Chapter 1095: Chapter 417: An Unexpectedly Expected Mishap (Part 2)

And judging from the situation on track right now, the current pattern isn’t going to change much in the short term.

Fortunately, this state didn’t last too long.

Hamilton’s defensive skills are considered top tier in the paddock. During the whole time Perez was attacking him, he never once lost position or gave up the inside line. Hamilton kept defending against Perez all the way to lap 5.

But after following behind Hamilton for such a long time, plus the slightly high track temperature today, Perez’s tyres inevitably started to overheat.

On one hand it was because Perez was too close to Hamilton in front, so the air intakes were only gulping the hot exhaust gases from Hamilton’s engine. At the same time, on the straights Perez’s tyres couldn’t get any cool air either, because he needed to sit in Hamilton’s slipstream. The air on track couldn’t hit the car — behind Hamilton there was a vacuum zone that sucked all the air away.

Under these conditions, the drag on Perez’s car would indeed decrease, and his acceleration and straight‑line top speed would be better than the Mercedes ahead.

But at the same time, Perez’s Red Bull was basically like a runner holding their breath for the final sprint.

He couldn’t keep that up for long.

So on lap 6, Red Bull radioed Perez: "Checo, tyre temperatures are a bit high. If you can, open up the gap to Hamilton a little to cool the tyres, and wait for the next chance to attack."

Even though he was reluctant, and even a bit wary of that Mercedes with car number 66 behind him, Perez still ended up following the team’s instructions.

He didn’t really have a choice, because at this point marbles had already started to appear clearly on the surface of his tyres, and he could feel it getting harder and harder to turn in and exit the corners. If he didn’t cool the tyres now, there was a good chance Perez would just run them to a blowout this race.

Qin Miao didn’t have this concern. On the straights he would actively pull out to try attacks and put pressure on Perez, so his car was still getting some cool air.

Now that Perez had finally voluntarily given up DRS on the car ahead, he had basically handed Qin Miao a chance to scoop up an overtake.

Two laps later, on lap 8, Qin Miao finally picked up Perez’s slipstream exiting onto the main straight after the start, and before the braking zone for T1 he braked later on the inside and completed the overtake on Perez.

Without tyre offset, overtaking was indeed a lot harder for Qin Miao than under normal circumstances.

In fact, already on lap 7 Qin Miao had closed up to within 0.5 seconds of Perez, but that DRS zone between T7 and T8 was way too strong for Red Bull.

Those corners were mostly medium- and low-speed turns, and in those bends the Red Bull’s grip and cornering speed were clearly better than the Mercedes.

So in the end, Qin Miao had to rely on a big-angle corner like T15, which depends purely on the car’s mechanical grip rather than aero performance, to finally, and with some difficulty, get past Perez.

After overtaking Perez, Qin Miao moved up to third place.

By this time, the gap between Qin Miao and his teammate had already grown to 4 seconds.

But in any case, Qin Miao now finally had enough room to run some long laps, with 4 seconds of clean air ahead.

In the laps that followed, Qin Miao began cutting the gap to Hamilton ahead by about 0.2 seconds per lap.

However, compared with Leclerc and Verstappen, Qin Miao was still gradually being dropped by the two of them.

Lap 16, at this point Qin Miao had closed to 2 seconds behind Hamilton.

The gap between Qin Miao and Hamilton was now shrinking at a rate of about 0.3 seconds per lap.

Hamilton’s medium tyres were starting to fall off, while Qin Miao’s mediums were degrading slower than any other driver’s on site.

But just then, Verstappen, who had been stuck behind Leclerc the whole time without finding a single chance to attack, finally ran out of patience and chose to pit early.

At this point the gap between Hamilton and Verstappen was only 8 seconds, and the pit lane at Paul Ricard is quite long. With no mistakes from the tyre crew, a pit stop would cost as much as 22 seconds in total.

So after pitting, Verstappen rejoined in seventh, behind Norris, and there wasn’t much clean air ahead either, because Norris was only 1.7 seconds in front. Verstappen had to get past Norris first to get 4 seconds of clean air to run into.

So now, Leclerc truly began to lead the race.

But just as all the fans shifted their attention to other parts of the track, silently calculating whether Verstappen could undercut Leclerc or not—

Lap 18.

Yellow flags suddenly came out in the third sector.

And at that moment, apart from Leclerc, no other driver had entered the third sector.

Soon, the director cut the feed to Leclerc’s onboard.

What appeared in front of the audience was a tyre wall, and a Ferrari with its entire nose already buried deep in that tyre wall.

Five seconds later, race control deployed the Safety Car.

And once the Safety Car came out, every driver who hadn’t pitted yet just hit the jackpot.

The free pit stop was here.

On the other side, Verstappen, who had only pitted two laps ago, saw the yellow flag pop up on his steering wheel and got a jolt, and when he saw the Safety Car his back instantly went cold with sweat.

Because he knew that right behind his true position on track were Hamilton and Qin Miao, and they would definitely pit for fresh tyres now.

If they used this Safety Car to pit and then rejoined just in front of him, then there was nothing to think about — in this race he’d yet again have to face Qin Miao’s cursed defence, and also deal with a little Mercedes DRS train formed by the two of them.

And given the timing, everyone was definitely going onto hards to run to the end. In the latter stages of the race, he was bound to suffer.

He’d have to stare at that damn Mercedes rear light again.

Unknowingly, in just a year and a half of Qin Miao’s F1 career, quite a few drivers from the top teams had already started getting headaches whenever they saw the rear diffuser of a Mercedes.

But soon, a reminder from the Red Bull pit wall came through on the team radio to Verstappen: "Max, according to our calculations, after this Safety Car Hamilton will very likely be in front of you, and Qin Miao will most likely be behind you."

Even though having an extra Hamilton in front was still somewhat irritating for Verstappen,

at least the one in front of him wouldn’t be that perverted freak Qin Miao, which gave Verstappen a bit of psychological comfort.

Now it was Qin Miao’s turn to feel a little miserable, because at this moment he was only 2 seconds behind Hamilton.

If both cars pitted together, he would inevitably have to queue behind Hamilton while Hamilton changed tyres, and during that time Perez behind him could dive into the pits earlier...

Soon, every team made the same choice and called their drivers in for tyres.

Hamilton pitted and switched to hards. There were 35 laps left in the race, and counting the laps behind the Safety Car, the restart would probably be around lap 20. By then there would only be 33 laps to go.

Most drivers could nurse a set of hards to the end.

So switching to hards at this point was perfectly fine.

But for Qin Miao, it was a bit of a helpless situation.

Because at this moment he could only pit for hards. If he changed off the mediums, that meant he’d still need one more stop later; a set of softs could never last the remaining 33 laps, and going onto hards now felt like a bit of a waste for him.

But Qin Miao had no choice.