How did I become an F1 driver?

It’s actually very time-consuming to go over all the tuning settings in your mind. After all, you have to think about how the car will perform on the track with Leclerc’s settings, and which settings will affect the car’s cornering accuracy and acceleration speed.

But it would be easy to apply the tuning settings of Leclerc's car.

Just like applying a formula, you can simply adjust the corresponding data according to the display on the computer.

After more than ten minutes, all modifications to the car had been completed.

It can be said that the only difference between Qin Miao's No. 66 car and Leclerc's No. 16 car at this time is the difference in wear between the serviceable parts in the car.

After the adjustments were completed, Qin Miao put on his helmet, high-fived the team's technicians one by one, and then climbed into the car.

Qin Miao also has to rely on the skills provided by his system to conduct a final inspection of the car.

Although he won't push the car to its limits this time, as a three-time world champion driving a Ferrari for the first time, he has to get a good result, right?

Although it’s not to the point of breaking any records, the results should at least be good.

After the inspection, Qin Miao habitually tested the team TR: "Radio test."

"Radio test, no problem."

After hearing the voice in the team TR, Qin Miao raised his eyebrows in surprise: "Leclerc, why are you here to join in the fun?"

"I'm just curious and want to take a look. Just run and don't mind me."

Qin Miao nodded. After waiting for a while, Leclerc didn't say anything, so he asked in confusion: "What about the temperature? What about the humidity? What about the wind speed? Tell me, how come you, a track engineer, are so unprofessional?"

"Oh...air temperature is 21, humidity is 81%, southeast wind is 2.1 meters per second." Leclerc hurriedly reported the data according to the display in front of him.

After obtaining these data, Qin Miao, under the command of Fabio, slowly drove the SF23 out of the Ferrari team's P room.

What surprised Qin Miao was that when he drove the car out, many familiar figures in the Mercedes-Benz team's P room were standing at the door of the team's P room looking at him.

Qin Miao felt a little emotional when he saw his colleagues who had been working hard for the world championship together a few days ago now playing for different teams.

But you have to know that people always have to look forward, so Qin Miao quickly suppressed his inner emotions, waved to those people, and then focused all his attention on the track.

I won’t go into too much detail here about the layout of the Yas Bay Marina Circuit as everyone is familiar with it.

The same is true for Qin Miao.

Feeling the dynamic performance of the SF23 under him, Qin Miao quickly came to the conclusion that the acceleration of this car is actually quite good. Although it is not as good as the W14 with specially optimized straight-line capabilities, its acceleration is actually similar to that of the Honda engine used by Red Bull.

However, there is still a lot of room for improvement in the overall aerodynamic design and suspension design of the car.

After putting these thoughts aside in his mind, Qin Miao focused his main attention on getting familiar with the car.

After running two laps to become completely familiar with the car, Qin Miao began to accelerate.

In the Ferrari team's P room, almost everyone who was originally in the team's home came to the team's P room.

At this moment, the expressions on their faces were surprisingly consistent, all of them were curious and expectant.

They also sincerely hope that Qin Miao can get a good result in this test.

On the track, Qin Miao started after crossing the finish line again, his first flying lap for the Ferrari team.

In fact, if Qin Miao looked at it himself, his performance in his first flying circle was very average.

In Qin Miao's own eyes, it could only be considered barely passing.

Then Leclerc looked at Qin Miao's result of 1:23.333 and fell into deep thought amid the cheers and applause in the Ferrari team's P room.

You know, in the qualifying stage four days ago, Leclerc only ran a time of 4:23 in the Yas Bay Marina Circuit while driving the SF1.

Although it was night, Qin Miao was not in full condition. He did not adjust the car according to his own driving habits. He completely applied Leclerc's tuning settings for the car.

Under such circumstances, Qin Miao's ability to achieve such a result really made Leclerc feel his scalp tingling.

According to Leclerc's estimation, if Qin Miao is fully familiar with and masters this car, then Qin Miao may be 0.3 to 0.4 seconds faster than his own lap in the qualifying stage.

Of course, what really broke Leclerc's defense was Qin Miao's team TR.

"I didn't handle it well when I was exiting T5. The front of this car is too sensitive. I was slow to give the accelerator the first time. I could have gained 0.1 more time. I'm not used to the buttons on the steering wheel. Can I change them? I turned on DRS 0.2 slower than normal. If I continue to use this layout, I will easily touch it by mistake if the race is too intense."

Well, it’s not even a question of being unfamiliar with this training.

Leclerc was devastated.

From the excitement and anticipation when Qin Miao just sat on the racing car to the grief he feels now, Leclerc's mood has been through ups and downs during this period.

Of course, the emotions of other people in the Ferrari team's P room were not as complicated as Leclerc's. All they saw was Qin Miao's almost overflowing racing talent and the bonus that would flow into their wallets in the near future.

After running a flying lap, Qin Miao conducted some routine tests on the track.

After all, Qin Miao's soft tires are relatively new, and the team also wants to test the durability of Qin Miao's new formula soft tires on the track.

Of course, it still depends on driver Qin Miao himself to experience what it feels like to drive the new formula of Pirelli tires for the 2024 season. If he is not satisfied, Pirelli still has time to make modifications.

Of course, the driver's opinion is secondary, the main thing is to test the safety of the tires and so on.

After all, Pirelli doesn't want to see a driver's tire burst for no apparent reason while running on the track.

This is a heavy blow to Pirelli's share price. You have to know that Verstappen's kick in Azerbaijan wiped out 80% of Pirelli's market share in the Netherlands.

Pirelli came to F1 to advertise, not to destroy its own share price and market share.

The run lasted for more than 66 minutes. Finally, when the soft tires were worn out by Qin Miao and started to slip after passing the cliff point and taking a slight turn, Qin Miao drove the No. car back to the maintenance area.

Before he even stopped the car, Qin Miao saw Vasseur and a group of people standing at the door of the Ferrari team's P room waiting for him. After he parked the car in the parking space, warm applause broke out from the crowd.

To be honest, these people were a little too enthusiastic, which made Qin Miao feel a little embarrassed.

Of course, the applause from the Ferrari team's P room also made the Mercedes staff next to the team's P room frown.

It's hard, the fist is hard.

But Qin Miao didn't have to wait too long. Soon Fabio and the others came over, lifted Qin Miao's car with a jack, and took it back to the team's P room.

Qin Miao thought that he would start working immediately after getting off the car, adjusting the tune and giving feedback on the condition of the car. However, after Qin Miao got off the car, he was surrounded by Ferrari people, who began to ask about his well-being, interview him and record videos.

After being busy for a while, Qin Miao finally had time to continue working.

The next step is to feedback, fill in data, modify and adjust, etc. I won’t go into details here.

After running around for more than 5 hours, Qin Miao completed all testing work in the 2023 F1 paddock.

After climbing out of the Ferrari, Qin Miao reached out and patted SF23's flip-flops.

Then he turned to Fabio beside him and asked, "Have you remembered all the requests I made?"

During today's testing, Qin Miao discovered many things that he was not used to.

Of course, this is also an objective problem. After all, Ferrari and Mercedes are not the same team. Under the different team cultures, some designs of the steering wheel and the car are inconsistent with Qin Miao's habits.

In addition, the work process and communication methods are different.

Although Qin Miao would not make all Ferrari designs tend to be similar to Mercedes-Benz, there are still some things that Qin Miao has to actively adapt to. However, Qin Miao still proposed modifications to those places that can be seen as unreasonable at a glance.

"I've memorized everything. Do you want to read it again?" Fabio nodded in response after hearing Qin Miao's question.

Qin Miao reached out and took the folder from Fabio, flipped it open and read it carefully. After making sure there was no problem, he said, "Well, that's it. That's all. Remember to help submit it when the time comes."

"Ok."

As for whether Ferrari will make changes after Qin Miao submits these feedbacks...

This is not a problem for Qin Miao. Are you kidding me about the power of shareholders?
After today's post-season test, Qin Miao officially entered his vacation.

At this point, someone would ask, isn't the post-season test usually two days long? Why did Qin Miao have a day off?
Because the other day of post-season testing was reserved for Leclerc.

Qin Miao can't be left to do all the dirty work alone.

Moreover, after changing teams, Qin Miao still has a lot of things to deal with.

For example, he needs to find a house in Italy.

Then he will need to attend Mercedes' farewell event. In addition, as a world champion after all, Qin Miao also needs to attend the FIA ​​awards ceremony at the end of 2023.

After arriving in Maranello, there will be a press conference, right? Then we will also need to visit the team factory in Maranello, and Qin Miao will also need to participate in Ferrari fan activities, right?
These are just the big things Qin Miao can remember, there are even more small things.

When Qin Miao saw his schedule, he got a headache.

Damn, if I had known changing teams would be so troublesome, I wouldn’t have changed!
So after Qin Miao left the paddock, he did not stay idle, but returned to his home in Blackley.

This house is near the Mercedes-Benz factory, and it has also been bought by Qiu Meng.

Moreover, this place also contains many memories of Qin Miao's family, so Qin Miao has no plans to sell the house and will stay here.

When I get older, I might come here to reminisce about my youth. But speaking of selling the house, Mercedes actually thought about buying Qin Miao's house after Qin Miao told Mercedes that he would leave next season, and make it a place similar to a museum or memorial hall for Mercedes in the future.

However, Qin Miao ultimately rejected Mercedes' proposal. As mentioned earlier, Qin Miao had no intention of selling the house.

After returning here, Qin Miao didn't do much to clean up.

In Qin Miao's opinion, it would be best to keep the house as it was. Except for some things that were prone to mold and spoilage, everything else should be left where it was.

It is also close to the Silverstone Circuit, so we can come back and stay here when the British Grand Prix is ​​held in the future.

When the time comes, just find a professional cleaning company to come and clean regularly.

Anyway, Qin Miao is not short of money now, so he can just buy new furniture for his new home in Italy.

After packing, Qin Miao stayed at his home in Brackley for another two days. On the third day, he went to Mercedes-Benz to attend the farewell event prepared for him by Mercedes-Benz.

Today, most of the Mercedes team staff came to the Mercedes team's headquarters.

Of course, Qin Miao couldn't come empty-handed. After importing a batch of good quality tea from China, Qin Miao pulled a cart when he went to the team factory and gave each colleague in the Mercedes-Benz team a box of tea he brought from China.

And this isn’t a particularly bad tea, it costs 1200 per box.

More than 500 million were given away in this donation.

Of course, compared with the money Qin Miao earned from the Mercedes-Benz team, this amount is not even a drop in the bucket.

After completing all the procedures, everyone else took their things and left happily, but Toto took Qin Miao to visit the Mercedes-Benz team again.

After walking through the office area and the R&D factory, the two came to the showroom inside the Mercedes-Benz team.

Here are all the racing cars of Mercedes-Benz since the team was founded. Some are cars that have run on the track, and some are replicas. At the same time, there are also trophies of all the awards won by the Mercedes-Benz team over the years.

And all these trophies are authentic.

After seeing these trophies, Qin Miao suddenly remembered.

Qin Miao slapped his head and said, "I forgot something."

Then, under Toto's puzzled gaze, Qin Miao took out his cell phone and called Qiu Meng: "Wife, please send me my Abu Dhabi trophy. I forgot to take it."

"Oh." Qiu Meng, who was watching a TV series, nodded in agreement, but was interrupted by Qin Miao just when she saw something interesting. Qiu Meng complained a little emotionally: "How come you can forget about this?"

"Hi, that's nothing. I've been pretty busy lately..." Qin Miao scratched his head embarrassedly.

But when Toto heard the conversation between Qin Miao and Qiu Meng, he was a little at a loss for a moment.

"No, what are you doing? Are you planning to leave the trophy at Mercedes?"

After hanging up the phone, Qin Miao smiled and nodded: "Yes, I think this trophy has a certain commemorative significance for both me and Mercedes. And you know me, I have obsessive-compulsive disorder. If I don't win all the Grand Prix championships in a certain year of my career, I basically won't deliberately pursue all the trophies. It doesn't even matter whether I have them or not. After all, the trophy display in my house is almost full."

"Like this year, since I couldn't achieve the goal I had in mind, these trophies sometimes even got in my way."

Toto's mouth twitched.

In the eyes of other drivers, it is out of reach, and they may not even be able to win a single race championship trophy in their entire career. In Qin Miao's eyes, it is even a bit of an eyesore.

"so."

Qin Miao looked at the trophy wall with many trophies on the front and said, "I think that considering my contribution to Mercedes-Benz, the championship trophy of the last race of my last season of Mercedes-Benz career should be worthy of being placed in the trophy display room of the Mercedes-Benz team, right?"

"That's very qualified, but I hope that one day you can come back here and take this trophy away." Toto said to Qin Miao with his arms crossed as he watched the phone hang up.

Qin Miao did not respond to Toto's words, but laughed and said, "By the way, where are the cars from these seasons?"

"there."

Soon the two came to the Mercedes Benz cars of recent seasons.

After all, there are too many cars in Mercedes-Benz's display city, so Qin Miao's car is parked in a more hidden location, closer to the inside.

Normally speaking, given Hamilton's status in Mercedes.

After the season is over, the car in the exhibition hall should be Hamilton's car.

However, the three Mercedes cars for the 2021, 2022 and 2023 seasons stacked together are all Qin Miao's. After these three, from 2020 onwards, they are Hamilton and Rosberg's cars.

The reason for this situation is that these three cars in 2021, 2022 and 2023 are all championship cars. No matter how special Hamilton's position in Mercedes-Benz is, at this moment, it is impossible for Hamilton's car to take the lead.

Those who don’t know might think that Verstappen has won the Drivers’ World Championship for the past three years.

Looking at these three familiar yet unfamiliar chariots, Qin Miao's collecting habit suddenly came back: "Toto, are you going to sell the cars? I want to buy the 21-year car back and put it away."

Toto: ...

He looked at Qin Miao, who was looking at him with a curious and eager expression, in silence: "Do you think this is a figurine? If you want to buy it, just buy it."

Qin Miao waved his hand: "Just tell me if you can do it."

Toto shook his head and then nodded.

Just when Qin Miao was wondering what Toto meant, the other party explained: "If you really want, you can get back all the cars from the three seasons, but not the championship car you personally drove."

"Why?" Qin Miao wondered.

Toto thought for a moment and explained, "Because for Mercedes, these three years have also been very special. Our car has lost its previous competitiveness in these three seasons. It was thanks to your personal performance that you won the Drivers' World Championship."

“This is a great honor, but also a wake-up call for us.”

"So these three years are very special to us, symbolizing your era of dominance over Mercedes and the paddock."

"But if you really want it, considering your status, we can try to get it from other sources."

"For example, the team has the blueprints of these three cars. As you know, you rarely have car damage on the track, so many spare parts have not been used. Now they are in the Mercedes team's warehouse. We can reuse these parts and assemble a new car for you."

"But you have to pay for the manufacturing of the vehicle. It's definitely not given to you for free. After all, as you know, there is a budget cap now."

Qin Miao thought for a moment and asked, "How much is a car?"

Now it was Toto's turn to be surprised: "Are you really going to buy it?"

"Who can refuse a big action figure that can reach a speed of 350 kilometers per hour?" Qin Miao shrugged with a smile.

"No, do you really think this is a figurine?" Toto complained, but then he said, "You should understand that you can't start these cars without a support team, and if you really want to buy them, you have to sign a confidentiality agreement. After all, some things on these cars will be used on the future W15."

"This means that if you want to drive one day, you will have to find someone from the Mercedes F1 team to help you with logistics."

Qin Miao nodded: "What you said does make sense. Forget it, tell me the price first, and then I'll consider whether to buy it or not."

Toto stroked his chin and said, "Considering your status as a Mercedes-Benz meritorious driver, I'll give you a discount. After all, the spare parts in the warehouse are just sitting there, so I'll charge you $300 million for each one."

Qin Miao nodded slightly: "This price is acceptable."

"But let me be frank. These cars need to be maintained every month, and the maintenance can only be done by our team members. It costs about $20 per car per month."

Qin Miao:......

"Farewell."

If Qin Miao was asked to take out 900 million US dollars at one time, he could indeed do it, after all, this was just a one-time deal. However, if he was asked to spend 60 US dollars every month to maintain the car, Qin Miao would indeed feel distressed.

This is a long-term investment, and over time, no one knows how much money will be spent on it.

As for taking the three cars to the exhibition, we relied on the money from the exhibition for subsidization.

Qin Miao doesn't think that he can earn $60 a month by putting his car on display.

Toto smiled and didn't say anything else. He went through the rest of the process with Qin Miao.

As for the Cosworth engine factory.

If Qin Miao was still a Mercedes driver, he would not give a shit if he wanted to go and see Toto, and he would even find a way to help Qin Miao get a pass that would allow him to travel through the entire factory without any hindrance.

Even if he slept in the factory, Toto wouldn't say anything. Toto would even praise him: "Qin Miao is indeed the most talented driver in F1 history. He even wants to sleep with the engine of the racing car."

"See? This is the God of Cars!"

But if Qin Miao wants to go now, it would not be appropriate. After all, Qin Miao is a Ferrari driver now. Letting Qin Miao visit Mercedes-Benz's engine factory would be no different from treason.

However, before the trip was about to end, Toto gave Qin Miao a gift.

Standing at the door of the Mercedes-Benz team, Qin Miao looked at the W14 model in Toto's hand, feeling a little puzzled.

After all, he really has no shortage of such things. The team gave Qin Miao a lot of things to give away, including racing suits, clothes, helmets, and various commemorative cards from official cooperation with the Mercedes-Benz team. Some of these cards can even be sold for tens of thousands of dollars each. Naturally, racing car models are also included.

So for Qin Miao, this gift from Toto was a very ordinary gift. (End of this chapter)