How did I become an F1 driver?

Norris also tried to attack Hamilton several times, but found that even with DRS on, his rate of approaching Hamilton on the straights was pitifully slow.

After trying several times with the same result, Norris decisively swung.

When you are tired, destroy it quickly.

But then again, third place isn’t bad either.

At least considering McLaren's performance this season, third place is already an unexpected result.

As for Verstappen behind Norris, he really wanted to curse.

Chase, can't catch up.

Can’t surpass it.

What a shame! What a shame!

But Verstappen had no idea what to do, so when he saw Leclerc entering the pit, Verstappen immediately activated the team TR: "I want to pit and try undercut too."

Red Bull had actually discussed before Verstappen said this whether to let Verstappen pit early to change tires.

This is actually a very normal strategic choice. Even before Verstappen said this, Red Bull was already preparing to let Verstappen pit to change tires.

The problem was that Red Bull didn't wait for a suitable pit stop window.

If Verstappen entered the pit to change tires during this period, he would not have a suitable window to set lap times after coming out of the pit area.

1-2 seconds ahead of Verstappen is Stroll, 1.2 seconds ahead of Stroll is Albon, 2.2 seconds ahead of Albon is his teammate Perez, plus Gasly ahead of Perez...

If Verstappen wants a clean window to set a lap time, he has to overtake four people after coming out of the pit area to have 4 seconds of clean air.

So even though Red Bull knew that they should actively seek change at this time, looking at the shitty pit window, they still asked: "The window after we came out of the maintenance area is a bit bad, are you sure you want to pit and change tires now?"

Verstappen didn't hesitate at all: "Go!"

Verstappen is now really fed up with being in the DRS train behind the Mercedes driver.

And if he remains indifferent to the current situation, Verstappen will most likely be trapped in the DRS train and unable to make any progress. But if he actively seeks change, at least Verstappen knows that the ability to overtake is in his own hands, and the car also has enough speed, so overtaking will not be too difficult.

And there is always a chance to catch up again.

And even if we take a step back, it's better to go into the pit to change tires than to be stuck here and wait for death, right?

After Red Bull learned of Verstappen's decision, it did not refuse and called Verstappen into the pit to change tires, which took 2.4 seconds to change to hard tires.

Red Bull and Ferrari have the same idea. Since the overall durability of the tires provided by Pirelli for this Grand Prix weekend has been greatly improved, it would be better for their drivers to complete the entire race with one stop on the track.

Just as the Red Bull team calculated, Verstappen was stuck in front of Leclerc and behind Stroll after coming out of the maintenance area.

For the following time, the main focus on the track was fixed on Verstappen.

After all, at this time, other drivers on the track were cruising in their positions, only Verstappen entered the pit and changed to hard tires and then cut his way through the track.

This situation lasted until the 29th lap.

By this time Verstappen had already passed his teammate Perez.

And judging from the situation at the scene, it goes without saying that Red Bull will definitely give Perez a team order to let Verstappen pass on the track.

In fact, the 29th lap had already reached the pit stop window agreed upon by Qin Miao and the Mercedes team, but at this time Qin Miao on the track found that his long-term tire protection had achieved the desired effect.

The durability of the neutral tires on his racing car is still considerable. Although they are not as incredibly strong as the previous neutral tires, they can still support Qin Miao to continue driving on the track for a long time.

So the Mercedes team and Qin Miao discussed that instead of going back to the pit to change tires and being undercut by Verstappen, it would be better to continue on the track for a while. By then, Qin Miao would change to the remaining set of new soft tires. Wouldn't it be easy for him to defeat Verstappen, whose hard tires are already lacking in durability, on the track?

Because of this idea, Qin Miao and Hamilton continued to persist on the track.

And this wait lasted until the 33rd lap.

It was already the middle to late stage of the pit stop window, and many drivers had already completed their first stop, while some had also completed their second stop.

Just when everyone thought that this lap was the same as the previous 32 laps, with no difference and everyone would continue cruising on the track.

An accident occurred on the track.

On lap 33, Magrusen's car stopped on the Wellington Straight, in the DRS zone between T5 and T6.

Then a flame appeared at the rear of the car and soon the car caught fire.

The race immediately put out the yellow flag, and soon the yellow flag was converted into a virtual safety car, and after a while, the virtual safety car also became a physical safety car.

This safety car is like a blessing in disguise for the two Mercedes drivers.

The safety car has appeared, so Qin Miao and Hamilton naturally need to pit together.

And because Qin Miao had always maintained a certain distance from Hamilton on the track before, the Mercedes-Benz double-car pit stop at this time did not result in the rear car having to wait until the front car had changed its tires before changing its own tires.

Therefore, Qin Miao, Hamilton, Norris, and Alonso behind Norris all chose to pit to change tires at the same time.

Verstappen, who had already undercut Hamilton and Qin Miao on the track and even surpassed Qin Miao by 2 seconds, ended up having to make a pit stop.

Verstappen, who had already surpassed Hamilton and Qin Miao, was overtaken again under the control of the safety car.

Qin Miao and Hamilton were unlucky in the last race, and now it is obvious that the bad luck has shifted to Verstappen in this race.

Red Bull's strategy team was also decisive.

Everyone knows that the performance of Verstappen's hard tires is not so good at this time, and as time goes by, the performance of this hard tire will get worse and worse.

Moreover, the people in Red Bull's strategy team could see by turning their heads to look in the direction of Mercedes' P room that Mercedes had already taken out 8 soft tires from the team's P room and were ready for battle.

It goes without saying that if Verstappen was not allowed to pit to change tires, the situation on the subsequent track would be that the two Mercedes cars with new soft tires would have run into Verstappen, who would have run out of tires on Silverstone, a track with an advantage.

Verstappen is likely to be unable to withstand the attack of these two people. After all, the Silverstone Circuit does have too many straights, and the characteristics of the W14 muscle car...

So instead of letting Verstappen die a slow death on the track, the Red Bull team would rather take a gamble.

So during the safety car period, Red Bull called Verstappen into the pits for a second stop and put him on a set of soft tires. It is worth mentioning that although Verstappen also had soft tires left, he was not as good as Qin Miao. He did not keep new soft tires. He only had a set of soft tires that had been used for 4 laps, including one lap in qualifying.

But this is actually not a big problem.

After all, after Pirelli changed the tire compound for this race, except for Qin Miao, the other drivers responded that the new tires were more durable than expected.

So even though he had already run four laps on the track, this set of soft tires still allowed Verstappen to run the entire race even though the weight of his car had been greatly reduced.

It can be said that Qin Miao, Hamilton and Verstappen entered the pit to change tires almost one after the other.

After coming out of the maintenance area, Qin Miao was still in the lead, with Hamilton and Alonso following behind him.

Under the safety car, the rankings of the drivers on the track were as follows:

1: Qin Miao

2: Hamilton

3: Norris
4: Alonso
5: Piastri
6: Verstappen

7: Perez
8: Sainz
9: Leclerc

10: Gasly
Also because of the presence of the safety car, the original time gap of nearly 8 seconds between Qin Miao and Verstappen disappeared completely.

Of course, this is not bad news, because if there had been no safety car, Qin Miao would have fallen behind Verstappen after entering the pit.

Now Verstappen not only returned behind Qin Miao, but there were also a lot of people in between.

All I can say is: Misfortunes often lie behind good fortunes, and good fortunes often lie behind misfortunes.

All Verstappen needs to do next on the track is find opportunities to overtake Piastri, Alonso and Norris.

This was not a difficult task for Verstappen who changed to soft tires.

What Qin Miao and Hamilton need to do is to complete the remaining 13 laps in the shortest time possible.

After the race really started, Qin Miao and the old man were both surprised to find that when Verstappen used neutral tires and hard tires in today's race, his speed was only above average.

But after changing to soft tires, the speed was so fast that it was a little incomprehensible.

On the first lap after the race restarted on lap 39, Verstappen overtook Piastri in front of him and came to fifth place on the Wellington Straight without DRS.

Then, just after passing the starting straight and arriving at lap 41, Verstappen overtook Alonso in front of him and improved his position to fourth.

In fact, Qin Miao had already stopped thinking about saving the tire when Verstappen overtook Piastri in front of him at the start. After the race started, Qin Miao didn't care about Hamilton behind him and kept pushing forward on the track with all his strength.

But despite this, the average time gap between him and Verstappen is still slowly but steadily narrowing.

After noticing this, Qin Miao realized.

My guess after Q3 of qualifying turned out to be correct. Verstappen, the sixth place, did not try his best in the qualifying stage. He probably thought that his result was enough for him to get the pole position in qualifying, so he did not run seriously.

I don't know where this bad habit came from.

But overall, Verstappen's arrogance and carelessness at least gave him a pole position at home.

Qin Miao asked why Verstappen didn't look very good during the interview after the qualifying race.

It turns out that he was out of control.

On lap 43, Verstappen caught up with Norris and launched a fierce attack on Norris.

McLaren this season...I can’t really say this season.

McLaren's upgrades in this race were indeed effective. Facing Verstappen's attack, Norris also showed his courage and blocked Verstappen's DRS zone.

But unfortunately, the RB19 Mars rover is a Mars rover, and it is not something that your new lunar rover can compare to.

Finally, on the long straight between T14 and T15, which is the hangar straight, Verstappen used DRS to overtake Norris.

This was a typical Red Bull-style overtaking. Once Verstappen's DRS was turned on, the RB19's final speed was 60 kilometers per hour faster than Norris's MCL30.

Norris was shocked when he saw Verstappen's closing rate, and then he cursed as Verstappen forced him to overtake on the outside of the track: "What the hell is this?"

After overtaking Norris, Verstappen had a gap of 2.3 seconds from Hamilton in front of him.

On the one hand, the W14's single lap speed is faster than the MCL60. On the other hand, Norris more or less struggled with Verstappen before being overtaken by Verstappen. Even if Norris had no such idea, he also helped the two Mercedes drivers to gain more time invisibly.

And even if we take a step back, the McLaren MCL60 still uses Mercedes-Benz's engine, so it is understandable that the customer team helps the factory team at such a critical moment.

During these 2.3 seconds, Verstappen chased Hamilton for 2 laps.

It was not until the 45th lap on the Wellington Straight that Verstappen entered the DRS zone behind Hamilton.

After Verstappen saw Hamilton's flashing taillights and Qin Miao's car in front of Hamilton.

Verstappen was a little desperate.

Because at this time on the track, there were two Mercedes cars driving side by side, one in front of the other, and the time difference between the two was estimated to be about 0.3.

"what!!!!"

Pan Zi shouted in anger in the team TR: "Son of a bitch! Why is it the DRS train again? Doesn't Qin Miao know any other way to defend?"

After hearing about Verstappen's team TR, Red Bull also looked gloomy.

Damn, who would have thought Mercedes would be so despicable.

Qin Miao and Hamilton drove this DRS train from beginning to end.

The key point is that if you, the seven-time champion Hamilton, take the lead, we won't say anything, after all, your qualifications as a seven-time champion are there.

Damn, you ask a young boy who has only won two world championships to be the locomotive, and you, the seven-time champion, are willing to be his carriage?
Old man: I am willing... I am willing. Anyway, Qin Miao will go to Ferrari next season, and this season is already halfway through. It is unlikely that I will have enough points to compete for the world championship. I will take a season off and think about these things after Qin Miao leaves.

And compared to competing with Qin Miao for a home race championship now, I think it is more important to stop Red Bull and Verstappen. (End of this chapter)