How Did I Become an F1 Driver?-Chapter 481 - 214: Pairs

And behind Qin Miao, Perez’s start was quite normal, and his speed wasn’t slow.

But in the genius-filled F1 arena, being normal means being weak; talent and perfection are the true shining qualities here.

Therefore, Perez’s starting speed seemed a bit slow to Qin Miao.

Exiting T1, Qin Miao was 0.21 seconds behind Verstappen.

The small straight between T1 and T2 doesn’t provide any overtaking opportunities, and Qin Miao also doesn’t want to follow too closely, causing himself to lack the distance to maximize the draft acceleration between T2 and T3. Now, a 0.2 second gap is just right.

So, after exiting T2, Qin Miao directly put pressure on Verstappen by darting to the inside line. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Although he knew there wasn’t a possibility of overtaking on this small straight, Verstappen couldn’t help but glance at his left rearview mirror after Qin Miao’s dart, seeing Qin Miao’s car.

[Pressure: 8%]

Before reaching T2, Qin Miao returned to being right behind Verstappen. Entering T2, Qin Miao took full advantage of the outside curb, found the braking point, braked, and upon reaching the suitable angle, cut towards the apex, relying on better tire grip than Verstappen to accelerate earlier. Because of the early acceleration, Qin Miao slightly understeered exiting the corner, causing his tires on the right side to be less than 1 cm from the barrier.

But Qin Miao didn’t care. Exiting the corner, his car’s tires hadn’t even aligned properly, nor had they left the curb, and Qin Miao already activated his ERS at full blast and floored the accelerator pedal.

This resulted in slight understeering upon corner exit, but it wasn’t noticeable because Qin Miao had already corrected the steering upon sensing the understeer.

With this series of operations, Qin Miao’s speed out of the corner was noticeably faster than the Verstappen ahead.

Exiting the corner, Verstappen straightened his car, constantly observing Qin Miao’s car movements through the rearview mirror.

Seeing Qin Miao maintain good pace exiting the corner and starting to quickly close in on him.

Verstappen didn’t play fancy, simply moved his car to the inside line.

Earlier, Qin Miao had a hard time overtaking him even with DRS. Now without DRS, even if exit speed is higher, so what? As long as I don’t give up the inside line, all Qin Miao’s efforts are futile.

Moreover, as the saying goes, you should get back up where you fell down.

Last time, I got fooled by Qin Miao here; this time, I surely won’t fall for it again.

And Qin Miao was drafting off Verstappen all the way to the inside line of the track.

Understanding Verstappen’s insistence on defending the inside line, Qin Miao guessed his thoughts.

However, obviously Verstappen underestimated the corner exit speed under Qin Miao’s extreme maneuvers; despite a slightly weaker engine, the draft off Verstappen compensated for that enough.

Qin Miao started drafting from 0.2 seconds behind Verstappen, continuously reducing the gap to about 0.05 seconds before abruptly darting to the outside.

Watching the race from the Mercedes team’s home, Qimeng tightly clenched her small fists, nervously watching the broadcast screen.

Seeing the scene where Qin Miao drafted off Verstappen, she inexplicably thought of how Qin Miao held her in his arms and smelled the shampoo scent from her hair when they were sleeping at night.

As if it was an addiction, not looking up until the very last breath was taken.

Actually, before receiving the system, Qin Miao often performed such maneuvers on the simulator.

After all, this maneuver, carrying certain risk factors, was only feasible without psychological burden in a simulator.

After learning and mastering this technique proficiently, Qin Miao rarely had the chance to use it in reality, even less on the racetrack.

Actually, the most likely place for Qin Miao to use this drafting technique is in F2, as everyone there drives the same specification cars, but unfortunately, individual driver skill isn’t up to par.

So this was the first time Qin Miao used this technique in an F1 race.

If Qin Yun were here, she would realize that Qin Miao had used this drafting strategy with her as well.

When Qin Miao darted out at 0.05 seconds, in reality, his front nose was almost sticking to Verstappen’s rear diffuser before dangerously maneuvering out.

"Qin Miao, danger!" The three commentators were scared into a cold sweat seeing this near-collision scene.

Fortunately, everything went smoothly despite the scare, and due to Qin Miao deeply drafting, even before halfway through T2, Qin Miao had already darted to the outside.

It’s worth mentioning that when Qin Miao darted, he didn’t leave much space for Verstappen, effectively squeezing him on the dirty side of the track, leaving barely 1.5 car widths for Verstappen.

Currently, the effect of Qin Miao’s maneuver isn’t quite visible, but as Qin Miao gradually came up alongside Verstappen on the two-thirds point of the straight and started overtaking him, Verstappen realized.

Verstappen knows, he misjudged, Qin Miao’s speed is terrifyingly fast.

[Pressure: 17%]

Truly as Verstappen thought, his position wasn’t displaced by Qin Miao again, and Qin Miao didn’t use any tricks.