Chapter 1066: Chapter 408: Sainz’s Nemesis

Of course, that’s what they say, but Hamilton’s responsibility isn’t that great; the main responsibility is Gasly on Hamilton’s right for bringing it upon himself.

And after this collision, the right front suspension of the Mercedes car showcased a characteristic the Mercedes cars have always had.

Vibranium suspension.

After launching a small Red Bull into the air, Hamilton’s right suspension wasn’t damaged at all, and when the race was over and the team checked, they found that Hamilton’s right front suspension didn’t even require realignment.

What stands out is the robustness!

However, Hamilton’s car did sustain some damage.

The undertray of Hamilton’s car was scraped off a section, and at the same time, there was some abrasion on the blades of the right front wheel.

In any case, the Mercedes car would definitely be taken for repairs.

Replacing the blades on the tire is nothing, the team has spare parts.

But the damaged undertray on Hamilton’s car is a bit tricky, although the team does have spare parts, the cost of an undertray isn’t cheap.

The team feels the pinch, so the Hamilton crew on-site is evaluating whether they can patch up the undertray.

Some might say that damaged carbon fiber can’t be repaired.

Indeed, once carbon fiber is damaged or broken, it’s irreparable.

At least, it’s impossible to restore the damaged area to its original strength and characteristics.

However, Hamilton’s undertray only lost a small piece of carbon fiber on the edge, and the missing area is small, about the length of making an "OK" sign with your fingers.

The team factory, after a short meeting, decided: to reproduce a carbon fiber piece roughly the size of the damaged area, then bond it with strong adhesive and putty to make it smooth. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

After this repair, the aerodynamic effect of the car’s undertray is about the same as a normal carbon fiber undertray, the downside being that the car might be about 10 grams heavier on the damaged side.

Of course, the biggest advantage of this repair is—it’s cheap.

It’s hard to imagine that even a wealthy team like Mercedes is now pinching pennies on saving costs.

Naturally, the team did obtain Hamilton’s consent before proceeding.

In summary, this sprint qualifying, although it gave Toto some heart-stopping moments, triggering a rush of emotions with racing thoughts and heart palpitations, the result was still satisfactory to him.

There were losses, but still within an acceptable range.

As for repairing his car’s issues, Hamilton actually wanted to directly replace it with a new undertray as there was a spare one, no waste in using it.

But considering the car development for next season, he ultimately agreed reluctantly.

Moreover, the repaired undertray has almost no impact on the car’s speed, so Hamilton eventually agreed.

After the meeting ended, Qin Miao, naturally debt-free, returned to the hotel to rest.

The next day, after the pre-race interviews, preparations, and the driver parade, Qin Miao returned to the team P room.

At this time, Frankie and the others were still conducting the final checks on Qin Miao’s car, with not much complexity in the inspection, since after yesterday’s sprint qualifying, it’s impossible to make any further adjustments to Qin Miao’s car setup.

Today’s race stage, Qin Miao is using the setup that was used in the sprint qualifying stage yesterday.

So at this moment, they are predominantly inspecting parts of the car that may develop issues during the race, especially focusing on the position where Qin Miao’s car suffered a fuel supply pipeline problem last time.

When everything was ready, the car was pushed onto the track as per the race committee’s notification.

The weather in Austria today is nice, with the mountainous scenery around the track being pleasant. Although clouds occasionally drift by, there hasn’t been any rain cloud moving toward the track so far.

Of course, the possibility of rain during today’s race stage cannot be ruled out.

After all, the Red Bull Ring is situated in Austria’s mountainous regions, and the weather in the mountains can change unexpectedly.

It wouldn’t be surprising if the sky was clear without a cloud in sight for the first 10 minutes, only to be covered with rain-bearing clouds and start pouring afterward.

Meanwhile, in this race, Bottas will start from the pit lane due to a new internal combustion engine replacement.

Although Bottas’s starting position change doesn’t directly affect Qin Miao’s starting position, this information serves as a reference for the Mercedes team—that Ferrari-associated teams are starting to face engine wear issues.

And Bottas is the first driver this season to start from the pit lane due to an engine change at the starting stage.

This indicates that Ferrari’s engines should have the least durability among all the drivers’ engines this season.

Then, Mercedes team has a good chance to exploit this to retain second place in the Constructors’ standings against Ferrari.

As for Red Bull...

Frankly, Red Bull did encounter quite a few stability issues at the start of the season, but as the races progressed, Honda evidently put in more resources into engine stability.

Consequently, in the past few races, Honda’s engines no longer have stability problems.