How did I become an F1 driver?

At the same time, Qiu Meng also brought Qin Muchu to the paddock.

So Qin Miao spent the whole morning and afternoon accompanying his girl, except for normal training and meetings.

Of course, Qin Miao did not forget to take his daughter out to meet people (to show off).

In short, although a huge storm was brewing in the paddock between the FIA, Qin Miao and Leclerc.

But Qin Miao, who was at the center of the storm, acted as if nothing had happened. He was doing what he was supposed to do and was even more relaxed than other drivers.

Time soon arrived at 7pm local time in Singapore and the race was about to begin.

At this time, Qin Miao had already changed into his racing suit and was sitting in the car parked on the track.

Qiu Meng originally planned to take Qin Muchu to watch the race in the VIP area of ​​the team's P room, but because Qin Muchu had a big enough reputation in the Mercedes-Benz team, Qiu Meng sat in Toto's original position with her child in her arms.

As for Toto...

His hand is broken and he needs to go for a check-up. He will not be able to attend today's Singapore Grand Prix or next week's Japanese Grand Prix.

But Toto is not a team leader like Horner after all. He is the boss and has more power than the team leader.

Also, because he does not appear on the podium during normal Grand Prix weekends, but sits in his exclusive seat in the team's P room, his presence or absence will not affect the normal operation of the team.

So at this time, Xiao Muchu ascended the throne in Mercedes-Benz!
This is a joke of course. The main reason is that there is a seat here, and this position will not interfere with the work flow of other team staff. Also, the view of the race here is very good.

Even if Qiu Meng wanted, she could press the team TR call button and let Xiao Muchu and Qin Miao talk.

Of course Qiu Meng also knew that sitting here was already a violation of the team's rules. Everyone in the team turned a blind eye to the mother and daughter. If they used the team TR at this time, it would be a bit against the rules.

On the track, after completing the final preparations, the first batch of staff began to evacuate.

During today's race, Zhou Guanyu replaced the fifth power unit, so he was penalized to start in the maintenance area.

Qin Miao and the drivers in front, behind, and around him all chose to start with neutral tires during the race.

As the last crew members left the track, the warm-up lap began.

After finishing the warm-up lap, Qin Miao took two deep breaths.

Staring at the Ferrari in front of his right.

Today's game is Qin Miao's first real head-on confrontation with Leclerc this season.

It's time to let the fourth brother feel the pressure I bring to him.

The five red lights lit up one by one.

The engines of the 19 cars on the track began to roar.

Qin Miao pressed the clutch, and when the five red lights went out, Qin Miao released the clutch. The clutch gear instantly engaged with the engine, and the car started moving.

At the start, Qin Miao's reaction speed was quick and his starting rhythm was good, and there was no sign of the rear wheels slipping on the track.

But Leclerc also had an excellent start in today's race.

Even the Ferrari SF23 accelerates faster than the W14 without having to consider cornering.

Therefore, at the start, all Qin Miao could do was to prevent the old man and Sainz behind him from threatening his position, and he didn't have a good way to deal with Leclerc.

Soon the two entered T1.

Qin Miao also took advantage of the situation and entered the DRS area behind Leclerc.

Then the drivers in the front row had a smooth start without any incidents.

But there was a collision in the back row.

Tsunoda collided with Perez in T13.

Tsunoda's rear suspension was damaged and he had to retire from the race.

Perez's car, which collided with Tsunoda, was also damaged, losing a lot of lap speed, but at least it was not serious enough to force him to retire.

On the second lap, Zhou Guanyu, who started from the pit area, entered the pit area and changed to hard tires.

At this time, Arrow's idea was very simple. Anyway, with the speed of Arrow's car and Zhou Guanyu's starting position at the end of the team, no matter how the normal pit stop strategy was implemented, Zhou Guanyu would have no chance of getting into the points zone in today's race.

So instead of letting Zhou Guanyu continue to waste the durability of the tires and the life of the engine on the track, it would be better to go directly into the pit to change to hard tires and bet on the safety car or just run to the end.

Normally speaking, Arrow's strategy is correct. It can even be said that this is the smartest team instruction given by the Arrow team in recent races.

But the strong will always be strong, and the weak... will have various ways to make him appear particularly weak.

Arrow was really unlucky in this game.

Unlucky and bad.

The strategy was originally good, but an unexpected event occurred on the 19th lap.

Russell broke the deadlock on the court.

In the 19 laps before this, Qin Miao used all his skills on Leclerc, using every possible means, but this man still withstood all the pressure from Qin Miao, did not make any mistakes, and firmly locked Qin Miao and the old man behind him.

It can be seen from this that the good results achieved by the Ferrari in the qualifying round were not accidental, but the SF23 is indeed quite suitable for the Marina Bay track.

And Leclerc also fully demonstrated his characteristics.

To be honest, Qin Miao didn't know why Leclerc's defensive characteristics were so strange.

Because when facing attacks from other players, Leclerc's defense is particularly stable and decisive.

It's a bit like a military general with great momentum.

There is a sense of one man blocking the way for ten thousand men.

However, when attacking others, Leclerc's stability is particularly poor, and he is prone to forced errors behind others.

But no matter what, Leclerc has withstood all the pressure from Qin Miao from the start of the race to now.

Of course Qin Miao was not in a hurry, as the game was still long.

All Qin Miao needs to do is to keep his mentality steady and wait until Leclerc's tires show obvious deterioration in the later stages of the race before taking control of him.

Back to the topic.

On lap 19, Russell crashed.

Of course, it was an unforced error. He crashed directly into the guardrail of the track, knocking off the entire front nose of his car.

After the crash, only the front nose of Russell's car was damaged. Apart from that, the suspension and chassis of the car were normal.

Then Russell naturally did not meet the conditions for retirement, so he pulled his car out from the back wall with a small reverse.

All he needed to do next was to drive the car back to the repair area to replace the new front wing.

Unbeknownst to Russell, the front nose wing got stuck under his chassis on the way back, and Russell was like one of those Splatoon players with a graffiti gun or mop, smearing a large piece of carbon fiber on the track.

It was painted all the way from the corner where he crashed to the entrance to the pit lane.

Okay, the safety car is out.

At this moment, Zhou Guanyu was dumbfounded.

Not only Zhou Guanyu was dumbfounded, but his strategy team was also dumbfounded.

For other drivers, the appearance of the safety car on lap 19 was good news because they could take advantage of the safety car period to pit and change tires.

But for Zhou Guanyu, the driver who changed to white tires, the safety car came out at an unfortunate time.

Otherwise, why do people say that A Luo is in such a bad luck state now?

Do you think there was anything wrong with A Luo's strategy of letting Zhou Guanyu run all the way to the end?
Yes, for the driver in last place, this gamble was clearly a better option than staying on the track and waiting to die.

But you can't help it, Russell inherited Latifi's legacy and crashed on the track.

In fact, if Zhou Guanyu was closer to Bottas in front of him at this time, such as a time difference of five or six seconds, then Zhou Guanyu could choose not to stop for tire change and continue running with his own set of hard tires.

But at this time, there was a full 15-second gap between Zhou Guanyu and Bottas in front of him. With such a large time gap, even if Zhou Guanyu did not stop to change tires, the driver in front of him would most likely still be ahead of Zhou Guanyu after coming out of the maintenance area.

If Zhou Guanyu didn't make the pit stop, the best he could do was overtake Bottas in front of him, and if he was luckier, he could overtake Albon. But overtaking the second to last and third place would already be his limit, and it would be basically impossible for him to go further.

Even if Zhou Guanyu did not stop to change tires, he still got these two positions.

But after the two people behind him came behind Zhou Guanyu under the safety car, Zhou Guanyu had to face the attack from the two drivers behind him whose tires were newer than his.

In this situation, it is obvious that Zhou Guanyu has no chance of defending against the attack from the two people behind him.

Therefore, Zhou Guanyu's better choice at this time is to pit and change tires. After all, it is now in the safety car state. After pitting and changing tires, Zhou Guanyu can get back behind Bottas.

In this situation, Zhou Guanyu just worked in vain, but did not lose anything.

Just like the saying goes, since you are already at the bottom, no matter which way you go, you are heading upwards.

This may be the advantage of being the last in the team.

After the safety car appeared, Qin Miao and his team pitted and changed to hard tires.

It is worth mentioning that because of Leclerc's suppression in the front, the distance between Qin Miao and the old man was not widened.

When the two Mercedes cars entered the pit to change tires, congestion was inevitable on the track.

So this time after coming out of the maintenance area, the driver behind Qin Miao changed from Hamilton to Sainz. Leclerc also helped his teammate Sainz to gain a position invisibly.

Of course, the person Sainz should thank the most is actually Ferrari's tire changer, because if Ferrari's tire changer performed his traditional skills at this time, Sainz would not be able to get the benefits prepared for him by Leclerc.

After all, Ferrari and Mercedes both use double-car pit stops, but the tire change interval between Leclerc and Sainz is longer than that of the two Mercedes drivers.

At the same time, Verstappen and Perez behind chose not to pit to change tires.

Their situations are different from Zhou Guanyu's.

In today's race, both Red Bull drivers started with hard tires. In addition to wanting to miss the pit stops of other drivers, they also wanted to use the advantages of their car's performance to set lap times on the empty track to overcut other drivers after the others stopped, and they also wanted to wait for the safety car.

But the safety car for 19 laps came a little too early and was not the one Red Bull was waiting for.

And what was different from Zhou Guanyu was that the two of them were right in the traffic jam at that moment, and they could get a lot of space if they didn't stop.

Therefore, Red Bull did not let the two drivers enter the pit to change tires, but let them continue to stay on the track.

As a result, Verstappen is now fifth and Perez is sixth.

After the safety car withdrew, the race on the track returned to normal.

Before the changes to the corners in the third timing section, the Marina Bay Circuit was a very difficult track to overtake.

The difficulty of overtaking here is second only to Hungaroring and Monaco.

Of course, it’s not much better now, except that the third timing segment is smoother.

But the Ferrari's deadly characteristics still made Qin Miao behind Leclerc feel helpless.

Because it is too difficult to surpass a Ferrari.

The straight-line acceleration of this car was too fast. Qin Miao tried to attack several times, but because Leclerc defended the inside line, he was unable to overtake Leclerc before the center of the curve and failed.

Qin Miao really regretted giving Vassel the upgrade suggestion.

Because Leclerc's ability to force a bad car to drive seems to be quite strong.

Of course, there is still a long time, and Qin Miao is willing to wait.

In fact, Leclerc is also under a lot of pressure.

Racing on the Marina Bay Circuit is tiring in itself and consumes a lot of physical energy. From the start of the race to now, Qin Miao has been putting pressure on Leclerc.

Leclerc was in a hot and tired state the whole time.

By the time the race reached 35 laps, Leclerc had drunk all the water.

Leclerc didn't know how long he could withstand Qin Miao's pressure.

On lap 39, Red Bull forced its two drivers, who were still hovering in sixth and seventh, to pit for tire changes.

As for why the two of them not only did not rise in the rankings but instead fell...

How can old hard tires outrun new hard tires? Not even if you are Red Bull, not to mention that after several rounds of major upgrades, the performance of McLaren has slowly recovered and is firmly in the points zone.

The two Red Bull drivers entered the pits to change to neutral tires, completing the first stop of the race.

After coming out of the pit area, Perez fell to the back of the team, while Verstappen fell to 15th.

It can be said that the pit stop strategies of the two Red Bull drivers in this race were completely wrong.

It cannot be said that there is anything wrong with Red Bull's pit stop strategy.

If it was a normal race, not a street race, but a traditional track, the two Red Bull drivers would definitely be ranked higher, and might not even fall out of the points zone.

But this was a street race, and Leclerc, who was in first place, was under pressure from Qin Miao's attack while also reducing his speed.

So the distance between the drivers behind was not too far.

It's hard to believe that after 39 laps of a race, the time difference between the last and the first place was only 25 seconds.

In such a high-pressure environment, if you make a mistake like running off the track, you might end up at the end of the team.

Therefore, it can only be said that it was bad luck that Verstappen and Perez fell to such a deep position after completing their first stop.

But at least compared to Arrow, Red Bull is not bad. (End of this chapter)