How did I become an F1 driver?

After seeing Qin Miao coming out in a racing suit, Wasser raised his eyebrows, then nodded and said, "Beautiful, it looks like a good fit. Is there anything uncomfortable about it?"

"Not bad, fortunately my figure hasn't changed much in the past few days."

Wasser smiled, then patted Qin Miao on the shoulder and said, "I believe the reporters are already waiting anxiously. Go and accept the interview now."

"it is good."

……

Qin Miao and Vasseur attended the conference room specially used by Ferrari to entertain reporters.

As Qin Miao, wearing a racing suit, appeared in front of the camera reporters, the flash lights on the scene began to flash wildly.

Although this is not the first time Qin Miao has worn the Ferrari team uniform, after all, he wore it when testing the Ferrari car in F1, but Qin Miao's identity has changed at this moment. Now Qin Miao is an official driver of Ferrari.

Although Ferrari has not yet announced whether Qin Miao will be the No. 1 driver or the No. 2 driver after joining Ferrari, everyone knows that Qin Miao is now the No. 1 driver.

After all, there is no reason for Ferrari to let a three-time world champion serve as a wingman for Claire, an unlucky guy who doesn't even have a world championship, right?
Soon the two of them sat down, and reporters at the scene raised their hands to ask questions.

Vasseur randomly pointed at a reporter. The pretty female reporter stood up and picked up the microphone to ask Qin Miao, "Qin Miao, after three years, you are back in Maranello again. Have you thought about what you want to bring to Ferrari?"

Qin Miao picked up the microphone and answered: "I am really moved to be back in the Ferrari family. Although Ferrari is no longer the Ferrari I knew back then, it still feels so familiar to me, just like a wanderer who has been away from home for a long time and finally returned to his hometown."

“As for my future goals, to be honest, my goals cannot be achieved by myself alone. It requires the joint efforts of all Ferrari people. I will work with my colleagues in the team towards the world championship that Ferrari has been away from for a long time. I also believe that we can eventually make Ferrari great again.”

After Qin Miao answered, the female reporter asked: "You mean you will lead Ferrari to regain the constructors' world championship in 2024?"

Although the extra question asked by the female reporter was already a violation of the rules, Qin Miao still picked up the microphone again and laughed and said, "It's not just the driver's world championship, it's not just the team's world championship, not one, not two, not three."

"boom!"

The scene exploded, after all, James is also a celebrity in the international community.

This joke of his is known to many people around the world, so after Qin Miao said this, the entire interview area went wild.

All the reporters looked at Qin Miao with shining eyes as if they saw a naked beauty.

Big news!

Of course, although Qin Miao's words were meant as a joke, he really thought so. He also felt that if nothing unexpected happened, he could do everything he said.

I will not go into details about the subsequent interview content here. The reporter asked very formulaic questions and Qin Miao also gave very formulaic answers.

Diplomatic responses like thanking the Ferrari team for their trust in him kept popping up one after another.

The one that stands out is a veteran.

He was completely different from the Qin Miao who had just been making wild remarks and making jokes.

In the end, this small press conference which lasted for a short time ended. However, after the press conference, Qin Miao did not go to the Ferrari team's P room to drive the Ferrari SF23 as he wished.

Because Qin Miao still has to go and recognize people.

Although many Ferrari executives have not come to the paddock due to their respective duties, the Ferrari executives who are basically not busy are in Abu Dhabi at this time.

Originally, Qin Miao should have gone through this process when he first entered the Ferrari team's home, but Qin Miao came to Ferrari too early and many people had not arrived yet.

Now that the press conference is over and everyone is present, it's time for Qin Miao to meet some people.

So Qin Miao followed Vasseur back to the Ferrari team home.

After entering the door, Qin Miao, under the introduction of Vasseur, shook hands and greeted each of Ferrari's senior team members one by one.

“Loic Bigois, the team’s chief aerodynamicist.

Jock Clear, Performance Engineer.

Simone Fennelly, Head of Aerodynamics.

Enrico Gualtieri, Power Unit Technical Director.

Diego Iveveno, Sports Director.

Loic Serra, Director of Chassis Performance..."

After recognizing almost everyone present, although Qin Miao didn't remember all their names, he at least knew them well.

Of course, as a driver, Qin Miao definitely needs to look at more of their photos in private and match their people with their names.

At least in the future, whether you meet someone in Maranello or in the paddock, you can say hello, so there won’t be the embarrassing situation of recognizing each other but not being able to call each other’s name.

After completing all this, Leclerc just happened to walk in from the door of the Ferrari team's home.

After seeing the other person, the originally formal smile on Qin Miao's face became much more natural.

"Hey, isn't this Qin Miao? What brings you here?" While teasing, Leclerc came in front of Qin Miao and looked at his friend carefully.

After a sigh, Leclerc said: "To be honest, I am probably used to seeing you in the Mercedes jersey. Suddenly I found you wearing the Ferrari jersey and I was a little uncomfortable for a while."

"Doesn't look good?" Qin Miao looked down at his racing suit and didn't notice anything wrong.

"No, it's not that it doesn't look good, I just can't get used to it." Leclerc shrugged.

"It's okay. You'll have plenty of time to adapt in the future." Qin Miao said with a smile.

But after saying that, Qin Miao changed the subject: "But you are... late?"

"I remember being notified in the group about today's post-season test that we must be there before 9am, and it's already 9:30am."

Leclerc didn't seem to care about Qin Miao's questioning. It was obvious that he was often late for meetings with the team: "Oh, it's not a big deal. Besides, I'm not here. The test hasn't started yet."

Qin Miao shook his head and said, "This won't work. You have to change it in the future."

"Oh, maybe next time." Leclerc waved his hand and continued to look at Qin Miao, who was wearing Ferrari skin. "And I feel like you don't respect me."

Leclerc: ?
"I've been here for so long, and you've said 'you' to me four times, but you don't want to say a single 'you'. You don't even want to call me boss."

Leclerc looked at Qin Miao with a gloomy face as he started to make trouble. He wanted to complain in his heart, but then he thought: What this bastard said seems to be right. He is really a shareholder of Ferrari now.

Qin Miao said there was nothing wrong with him being his own boss.

Seeing the expression on Leclerc's face that was almost distorted, Qin Miao was happy.

But he didn't continue to joke with Leclerc. After putting his arm around his shoulder, Qin Miao said, "Okay, no more jokes. I'm going to the team's P room to check out my car."

"You kid don't want to wait even a second." Leclerc shook his head helplessly. He was too lazy to go to the lounge to change clothes, and said to Qin Miao directly: "Let's go, I'll go with you to take a look."

Qin Miao had no objection. After saying hello to Vasseur, he took Leclerc to the Ferrari team's P room.

After arriving at Ferrari's P room, Qin Miao saw a familiar figure.

Franky.

At this time, Franky, like himself, had also changed into the Ferrari team uniform.

At this time, Qin Miao finally understood why Leclerc said those words when he looked at him just now. After being used to seeing Frankie wearing the Mercedes jersey, Qin Miao was somewhat uncomfortable when he suddenly saw him wearing a red Ferrari jersey.

Franky terminated his contract with Mercedes on the same day as Qin Miao, but he joined the Ferrari team earlier than Qin Miao.

So it was not surprising to see Qin Miao here. After all, considering Franky's position, his work after joining a new team would definitely be more cumbersome than Qin Miao's.

There will naturally be more things to deal with.

Including becoming familiar with all the work processes and staff of a new team.

However, after having the experience of entering F2 from F1, Franky is familiar with all of this and did not encounter any trouble in the process.

After nodding to each other, Qin Miao began to shake hands and greet his colleagues for the next three years one by one.

After Qin Miao joined Ferrari, the chief technician naturally changed. Now Qin Miao's chief technician is an Italian named Fabio Andron.

According to foreigners' habits, Qin Miao naturally called the other party Fabio.

After recognizing the person, Qin Miao finally had time to turn his attention to the car.

This SF23 is actually the car driven by Sainz in the 2023 season, but because of Qin Miao's arrival, this car naturally became Qin Miao's.

The original number 55 on the rear of the car was changed to Qin Miao's number 66.

Throughout the 2023 season, Qin Miao actually deliberately observed the cars of other teams during the red flag period or after the podium.

But Qin Miao is more concerned about the aerodynamic layout of the cars of Aston Martin, Red Bull and McLaren. After all, these teams have had outstanding performances this season.

But Ferrari's performance throughout this season can be described as particularly "stable".

There weren't any major issues, but there weren't any highlights either.

From the perspective of Mercedes drivers this season, Ferrari basically does not give them any pressure, so Qin Miao naturally has no reason to devote more energy to observing the aerodynamic design of Ferrari cars.

Therefore, this is the first time that Qin Miao has carefully observed the Ferrari 2023 car.

Although Qin Miao is not a person who studies aerodynamic design, he has been in contact with racing for 4 years after all. He has a rough idea of ​​what specific effects the parts of the racing car will have on the track and what kind of changes they will bring to the car.

Although he didn't know what shortcomings Ferrari's design had, but after taking a look at the aerodynamic design of the current Ferrari car, Qin Miao knew that the car's loss this season was indeed justified.

After looking through it carefully, Fabio came to Qin Miao and said, "Qin Miao, the car has been inspected. The post-season test will start in half an hour. Do you want to make some pre-race preparations? Warm up or something like that?"

Qin Miao then withdrew his gaze from the car, looked at Fabio and thanked him, then glanced at Leclerc who was watching the fun with his arms crossed and said unhappily, "What are you standing there for? Give me a copy of your training data at the Yas Bay Marina Circuit, and I'll try your training."

Leclerc did not refuse. After all, he knew that when Qin Miao was at Mercedes-Benz, his training data was completely shared with Hamilton, and both of them could see each other's training data.

At the same time, Leclerc himself knew that there was a certain gap between himself and Qin Miao in vehicle adjustment. He also hoped that after Qin Miao came over, he could absorb some nutrients from Qin Miao to improve himself.

So after Qin Miao asked him for it, Leclerc readily went to his track engineer to get his tuning data.

After handing the USB drive to Qin Miao, Leclerc asked curiously, "The post-season test is during the day, and my training data is for use at night when the temperature of the Yas Bay Marina Circuit drops. Will there be any problem?"

Qin Miao took the USB drive and plugged it into the computer in the Ferrari team's P room, saying, "You have to trust the triple crown winner's judgment and control over the car."

After hearing Qin Miao's words, Leclerc knew that he was pretending, but he didn't know how to refute it for a while.

After opening the document, Qin Miao began to look through the data.

Soon, Qin Miao found Leclerc's detailed tuning settings.

But time is limited, and Qin Miao can't look at all of Leclerc's settings, so Qin Miao directly said to Fabio: "Fabio, please put Leclerc's data on my car, and I will run two laps and then adjust it."

Fabio didn't say anything. He nodded and started to modify the settings of the SF23 according to the tuning data of Leclerc's car.

Leclerc asked curiously, "We both have different driving styles. Don't use my settings and crash the car on the track."

Leclerc's driving habits cannot be said to be exactly the same as Qin Miao's, but at least they can be said to be poles apart.

Qin Miao prefers a racing car with more understeer characteristics.

The characteristic of a car that Leclerc likes is oversteer, where the front of the car is more sensitive than the rear.

Qin Miao shook his head and said, "After I get on, I won't be able to push hard in a short period of time. I will definitely get familiar with the various characteristics of the car first, and then further test the limits of the car."

"And who says I won't drive an oversteering car? I just prefer to drive an understeering car. That makes me feel like I'm pushing the limit in every turn, which gives me a sense of accomplishment and thrill."

What else could Leclerc say? He could only let Qin Miao go.

And to be honest, Leclerc is also looking forward to what kind of results Qin Miao can achieve on the track with his own tuning settings, and how big the gap is between him and this guy. (End of this chapter)