How did I become an F1 driver?

After Ricciardo retired and could not run, Lynk & Co urgently contacted Binotto.

Although Binotto had not yet joined Lynk & Co at this time, the letter of intent had been signed. Binotto had even visited Lynk & Co's factory and had become familiar with his future colleagues.

So after receiving Lynk & Co's request, Binotto did not refuse. He readily called his old colleague at Ferrari, and after some negotiation, he asked Ye Yifei to come over.

Of course, Ferrari couldn't be given away for free. Lynk & Co paid Ferrari $40 for the three-day lease, from Thursday night to next Monday night.

Of course, Lynk & Co’s announcement of its decision also attracted some attention in the paddock.

After all, before Qin Miao entered the F1 paddock, no one had ever thought that one day there would be a Chinese team and Chinese drivers on the F1 starting grid.

It is even more exaggerated now. There will be three Chinese drivers on the starting grid of the Dutch Grand Prix.

The key point is that Lynk & Co found Ye Yifei, an endurance racing driver who doesn’t even have F2 driving experience.

The Dutch Grand Prix has also created countless histories, such as the first time that three Chinese drivers appeared in the F1 arena, the first Chinese driver to be rapidly promoted, and the first time that a Chinese driver joined the Chinese F1 team.

In short, no matter what foreign car fans and audiences think after seeing this news, they know that Lynk & Co has brought Ye Yifei to F1. Although they know that Ye Yifei can only run one race, they are still excited.

The media in the paddock also began to follow the hot topic of Ye Yifei, and many people were looking forward to Ye Yifei's performance on the field.

After three years of influence from Qin Miao and Zhou Guanyu, as well as Qin Miao's outstanding performance, F1 actually has a very wide audience in China.

Not to mention the huge population base in the country.

With such a huge population base, any niche hobby will become a project that many people like here, not to mention that F1 is not a niche.

Therefore, domestic public opinion was boiling at this time, and countless F1 fans opened their champagne. On Saturday, the domestic ratings for the third practice session of the Dutch Grand Prix alone set a new high.

When the third practice session started, the director immediately gave the broadcast footage of Ye Yifei sitting in the black and gold Lynk & Co racing car.

Of course, for Ye Yifei, this is an opportunity, but also a huge challenge.

After all, although Ye Yifei has been exposed to Formula One racing, the highest level of formula he has been exposed to is only F3.

Although he joined Renault youth training like Zhou Guanyu, he was unable to continue on the path of formula one for various reasons.

Now he only has one practice session, a racing seat that doesn't fit him at all and is obviously rushed, and he has a lot of unfamiliar data to process and learn.

When Qin Miao went to weigh in after the third practice session, he passed by the Lynk & Co team's P room and saw Ye Yifei frantically communicating with his temporary track engineer.

I guess he is in a state of confusion now because of such a huge task suddenly given to him.

Qin Miao originally wanted to invite the other party to have a meal together, but seeing his current condition, it was better not to disturb his work.

With such a huge pressure coming down suddenly, Qin Miao felt that Ye Yifei probably wouldn't be able to sleep well tonight.

After the third practice session, it was soon time for the qualifying round.

It rained in Q1 and all drivers used semi-wet tires during the process.

But the news of rain was a disaster for Ye Yifei.

He himself was not very familiar with the current Lynk & Co F1 car. It did not rain during the third practice session, so he only used this one hour to familiarize himself with the car and understand some of its operating logic.

In this state, he couldn't run very fast on dry ground, let alone in the rain.

Therefore, when he was eliminated in Q1, he was 19 seconds slower than Bottas who was in 0.9th place.

Of course, no one would blame Ye Yifei for this.

After only one practice session, he considered it a success if he could complete two flying laps in the rain.

Not to mention that Ye Yifei is just a driver who came to put out a fire, so we can't ask for more from him.

It would be normal for him to be eliminated in twentieth place at this stage. On the contrary, it would be truly surprising if he entered Q2.

The Q3 stage of qualifying was relatively calm for Qin Miao. He completed his Q3 race quietly and finally finished his qualifying in second place.

As for who is the first, I won’t go into details here, it’s unlucky.

Of course, Q3 also gave birth to many famous scenes.

Leclerc slid onto the wall in T3 with 4 minutes left before the clock stopped in Q9. The two suspensions on the left side of the car broke and the front nose, side box and floor were damaged, so he had to retire.

And the following famous scenes were born:
After the qualifying race, when Qin Miao and the others were celebrating after the race, Leclerc was watching the celebration on the big screen for the audience on the sidelines.

Actually, this is nothing. Normally, a driver has nothing to do after retiring from his position and cannot return to the pit area. He can only watch the race there to pass the time.

But considering that Qin Miao will become teammates with Leclerc next season, and Qin Miao was second in this race.

This scene seems to have a feeling of impending storm.

The final qualifying round is over, and the rankings for the first qualifying round after the summer break are as follows:

1: Verstappen

2: Qin Miao

3: Hamilton

4: Norris
5: Albon
6: Alonso
7: Sainz
8: Perez
9: Piastri
10: Leclerc

It was a very normal ranking. Except for the unlucky Leclerc who was in last place, the positions of the other drivers were basically what the audience expected before the race started.

After completing all the work after the qualifying race, Qin Miao was ready to go back to his team home to pack up and go off work. However, when passing by the interview area, Qin Miao happened to see Ye Yifei coming out of the public interview area.

After seeing Ye Yifei, Qin Miao was still a little puzzled. Drivers like them who were eliminated in Q1 should have finished their post-race interviews by now. Why did they come out at this time?

Of course, Qin Miao was just a little confused, and had no intention of taking the initiative to solve the problem.

Although it is indeed rare to see Chinese driver Ye Yifei appear on the track, Qin Miao is also genuinely happy and delighted to see the combination of the Chinese team and Chinese driver.

But after all, Qin Miao and the other party were not familiar with each other.

Zhou Guanyu might even be more familiar with Ye Yifei than himself. After all, both of them had been in Renault's youth training, and they were the only two Chinese faces in Renault's youth training at the time. In addition, both of them had participated in the National Karting Championship.

So Qin Miao just looked at Ye Yifei with some curiosity, but his body was still walking towards his convoy.

"Qin Miao! Qin Miao, I'm your fan! Can you sign an autograph for me?" However, when Ye Yifei saw Qin Miao coming, he excitedly took off the hat on his head and handed it to Qin Miao, with a pen in his hand.

Qin Miao didn't think it was surprising that Ye Yifei was his fan. After all, he was a two-time world champion, so it was normal for him to have more fans.

"Of course." After saying that, Qin Miao took Ye Yifei's hat and signed his name on the brim of the hat in Chinese.

However, while signing, Qin Miao did not forget to comfort Ye Yifei: "Don't think too much. It's normal that you didn't run well in qualifying. Besides, F1 is really hard to drive in the rain. I didn't drive well before."

Hearing Qin Miao's comforting words, Ye Yifei smiled shyly and said, "I know. Anyway, I was just pulled here to help. I don't have too high expectations for myself. If I can finish this race without any damage to the car, it will be worthy of the travel expenses Lynk & Co gave me."

Qin Miao smiled when he heard this, but he didn't say that young people have to fight. If he were sitting in Ye Yifei's current position, Qin Miao might not be able to say that he could do better than Ye Yifei without a human car and a skill.

It is possible that Qin Miao crashed directly after it rained during the qualifying round.

After the two chatted briefly, Qin Miao signed his name and returned the hat and pen to Ye Yifei. Qin Miao asked, "You should be living in the RV camp now, right?"

Ye Yifei carefully took the hat Qin Miao handed to him and replied, "No, I'm staying in the hotel the team booked for me..."

"Then do you know where the RV campground is?"

"know."

"Why don't you come over for dinner after get off work tonight? I can introduce you to some people."

Ye Yifei was actually moved after hearing Qin Miao's invitation.

In fact, like Zhou Guanyu, after knowing that Lynk & Co joined F1, Ye Yifei was somewhat excited and some bold ideas came to his mind.

Can I also join the F1 paddock like Qin Miao and Zhou Guanyu?
Seriously, who in the motorsport industry isn't interested in F1 racing?

As for why.

This is because F1 cars are the fastest cars in all car races on tracks with regular layouts.

To put it idealistically, basically all drivers are pursuing faster speed when racing.

And F1 is synonymous with faster.

However, since Ye Yifei has been able to stay abroad for such a long time, he must have a clearer self-awareness and goals than most of his peers. At this moment, he should not think about the future, but complete his current main task.

Although he also wanted to expand his network in the paddock, Qin Miao's invitation was a very important entry point.

But after thinking about it, Ye Yifei shook his head and said, "Qin Miao, thank you for inviting me, but I'm really sorry, I really can't leave here. After all, I just got involved in F1, and I still have a lot of things to deal with and a lot of details and driving methods to get familiar with and learn. In addition, I don't know this track as well as you do, so I still want to hurry up and practice for a while."

After hearing Ye Yifei's explanation, Qin Miao patted his forehead lightly: "Look at me, I was careless, so in that case, I wish you good luck in tomorrow's game.

By the way, let’s exchange contact information first. I’ll treat you to dinner after the game.”

"Thank you, I will try my best!" Ye Yifei said sincerely.

Finally, the two exchanged contact information. Qin Miao saved Ye Yifei's contact information in his mobile phone and returned to the team's P room.

Looking at Qin Miao's leaving back, Ye Yifei felt a little pressure.

This is Qin Miao... Sunday, the day the main competition begins.

After Qin Miao finished all the pre-match inspections, he looked at the gloomy sky and asked Reyes beside him, "When will it rain? Can't the meteorological department give us an accurate time?"

Reyes said helplessly: "Our meteorological team is already considered a relatively accurate meteorological department in the enclosure, but humans have not yet developed meteorological equipment that can absolutely predict the weather with 100% accuracy. All we can do now is to adapt to circumstances."

Qin Miao also nodded in understanding.

The reason why Qin Miao was so worried at this time was that before the race started, the meteorological department discovered that there was a huge cumulonimbus cloud on the track, floating towards the track.

It might rain right after the game starts.

When it rained, Qin Miao had no intention of persisting on the track. If it rained, Qin Miao would definitely be the first driver to pit and change to semi-rain tires.

"It's almost time. Get in the car and get ready. I wish you good luck in the competition and good fortune in martial arts." Looking at the time, Franky said to Qin Miao.

Qin Miao nodded, hugged Frankie and patted him on the shoulder: "Thank you for your hard work."

After saying that, Qin Miao got into his racing car.

Soon the warm-up lap began.

At this time, all drivers were running on soft tires, except the old man.

The old man started this race with neutral tires.

Qin Miao didn't ask the reason, probably because the old man had his own considerations.

Soon, the warm-up lap ended, the sky above the track became increasingly darker, and the crosswind on the track became increasingly stronger.

In the starting stage, Qin Miao made a rare mistake.

In fact, it was not a big mistake, and it was not even that Qin Miao reacted slowly. It was just that Qin Miao misjudged the temperature of his tires at the start, and the rear wheels spun for a brief moment when he started.

With Qin Miao's reaction speed and perception of the car, he naturally noticed something was wrong as soon as the rear wheel slipped.

So Qin Miao lifted the accelerator a little bit, and the rear wheels of the car immediately regained grip.

It only took Qin Miao 0.3 seconds from the time he discovered something was wrong to the time he came up with the solution.

But even if Qin Miao made up for his mistake in time, the mistake at the start was irrefutable and objective, so Qin Miao completely lost the possibility of attacking Verstappen at the start.

The good news is that the neutral tires have even less room to perform on the low-temperature track during the start. Although he did not perform poorly during the start, his rhythm was obviously not as good as Qin Miao's.

Qin Miao did not lose his position.

The next lap after a smooth start, it started raining on the track.

Although the rain was not heavy, it had a significant impact on the drivers' driving.

Qin Miao entered the pit to change tires as soon as he found it was raining. The team also knew that Qin Miao was weak in the rain. Although Qin Miao's ability to fight in the rain is not as bad as before, Qin Miao obviously does not like fighting in the rain.

Qin Miao also informed the team of the situation before entering the pit, so after Qin Miao entered the pit, the team was ready and immediately changed Qin Miao's tires to semi-rain tires.

What made Qin Miao ecstatic was that after the rain, Verstappen did not choose to pit to change tires, but continued to persist on the track.

Although it is not known what Verstappen and Red Bull were thinking when they made this decision, Qin Miao's lap speed was 14 seconds faster than Verstappen after coming out of the maintenance area.

After one lap, Qin Miao naturally completed the under cut of Verstappen on the track.

With such a big advantage, Qin Miao no longer cares what Verstappen and Red Bull think.

Verstappen only entered the pit to change tires on the third lap.

After these three laps, the time gap between Qin Miao and Verstappen has reached 13 seconds.

At the same time, Leclerc damaged his front wing end plate while overtaking.

The car lost a lot of downforce, and after a series of upgrades to the SF23, the already extreme overall balance of the car was completely broken. Now the aerodynamic effect was destroyed, and Leclerc really felt like he was ice skating while driving, and the speed and position of the car began to decline rapidly.

Of course, the two Mercedes drivers received bad news not long after they gained a huge advantage. On the eighth lap, Verstappen caught up with Perez at a speed four seconds faster than Perez per lap.

Perez took the initiative to give up his position, and then Verstappen began to chase Hamilton and Qin Miao.

With the terrifying closing rate and speed Verstappen showed at this time, it was really a matter of time before he caught up with the two Mercedes drivers.

On the tenth lap, Verstappen had just caught up with the old man and had not launched an attack yet. The two Mercedes drivers made a double pit stop.

There is a time gap of 2.4 seconds between the two, and no one will be delayed when entering the pit at this time.

In the end, the two completed the pit stop in 2.2 seconds and 2.4 seconds respectively.

At this time, the rain on the track had stopped, the driving lane had been cleared, and the race organizers turned on DRS. It was for this reason that the two drivers entered the pit to change to dry tires.

Verstappen, who was about to catch up with the two, was fooled again. When he came out of the pit, the old man and Qin Miao were more than 1 second behind him.

But that’s about it.

After all, Zandvoort is Verstappen's home track, and he is not too familiar with it. Coupled with the Red Bull car's already fast lap time on this Grand Prix weekend, and the W14's lack of strength in such medium and low-speed corners, it will not be easy for Verstappen to control the two Mercedes drivers.

So even though Qin Miao and the old man drove a small train on the track, they still couldn't stop Verstappen.

The cornering performance of Verstappen's Red Bull car is much stronger than that of the W14. Verstappen knows better than anyone how to tune the car on the Zandvoort circuit.

On the 15th lap, Verstappen overtook the old man with Qin Miao DRS in the corner.

On the 19th lap, Verstappen overtook Qin Miao on the outside of the braking point of T4 after being closely guarded by Qin Miao for 2 laps and being forced out of the track by Qin Miao twice.

Qin Miao was amazed as he watched Verstappen quickly go away.

I couldn't help feeling a little unwilling.

Qin Miao also used the method that Toto and Boss Zhou mentioned. Pushing Verstappen off the track twice was the result of Qin Miao's tough defense.

Pan Zi was dumbfounded at the time. This is my home court, not yours. Qin Miao, you are so defensive. If you really force me to withdraw from the competition, aren’t you afraid that you won’t be able to get out of the track after the game is over?

But despite this, Qin Miao still couldn't hold off Verstappen's attack in the face of the huge single-lap speed gap.

After being overtaken by Verstappen and running another lap, Qin Miao asked his track engineer Franky in the team TR: "How much faster was he than me in a single lap just now?"

Franky was silent for a while: "According to the team's estimate, Verstappen's lap time is faster than yours... 1.8 seconds."

"Fuck... Red Bull is crazy..."

After that, the race had nothing to do with Qin Miao, because as time went on, he couldn't even see the taillights of Verstappen's car in the later stages of the race.

On the 41st lap, Ye Yifei, who participated in the F1 race for the first time, also had his own highlight performance on the track.

He overtook Leclerc, whose car was damaged, on the track (overtaking in the corner).

Considering his identity as a Ferrari driver, this can be regarded as a stab in the back to his former club from another perspective.

This time, Ye Yifei's overtaking became the last straw that broke the camel's back for Ferrari.

On the next lap, Leclerc pitted and retired.

On the one hand, there is really no point in continuing to run like this on the track. If they continue like this, Arrow will overtake Ferrari.

On the other hand, it is also to stop losses in time and reduce the wear and tear of racing parts on the track.

All in all, it was unlucky for Leclerc this Grand Prix weekend.

On the 63rd lap, heavy rain suddenly fell on the track.

Although Mercedes reacted quickly and called the two drivers into the pit to change to semi-rain tires immediately, the rain was indeed too heavy.

Many drivers lost control and ran off the track in T1.

Zhou Guanyu even ran off the track and crashed into the wall and retired from the race.

In the end, the rain was so heavy that the race was immediately red flagged.

After the red flag, the race started on a rolling basis under the safety car.

The final ranking is basically the same as the rolling start ranking.

Mercedes brought back second and third place, and Panzi won the championship at home.

These were all expected results. The only thing worth mentioning was that Ye Yifei finished 13th in this race, beating his teammate Kakuta Yuki.

In fact, before crossing the finish line, Kakuta was in front of Ye Yifei.

However, Tsunoda had a collision on the track and the FIA ​​gave him a five-second penalty.

The safety car did not leave the track until the 68th lap, and with four laps left, Tsunoda was unable to pull 5 seconds ahead of his temporary teammate.

As a result, Ye Yifei got a good ranking in the first F1 race of his career, which was unexpected to all domestic fans, and he also defeated his teammates.

Don't worry about the preconditions, just tell him whether he won or not, right? (End of this chapter)