How Did I Become an F1 Driver?-Chapter 595 - 254: Triumphant Wide Eyes

After the race restarted, the rain on the track began to gradually lessen, but there was still no sign of it stopping entirely.

The track still had significant water accumulation, and even though Merande drove an AMG GT around the track beforehand, it made no difference.

Both Mercedes drivers went out using intermediate tires.

As soon as Q3 started, all drivers were going all out, essentially showing everything they had to qualify for Q3.

Qin Miao was also pushing the limits extremely hard.

However, after learning a hard lesson from his previous qualifying, Qin Miao was fully committed to his lap times in Q1 and Q2 of this race, keeping only a little in reserve but not as much as before, just enough to advance to the next round.

It's worth noting that the team still let Qin Miao follow behind Hamilton during the flying lap.

After all, Qin Miao's Rain Combat Ability was relatively weak, so by running the same track Hamilton had, the water accumulation would be slightly less for Qin Miao when he drove.

This allowed Qin Miao to be slightly faster.

In the end, after completing his first flying lap in Q3, Qin Miao clocked in a lap time of 2:01.901.

He barely placed 0.4 seconds behind Hamilton.

However, after Verstappen crossed the line, even though he was purple in the first sector, he still ranked behind Qin Miao.

Learning from team communications that Verstappen was actually behind him, Qin Miao initially felt a bit pleased, thinking "So Verstappen is just ordinary after all."

But soon, Qin Miao had a strong premonition that Verstappen was pretending!

He definitely hadn't shown his full strength.

It's really irritating, doesn't know where he learned such a bad habit from!

However, everyone knew that the current scores were not the final ones for the drivers, because as these 10 drivers continued lapping, the track conditions were getting better and better.

So, the later it got in the session, the better the results the drivers could show.

Therefore, Qin Miao and Hamilton, the two Mercedes drivers, chose to stay on track instead of pitting after completing their first flying lap, to recharge their batteries and go for it one last time when the track conditions were optimal.

With 50 seconds remaining on the Q3 stopwatch, Hamilton and Qin Miao started their final flying lap on the Spa track, six seconds apart.

At this moment, the fuel in Qin Miao's car was only enough for one lap; afterward, he would have to switch the engine mode to fuel-saving and slowly drive the car back.

Surprisingly, when Russell, who started the final flying lap first in Q3, crossed the line, his time was unexpectedly good, placing him in first with a time of 2:00.086.

Moreover, Russell was the fastest driver in both the first and second sectors.

Qin Miao was 0.19 seconds slower than him in the first sector.

When Hamilton crossed the line, he ended up behind Russell, 0.013 seconds slower.

Qin Miao crossed the line shortly afterward, temporarily placing third, 0.1 seconds slower than Hamilton, naturally behind Russell as well.

Shortly after Qin Miao, Perez and Verstappen crossed the line too.

Perez was relatively slow, possibly due to a mistake or another reason; crossing the line, he ranked fourth behind Qin Miao but was more than two seconds slower.

Meanwhile, his teammate Verstappen's time froze at 1:59.765 after crossing the line.

His speed was actually faster than Russell's.

The key was that no one expected Verstappen to be so fast before crossing the line, as throughout Q1, Q2, and Q3, Verstappen's speeds hovered around third or fourth place.

Just like Mercedes at the start of this season, Red Bull's Verstappen began holding something back.

Just when everyone was marveling at Russell's remarkable performance in this race, Verstappen unexpectedly surprised everyone.

At this point, only three drivers had yet to cross the finish line: Gasly, O'Kang, and Ricardo, none of whom had set a purple sector time.

So once this result came out, Verstappen undisputedly secured the pole position for the Spa qualifying session.

The final rankings after the qualifying session were as follows:

Pole: Verstappen

2: Russell

3: Hamilton

4: Qin Miao

5: Ricardo

6: Vettel

7: Gasly

8: Perez

9: O'Kang

10: Norris

When Verstappen crossed the line, the entire audience stood up, giving him a thunderous applause.

It's worth mentioning that Verstappen was born in Belgium, and his birthplace was only 10 kilometers away from the Spa track, so calling Spa Verstappen's half-home track is not an exaggeration.

Therefore, it's not surprising that so many people were cheering for him after crossing the line.

Moreover, this was the first pole position since the start of the second half of the season and served as a strong morale booster for all the staff at Red Bull.

So when the camera panned over, you could see all the Red Bull team staff hugging and cheering.

Besides Verstappen, the biggest surprise on the track was actually Russell.

No one expected Russell to end up in this position.

After all, he wasn't driving a Red Bull or Mercedes—the so-called space cars—but a Williams.