How Did I Become an F1 Driver?

Chapter 984 384: The Ferrari Academy Curse_2

Moreover, this was Qin Miao's lap performance during the introductory round when Qin Miao's set of soft tires hadn't yet warmed up.If running normally, Perez had a feeling he might be completely outpaced by Qin Miao.

Next, the broadcast director on site focused solely on Qin Miao and Perez, displaying a chart comparing their lap speeds.

This allowed the audience to clearly see when Qin Miao would catch up to Perez and complete the overtake.

While Qin Miao was furiously chasing after Perez, Hamilton, who had fallen silently to the back due to an earlier collision during the start, was now right behind Bottas.

Like his teammate Qin Miao, Hamilton had completed only one pit stop aside from the start stop, relying on a set of medium tires just like Qin Miao to hold out for over forty laps.

Two laps after Qin Miao exited the pit, at lap 49, Hamilton also chose to pit and switched to soft tires.

Hamilton also planned to learn from Qin Miao's tire strategy, utilizing the late-stage advantage of soft tires to put pressure on the drivers ahead, at least to take down Bottas.

After coming out of the pit lane, Hamilton dropped to seventh place.

Bear in mind, he started today's race in sixth, dropped to nineteenth due to an unexpected incident post-start, and managing to return to this position with 16 laps remaining, Hamilton's performance today has been perfect.

On the track, Qin Miao took less than ten laps, only eight laps, and by lap 55, with 11 laps to go, Qin Miao closed in on Perez.

Two laps after catching up to Perez, after slightly recharging his car's battery, Qin Miao executed the overtake on Perez on the external line using the car's absolute speed advantage on the main straight in lap 57.

Despite Perez's attempts to defend against Qin Miao by cutting into the inside line and squeezing Qin Miao onto the dirty side of the track, such moves appeared somewhat redundant in front of Qin Miao.

Because Qin Miao effectively devoured Perez simply with his speed advantage.

The speed advantage offered by the soft tires was vividly displayed at this moment.

After overtaking Perez, the driver ahead of Qin Miao became Verstappen.

However, there were only 9 laps remaining in the race, and Qin Miao was 13 seconds behind Verstappen.

This time gap was too large; even with full effort in the remaining laps, Qin Miao couldn't catch up to Verstappen.

Thus, after overtaking Perez, Qin Miao's speed gradually slowed down.

With 9 laps left until the end of the race, Qin Miao had been quite hard on his tires earlier, though they wouldn't hit the cliff point directly.

Nonetheless, the tire speed decline was rapid during the latter stages, leading Qin Miao to consider preserving this set of tires to ensure some margin against potential attacks from Perez.

However, in the latter part of the race, Qin Miao's position didn't change much.

Perez, behind Qin Miao, seemed to lose the motivation to attack Qin Miao, and even when Qin Miao's speed slowed down, there was no intent to move against Qin Miao.

At one moment, Perez even pondered whether Qin Miao deliberately slowed down out of boredom to toy with him.

Meanwhile, behind Perez, Sainz couldn't defend against Hamilton's soft tire assault and was finally overtaken by Hamilton in lap 61, advancing to fourth.

However, Hamilton didn't maintain this position for long. When the race closed in on lap 64, Mercedes reluctantly informed Hamilton through team TR.

"Sorry, Lewis, the engine temperature is quite high right now. Please avoid running the engine at full power for the rest of the race, as it might cause engine failure and force a retirement. If needed, you can concede the position to Sainz."

Not only Hamilton received this notification, but Qin Miao also got the same notice.

Even without team TR, Qin Miao had sensed the engine temperature was somewhat high through his skills.

The track temperature was excessively high today, and the temperature within the driver monocoque was near the 60℃ mark.

The operating temperature inside Mercedes' engines was typically around 130℃ this season, about 20℃ higher than other teams' engine temperatures.

Normally, given Mercedes' engine durability, 20℃ higher on the track shouldn't impact the engine's performance output.

However, the track temperature for today's race was extremely high, and Mercedes' car intake was small this season, limiting the intake volume, so this situation was almost inevitable.

This issue had minimal impact on Qin Miao as the team notified him while he still had some distance over Perez.

Thus, from then until the end of the race, despite Perez noticing Qin Miao's speed had drastically reduced, he found out with only two laps left to finish.

Ultimately, Qin Miao easily defended against Perez's attacks, eventually finishing second.

The race concluded, yet surprisingly, Perez set the fastest lap time in the race, not Verstappen.

Despite falling short of reaching the podium due to the car engine overheating issue, Hamilton ascended from 19th to finish 4th, climbing two positions higher than his starting rank.

Ultimately slipping to 5th, Hamilton's performance in the race was undeniably striking.

As a result, Hamilton received the audience's favorite driver honor for this race.

Qin Miao started second and ended second.

Many uninformed spectators assumed Mercedes regained racing competitiveness based on such results.

Yet, the team knew this performance merely stemmed from Qin Miao's personal ability.

Though the team staff felt happy for Qin Miao's great result, they realized their responsibilities remained heavy.

After parking the cars in the podium area post-race, Qin Miao celebrated simply with his team, and many noticed through broadcast his racing suit drenched in sweat.

Even someone as fit as Qin Miao was sweating profusely on this track, indicating how demanding the race conditions were.

Of course, Qin Miao sweating so much was also due to other reasons apart from the high track temperature.

It was because Mercedes' W13 engine operated at higher temperatures than other teams' engines, resulting in higher cockpit temperatures for Qin Miao and Hamilton.

But those were in the past; after enduring an arduous race, it was now time to reap the rewards.

Noteworthily, post-race interviews with the three drivers showed distinct contrasts.

Verstappen's elation was evident after clinching victory, while Qin Miao remained calm upon taking second, with answers appearing formulaic, treating it as a mere trivial task.

Given his status as reigning champion, such composure was expected.

Meanwhile, during Perez's interview, his dissatisfaction with the race results was apparent.

After all, Perez struggled against Qin Miao, who drove a car of lesser performance.

Though Perez himself felt disappointed, everyone at Red Bull viewed his performance positively, as even Verstappen faced difficulties with Qin Miao, making Perez's struggle understandable.