How Did I Become an F1 Driver?

Chapter 963 378: Counterattack (6K, Extra Update 6/15)

Even Qin Miao, sitting in the racing car at the moment, thought so too. He felt that those four guys in front wouldn't leave him any opportunity to pick up something by chance.On lap 6, Hamilton also overtook Bottas in front of him, returning to sixth, where he started.

Meanwhile, in just one lap, Zhou Guanyu overtook Yuki Tsunoda in front, moving up to twelfth. It seems Alfa Romeo's speed on this track is quite impressive.

Zhou Guanyu might very well score points in this race.

Seeing Zhou Guanyu's chasing speed, Bing laughed heartily: "As long as the Alfa Romeo team doesn't create trouble for Zhou Guanyu anymore, with his current speed, he can at least finish in the top eight in this race."

In just 6 laps, he moved from 15th to 12th, giving the commentators good reason to be pleased with his pace.

Strictly speaking, during the first three laps of the race, DRS isn't available. Although overtaking isn't impossible, it's quite difficult. So, Zhou Guanyu managed to pass three drivers in three laps.

The speed can only be described as fast.

If it were Qin Miao, it would be about the same level.

However, less than three minutes after Bing finished speaking.

On the left side of the track, in the driver rankings, Zhou Guanyu started to drop quickly from twelfth place.

In just half a lap, he fell from twelfth to the last place.

The three commentators at Five-Star Sports: ... ???

When the live broadcast camera returned to Zhou Guanyu, he was already at the entrance of the pit box, with the Alfa Romeo team staff lifting his car up and pushing it back into the pit.

It's obvious that Zhou Guanyu has to retire from this race.

Speaking of which, Zhou Guanyu seems to be a bit unlucky.

In the Q1 stage of qualifying, during a good flying lap, he encountered traffic at the third-to-last corner.

During the race, while he was doing well, his car malfunctioned.

Even Qin Miao was a bit taken aback when he learned Zhou Guanyu had retired, from the team radio.

"This guy... is he really that unlucky?"

On the long straight of lap 9, Verstappen overtook Leclerc.

And quickly left Leclerc outside the DRS zone.

It's hard to imagine, on this track, the Red Bull's top speed is actually faster than Ferrari's.

While Ferrari is actually faster in the corners.

The design philosophies of the two teams have completely swapped.

On Qin Miao's end, after he reached fifth, he gradually fell behind Perez by more than seven seconds.

While Hamilton remained cruising two seconds behind Qin Miao.

Although Hamilton had the speed to catch and attack Qin Miao, he chose not to at this time.

Primarily because he knew that even if he tried, overtaking Qin Miao wouldn't be easy, and the most he would achieve would be mutual damage.

Because Qin Miao could defend against Perez for so long despite the car performance gap, now that their car performances are about the same, attacking Qin Miao might be futile, and he might even be threatened by Bottas behind him.

So Hamilton ultimately chose a more comfortable approach, just following behind Qin Miao at a regular pace.

On the other side, Leclerc made another mistake.

At turn 17 on lap 12, while chasing Verstappen from 1.6 seconds behind, Leclerc made a mistake and missed the braking point.

When he returned to the track, the gap with Verstappen widened to 2.6 seconds.

A small mistake resulted in a one-second time loss.

Speaking of which, although Leclerc is considered one of the genius drivers, compared to his friend Qin Miao, Leclerc is noticeably less stable.

He often makes unforced errors, especially when chasing the driver in front. This season alone, it's happened twice, both times while chasing Verstappen.

However, when defending against drivers behind, Leclerc rarely makes mistakes and is quite steady.

It can only be said that Leclerc's personality is still a bit impatient.

After the race reached this point, both Mercedes drivers, Qin Miao and Hamilton, didn't get much broadcast time, as the two world champions began their cruising mode on the track.

On lap 22, Qin Miao started chasing Perez ahead by 0.3 seconds per lap.

It's quite evident that the tires of the leading group have begun to degrade rapidly, while Qin Miao has been leveraging his tire management skills to keep his tires in good condition.

However, most people noticed this change and felt it didn't matter, as Perez and the others had built a significant time advantage early on, and once they opened their pit windows by lap 26, Qin Miao's tire advantage would be neutralized.

The most frustrating part for Qin Miao was that Ferrari called Leclerc into the pits on lap 25 to switch to hard tires.

After exiting the pits, Leclerc was positioned 3.4 seconds ahead of Qin Miao.

This time, Qin Miao wouldn't go easy on Leclerc, aiming to take advantage of Leclerc's tire temperature not being up yet, squeezing that opportunity.

However, it turns out that Ferrari's car this season is indeed strong.