How Did I Become an F1 Driver?-Chapter 594 - 253: Excessive Is as Bad as Insufficient
When navigating through T1 was still relatively stable, Norris slightly straightened his steering wheel after exiting the corner, maintaining his speed without any loss.
He then went full throttle straight towards the Elloge corner.
Just when everyone thought Norris was going to continue his astonishing performance from the Q1 and Q2 sessions, the camera switched.
A McLaren that had initially entered the Elloge corner smoothly, turned into a spinning top as it exited.
All four suspension wheels of the car were smashed and hung limply on the car, spinning and sliding along with it.
Debris was scattered all over the ground, with metal parts grinding against the surface and creating dazzling sparks. Naturally, the race committee issued a red flag at the first sight of this.
In the rain, no one knew what had just happened to Norris.
In fact, with the current level of rainfall, the race committee should have already issued a red flag, but it wasn't until Norris crashed that the red flag appeared.
If the red flag had been issued a little earlier, even if the committee wanted Norris to secure pole position for this race, they could have done so after his warming lap with a red flag.
But now, everyone could only see the disbelief on the faces of the McLaren team's staff in the pit box as they watched the replay of Norris's crash.
Qin Miao and Hamilton were also getting ready to go out, but upon seeing the red flag, the small screen in front of Qin Miao was switched by the Mercedes staff to display the footage of Norris's accident.
Fortunately, when the camera returned to Norris, everyone could see that the overall condition of Norris's car was still relatively intact, with no damage to the monocoque or roll cage.
Meanwhile, Vettel, who had just passed the pit entry behind Norris when he saw the red flag, had no choice but to complete another lap as he couldn't return directly to the pits.
When Vettel arrived at the scene of Norris's wreckage, he stopped his car to check on Norris's situation.
After confirming that Norris's helmet was still moving, indicating he was likely unhurt and responsive to his actions, Vettel left the scene.
Shortly after Vettel left, the medical car arrived swiftly.
When the race committee replayed the accident, everyone could clearly see water flowing downhill on the entire Elloge corner slope as Norris was ascending.
And there was water all along the normal racing line.
As Norris ascended and entered T2, the car still had grip, but when the front right wheel went over the curb at T3, the car lost control.
The grip on the front right wheel was lost immediately.
Once the grip was lost on the front right wheel, the car naturally veered to the right.
Realizing the car was drifting to the right, Norris instinctively steered left to correct it.
Unfortunately, despite Norris's expertise as an F1 driver, there was no way to precisely gauge the correct steering correction in wet conditions or the exact moment to straighten the steering wheel.
By the time Norris realized he had over-corrected and tried to steer back, the car had already veered sharply to the right and lost control entirely.
The car then collided with the protective barrier at the trackside and began to spin frantically forward due to its momentum.
The good news was that Norris, despite experiencing a violent crash, was unharmed and managed to exit the car on his own.
After the red flag, Qin Miao didn't remain in the car, instead opting to get out and voluntarily sit in the medical car.
Qin Miao and other team drivers waited for over half an hour during the red flag period.
This half-hour wasn't too hard to bear for Qin Miao, who had brought a game console to the paddock.
After half an hour, Matthew had cleaned up all the debris scattered from Norris's crash on the track, and the barrier he collided with had been restored to its original condition.
