How Did I Become an F1 Driver?

Chapter 979 382: Pan: I Believe in Ferrari's Ability to Mess Things Up

When the camera cut over, it was clear that Hamilton's left rear tire had blown out, the tire surface completely deflated, limply drooping around the rim, helplessly flapping with the rotation of the tire.Obviously, Hamilton needs to pit for a new set of tires.

And by the time they reached the main straight on lap 1, when Verstappen returned the place to Qin Miao, Hamilton and Magelsen had already fallen to the back of the pack.

With two fewer cars ahead, Zhou Guanyu, who started ninth, had already moved up to seventh, with his teammate Bottas right in front.

The thoughts of Verstappen and the Red Bull team behind Qin Miao were quite simple.

Although getting rid of Qin Miao would relieve a lot of pressure for the team and Verstappen himself, there's still Leclerc up ahead, and carrying a 5-second penalty for getting rid of Qin Miao really isn't worth it.

Regardless of other factors, staying within 5 seconds behind Verstappen without being dropped isn't a difficult task for Leclerc and Ferrari.

Therefore, after comprehensive consideration, Red Bull and Verstappen opted to give the position back to Qin Miao regarding the contention for the race championship.

After all, if they can't overtake Qin Miao on the track, there's still the team and pit strategy.

Moreover, letting Verstappen keep this position comes at the least speed loss for him.

Up until the DRS activation, Qin Miao did not feel much pressure from Verstappen behind him.

Even though following closely this season is easier, Verstappen is very predictable—if Qin Miao gives a slight opening at T4 or T10, Verstappen will surely try to attack.

And whenever Verstappen tried to attack, Qin Miao would rely on his leading advantage to push him off the track or force him to slow down.

Thus, every time they reached the main straight, Verstappen didn't have enough distance to attack Qin Miao, and Qin hadn't even needed to perform interior line defense before DRS was activated.

However, due to the tussle between Qin Miao and Verstappen on the track, by the time the third lap rolled around and DRS was activated by the race officials, the gap between Leclerc at the front and Qin Miao and Verstappen had extended to 4 seconds.

Contrarily, the gap between Sainz trailing Verstappen had stabilized within one second.

Upon seeing the time gap between Verstappen and Sainz, Qin Miao had never wished more than at that moment for Sainz to muster some aggression and attempt an attack on the Verstappen ahead.

"Isn't defending against you, Sainz, much easier than defending against Verstappen? If I can pull away in the DRS train, wouldn't you have the podium already? Why so foolish?"

Once DRS activated, Verstappen was ready to use the advantage of the soft tires to start his attack on Qin Miao.

Qin Miao, naturally having prepared ample battery power in the earlier laps, was ready for a frontal assault.

By the fourth lap, Verstappen had learned from past mistakes—even though Qin Miao clearly missed the braking point at T10, he didn't attempt to cut into Qin Miao's line because he knew that at that moment, cutting inside would surely result in Qin Miao forcibly pushing him out.

He was too familiar with Qin Miao.

So he kept to his rhythm, taking the regular racing line, even easing off the throttle.

After so much dueling on track with Qin Miao, Verstappen now understood clearly: to overtake Qin Miao, it would need absolute car speed across the straights.

Engaging in those track defense maneuvers and twist and turns, almost no one could beat Qin Miao when driving at the physiological limits of the car.

Hence, Verstappen decided to stay closely behind Qin Miao, as close as possible, until it was time to accelerate after exiting T16.

But Qin Miao wouldn't let Verstappen comfortably use DRS like that.

Exiting T13 and entering T14 and T15, Verstappen was already glued 0.2 seconds behind Qin Miao.

Because they were so close, from the broadcast camera, Verstappen and Qin Miao's cars appeared as if they were connected.

But as Qin Miao entered T14, an unexpected scene unraveled for Verstappen: Qin Miao braked too early, so when Verstappen noticed Qin Miao's car unusually slowing down, his instinctive reaction was to pull toward the inside line.

As soon as Verstappen pulled from behind Qin Miao's car, T14 was right in front of him.

Verstappen could easily have braked late here, forcing his way inside Qin Miao's line, and just like Qin Miao had done to him in corners, pushed Qin Miao off the track directly.

But faced with such a rare opportunity, Verstappen hesitated.

This was because Verstappen was arguably the most played by Qin Miao's defense maneuvers in the entire field; even Perez wasn't outwitted as many times as Verstappen.

Surely, Perez's personal skill isn't as strong as Verstappen's, and defending against Perez put less pressure on Qin Miao.

And seeing this unexpected mistake from Qin Miao, which didn't match his skill level at all, Verstappen worried it was yet another deliberate flaw from Qin Miao.

Thus, after pulling out, he didn't choose to brake late and forcefully cut into Qin Miao's inner lane but instead braked in the inner lane after pulling out, choosing not to take the risk.