behind him, before the braking point.

Leclerc behind Sainz is also ready to move.

However, Verstappen did not give Leclerc a chance to overtake himself.

I pitted directly as I passed the pit entrance and put on a set of medium tires.

At the same time, Qin Miao and Hamilton rose one position again.

One came third and one came fourth.

After Verstappen came out of the pit area, he fell directly to seventh, behind Zhou Guanyu.

Zhou Guanyu actually has no direct competitive relationship with Verstappen, but he has a relationship with Qin Miao.

So when Zhou Guanyu faced Verstappen, he tried his best to defend the opponent. Basically, everything he learned from Qin Miao was used on Verstappen behind him.

For a moment, Verstappen felt that the car in front of him was not an Arrow, but the W12 from last season.

I almost gave Verstappen PTSD.

But don't tell me, Zhou Guanyu really guarded Verstappen for one lap.

When the race came to the end of the 14th lap, Verstappen passed Zhou Guanyu in two consecutive corners, T16 and T17, relying on the car's better low-speed cornering performance and alignment, and reached sixth place.

But Verstappen lost at least 1.5 seconds on Zhou Guanyu.

Verstappen really felt a little bit pained when he saw this. Why don't you just drive and run a race? Why do you still have personal emotions?
Verstappen, a ruthless track machine, was baffled by this.

On lap 21, Qin Miao was frightened into a cold sweat when he passed by the entrance to the pit area.

Because he saw out of the corner of his eye that an Arrow was parked in the maintenance area. Qin Miao thought at that time that Zhou Guanyu would not be killed by the Arrow team again, right?
Then when Qin Miao passed by the exit of the maintenance area, he still saw Zhou Guanyu's name in the seventh position.

It was Bottas who retired from the race for Arrow Team.

It seems that the Arrow Racing Team has finally figured out who is the most important person to the team, and focuses most of its attention on Zhou Guanyu to ensure that he does not retire from the race.

But Qin Miao sometimes really doesn't understand. Is your Arrow's logistics really so bad? Can only one of the two cars ensure that the race proceeds normally?

At this time, the time gap between Qin Miao and Leclerc in front of him reached 3.7 seconds.

As the competition continued, Qin Miao's tire advantages became apparent.

The lap times of other drivers in the first stint are generally slower and slower, and only in the last stint will the speed of the fuel consumption of the car become faster and faster.

But Qin Miao's first sting speed has always been very stable, and will even get faster and faster.

As a result, the time gap per lap between Qin Miao and Leclerc shortened from 0.2 seconds to about 0.4 seconds.

PS. I want to keep Zhou Guanyu’s car. After all, it is the best-performing F1 car he has ever driven in his career.

Moreover, Russell's position was also pushed out by Sanshui. The qualifying race couldn't be that bad, and the possibility of a crash was gone, so I wasn't going to write about that car accident.

(End of this chapter)