How did I become an F1 driver?

To be honest, Qin Miao, like Leclerc, didn't understand the meaning of Verstappen's actions.

It was not until Qin Miao reached the second period that Qin Miao and Leclerc realized belatedly that the man just now was not Verstappen, but Perez.

After receiving this news, the two realized that their response was wrong.

After all, the Mexican Grand Prix is ​​Perez's home race. When facing a driver competing at home, you must give him some leeway on the track.

This is not about pleasing the home fans.

You're like Qin Miao, who heard just as much booing during the Mexican Grand Prix as he did at the Dutch and Austrian Grands Prix.

Qin Miao, like the local car fans in Mexico, wished the other party would die quickly.

But if Qin Miao met Perez on the track, he would definitely avoid him to a certain extent.

What I mean by being a little more tolerant here is that when dealing with a driver playing at home, you should exaggerate his behavior a little.

Subconsciously, it should be assumed that his actions on the track will be more aggressive than those in a normal grand prix weekend.

After all, when you are playing at home and there are so many people supporting you, your adrenaline level will be much higher than normal.

No matter how calm a person is on weekdays, when playing at home, they will do some irrational or impulsive behavior on the track.

Therefore, when facing the other party, you must leave more room and reaction space than normal.

Prevent the other party from getting too excited, and also prevent the other party from trapping you when he gets too excited.

At T1, Leclerc just mistook the person. If Leclerc knew that the other person was Perez, the first thing he would do when he found himself being trapped would definitely not be to stay on the track.

Either they force their way to the outside, not giving Perez a good angle to enter the corner, and directly blocking Perez's possibility of getting ahead.

Or just give way to avoid a collision.

It’s a pity that the collision had already happened and the Ferrari fans in the stands had already been beaten.

At this time, all the two drivers could do was sigh and regret.

Perez's home game in 2023 ended in such a hasty manner.

On the fifth lap of the race, the virtual safety car was deployed because after Perez collided with Leclerc, although Perez's car did not remain on the track, there were still a lot of car fragments scattered on the track.

There is a possibility of causing other drivers to have their tires blown, so Matthew is needed to pick up the debris on the track.

It took a lap to clean up, and because it was not a safety car, the race restarted directly after the virtual safety car withdrew.

After all, the Rodriguez Hermanas Circuit causes less wear and tear on tires. Normally, Qin Miao could run the entire race with one stop on the red and yellow tracks, but in that case, Qin Miao's tire reserve would be somewhat tight, so Qin Miao adopted a one stop on the yellow and white tracks for this Grand Prix weekend.

However, if during the race, Qin Miao's set of yellow tires lasts on the track longer than the team's original expectations, the team will replace Qin Miao with new tires based on the conditions on the track at that time.

It is also because Verstappen's starting position in today's race was not particularly good, and the driver behind Qin Miao was Leclerc, not Hamilton or Verstappen.

With Leclerc's car damaged, he naturally couldn't put any pressure on Qin Miao on the track.

So after the race returned to normal, Qin Miao only took three laps to widen the time gap between himself and Leclerc to more than 2.2 seconds, and as time went on, the gap became larger and larger.

The rest of the game has nothing to do with Qin Miao in the front row.

After all, there was no driver behind who could put pressure on Qin Miao at this stage, so all he needed to do was cruise alone on the track.

Therefore, the live broadcast camera was mainly fixed on Verstappen.

Compared to Leclerc, whose lap time was declining rapidly, Pan Zi's pace in the race was much better.

By the time the race reached the 20th lap, when Pan Zi made his first pit stop, he had risen from fifth place to third place.

As for the driver in front of him, it was an old man.

Although Hamilton and Verstappen had already come behind Qin Miao at this time.

But in fact, the pressure that the two drivers in this race can bring to Qin Miao is also very limited.

Because the time gap between Qin Miao and the old man in second place has widened to 2 seconds.

And on this lap, Verstappen was the first to enter the pit.

When they entered the pit, Pan Zi had been following the old man for two laps.

Although Pan Zi's tires still have a lot of room left, as has been said countless times before, the high altitude track makes overtaking and following extremely difficult.

Verstappen knew that the longer he stayed behind Hamilton, the worse his car would become.

So Verstappen finally chose to give up following the car and instead pitted to try to undercut Hamilton.

Although Hamilton did not follow Verstappen's pace, the remaining tires did not allow him to stay on the track for too long.

So on the 27th lap, Hamilton also chose to pit.

It is worth mentioning that during the press conference before the start of the Mexican Grand Prix, Toto criticized the team's tire changing speed.

So this time after Hamilton entered the pit, Mercedes changed tires very quickly, and the 2.2-second tire change gave the old man enough time advantage.

After Hamilton came out of the maintenance area, Hamilton, who entered the pit a little late, just got in front of Leclerc, who was in fourth place, and was not undercut by Ferrari.

The race continued smoothly and Qin Miao's single lap speed was always good.

Even Qin Miao's set of neutral tires, which had been running for nearly 30 laps, was about 0.1 second faster on the track than Bottas, who had just come out of the pit area.

So Qin Miao continued to stay on the track like the two Ferrari drivers, extending the time of his first stint.

The team also reminded Qin Miao on lap 31: "Qin Miao, if you can maintain the current speed until lap 40, we can change to soft tires in the next pit stop."

Qin Miao felt that he should be able to hold on until the 45th lap. After all, he had hardly pushed the tires very hard from the start of the race until now, and the tires were still in very good condition.

But soon changes came on the track.

Lap 33.

Ma Hualong pressed onto the curb when he was in T8.

The high speed of the car and the severe bumps caused the right rear suspension of the Haas car to break on the spot.

Also because of the loss of support from the right rear suspension, the Haas car lost control and crashed into the track guardrail.

This accident cannot be said to be Magruson's fault.

After all, apart from this lap, Magnussen's line in this corner would press against the curb of this corner on every lap of the race.

It's not even just Magnussen, Qin Miao, Verstappen, Leclerc, and Hamilton.

These top drivers will also hit the curb when passing this corner.

Therefore, although strictly speaking, the person driving the car in this accident was Magnussen, the cause of the accident had little to do with Magnussen. This accident can only be attributed to the substandard quality of the Haas car.

The rear suspension of his car was broken when he passed the curb. Even Arrow, who broke the front nose end plate of his car in 24 years, did not have such a fragile rear suspension.

After this accident, the gold content of Mercedes-Benz vibranium suspension continues to increase.

Sometimes, a stiffer suspension can really help the team and the driver get more points on the track.

This accident directly smashed Lao Ma's car into pieces, with parts scattered all over the ground.

The good news is that no one is hurt, but the bad news is that Magrusen's car started to smoke after it stopped. Although no open flames were seen at the moment, everyone knew that the car was only a matter of time before it caught fire.

After the accident, Magrusen was no longer able to maneuver his car off the track like Perez.

The race committee immediately displayed the yellow flag and it was quickly converted into a safety car.

There was too much debris on the track at this time, and the location of the wreckage of Magnussen's car was in a high-risk area. If other drivers made mistakes when turning, it might cause secondary injuries.

So the safety car appeared very timely, and it was the fastest safety car appearance this season.

The safety car has already appeared, and the driver behind Qin Miao has a time gap of more than 26 seconds with Qin Miao. If Qin Miao pits at this time, unless the team's tire changer performs acrobatics for Qin Miao, there is no reason for Qin Miao to be undercut by the car behind.

Moreover, the tire changer of the Mercedes team had just been given a lecture by Toto, so it was naturally impossible for him to offend the team boss at this time.

So there were no accidents when Qin Miao entered the pit to change tires this time, and the tire change speed was even very fast, 2.1 seconds.

If nothing unexpected happens, Qin Miao's pit stop for tire change will most likely be the fastest one in this Grand Prix weekend.

Then Qin Miao had just come out of the maintenance area when a red flag appeared on the track.

Qin Miao then followed the safety car back to the maintenance area.

In fact, the Mercedes team had already predicted the appearance of this red flag.

After all, Magnussen's crash directly caused a large dent in the guardrail of the track. If the race is restarted, this section of the guardrail will definitely need to be repaired.

However, the dented guard wall is actually very difficult to repair, which requires a lot of time.

So if nothing unexpected happens, the race will raise the red flag.

The reason why I anticipated all this was that I still called Qin Miao in to change the tire.

This was mainly because the time gap between Qin Miao's position and the driver behind him was too big.

Regardless of whether the red flag will appear on the track during this period, Qin Miao will still be in first place after entering the pit to change tires.

As for the time difference lost during the pit stop.

In fact, there is no need to be so fussy.

After all, if the red flag had not appeared, Qin Miao would have followed the safety car after coming out of the maintenance area, and the drivers behind would have caught up sooner or later.

If there is a red flag instead of a safety car, the drivers on the track will return to the starting grid and start again from a static start.

The time advantage Qin Miao had gained before this game would naturally disappear.

Therefore, no matter when Qin Miao enters the station, it is harmless. In fact, entering the station earlier is relatively safer and more secure.

It is worth mentioning that this red flag of this race was the first red flag at the Rodriguez Brothers Circuit in seven years.

Even this red flag was not caused by the driver's mistake. The main reason for the red flag was that the rear suspension quality of the Haas team's car was not up to standard.

It can be seen from this that the Rodriguez Brothers Circuit is a relatively low-risk track.

Even if there is a car accident, it won't be a serious one.

Unless the team trips up the driver.

Of course, the red flag didn't appear at the right time this time. When the red flag appeared, most drivers had already pitted to change tires.

If we really have to find a beneficiary among these people, it would probably be Leclerc.

Because of this red flag, Leclerc got a free opportunity to pit and replace the front nose wing.

The race restarted after the red flag ended.

Qin Miao started from pole position again with a static start. However, because the second place was an old man, there was not much pressure on Qin Miao at the start, so he was very relaxed throughout the start.

As for why the old man appeared in second place after being under cut by Verstappen.

This is actually very obvious. The old man copied Verstappen on the track.

After all, Hamilton's tires were 7 laps newer than Verstappen's, and before entering the pit to change tires, the old man had accumulated some battery power.

Coupled with DRS, the old man directly relied on the car's straight-line acceleration ability to surpass Verstappen in T1.

But what made Qin Miao a little upset was that he didn’t know whether it was because the old man was old or for some other reason.

After the start, Qin Miao saw that the old man's starting rhythm was very average, but Verstappen, who was right behind him and started in third place, had an incredibly fast starting speed.

The next scene is easy to understand.

Qin Miao entered T1 normally.

But when the old man reached T1, Verstappen held him off on the outside.

This time there were only two cars entering T1 side by side, and they were two relatively measured drivers.

So after the two entered T1 side by side, they fought with restraint yet fierceness.

But the old man is an old man after all.

Although he suffered a slight disadvantage at the start and Verstappen took the lead in T1, the old man still held his position after reaching T2.

After reaching T3, Hamilton completely surpassed Verstappen.

In today's race, the performance of Mercedes W14 is indeed significantly stronger than that of RB19.

Verstappen could only smile bitterly at this.

Of course, after the winner was decided between the two of them, the happiest person was actually Qin Miao.

After all, after the three corners where the two of them fought, Qin Miao, who had waited until T1 and had only a 0.4 second gap with Hamilton behind him, directly left Hamilton behind him out of his DRS zone.

The reason why Qin Miao did not use Hamilton as a cushion behind him to defend Verstappen in this race was mainly because it was indeed difficult to follow the Rodriguez Brothers track.

The performance of the Red Bull car was also limited on this track.

As a result, Verstappen's idea of ​​charging the car by sucking the DRS behind him would be difficult to achieve.

Because the longer he stays behind him, the hotter the tires of Verstappen's car will be.

Not to mention that Verstappen is now struggling to keep up with Qin Miao's pace. (End of this chapter)