How Did I Become an F1 Driver?-Chapter 925 - 365: Learning Well Is Hard, Learning Bad Is Easy (Part 2)

"But even though the team said they've made improvements and had a system upgrade, there's still forced intervention to prevent stalling during the start-up in tests." 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

"What then?"

"What else can we do? Just bear with it and pray this problem doesn't show up during the race start."

"I really don't know if you're lucky or unlucky. If I say you're unlucky, Alfa Romeo has been performing quite well this season. If I say you're lucky, you often have start-up issues."

"Stop talking about this, it's really bad luck..."

...

After Zhou Guanyu left, watching his back, Qin Miao felt a bit warm inside.

Although their chat was never serious and always ended up joking about being each other's dad.

Besides, it wasn't like Zhou Guanyu said, that his heart was so fragile it would be hurt by setbacks.

But friends' concern is something many people long for but can't get. At least, Zhou Guanyu's antics lightened the gloomy mood Qin Miao had over the car's performance.

Looking at the Rolex clock in the distance, it was about time. Qin Miao stood up, brushed off the dust on the two books, and then walked over to Reyes.

After Qin Miao handed back two notebooks, Reyes joked, "These notebooks sat on by the world champion himself, I should find a way to hide them secretly, they might sell for a fortune later."

Qin Miao smiled and flipped the middle finger at Reyes.

Having worked together for nearly a year, Qin Miao wasn't haughty and had basically gotten familiar with the team staff. Since this was also Qin Miao's car group, naturally, they had good relations and could joke around comfortably.

Returning the books he held to the other party, Qin Miao put on his helmet, secured the Hans system, and got into the race car.

Reyes came over to fix Qin Miao's headrest and checked all the safety equipment again. After confirming everything was fine, he patted Qin Miao's helmet and said, "All checked, relax now, just race well, don't let temporary difficulties bring you down. In our hearts, you're always the strongest F1 driver. You just need to wait for your opportunity."

Qin Miao nodded without saying anything.

Another five minutes passed, and the staff on the track began to withdraw.

Frankie's voice came through the team radio: "Alright, Qin Miao, the race is about to begin. The weather is nice today, the chance of rain is low. The air temperature is 27 degrees, track temperature is 29 degrees, might feel a bit cool, so be sure to warm up your tires thoroughly.

Air humidity is at 81%, take care of your right front tire.

Finally, wishing you a smooth race, go for it!"

"Copy that."

After getting a brief run-down of the track conditions for this race, Qin Miao waited another three minutes before all the staff exited the track.

The warm-up lap began at eight o'clock local Saudi Arabian time.

For today's race, Qin Miao started on soft tires.

But because Verstappen was the driver ahead of Qin Miao, the commentators, seeing the tires Qin Miao was using at the start, still held a glimmer of expectation as to whether Qin Miao could overtake Verstappen.

However, all this speculation didn't matter to Qin Miao for now.

With the warm-up lap over, Qin Miao returned to his grid spot with Sainz ahead and Verstappen to the front right.

As for the drivers behind? Qin Miao had confidence in not being threatened by the two drivers behind him after the start.

With the last driver, Russell, stopping his car in place, the safety car was in position, and the race was about to begin.

Five red lights on and off... the race officially started!

Qin Miao's start was stable and quick as usual, but the Ferrari and Red Bull drivers weren't in the mood to give Qin Miao any openings today.

As shown in the broadcast, the top 5 drivers took off almost simultaneously. Qin Miao was steadily closing the gap between himself and Verstappen ahead thanks to the soft tires.

But the rate of closing was too slow, not enough for Qin Miao to make a move on Verstappen before T1.

Besides, T1 was a right turn. Even if Qin Miao came side by side with Verstappen before T1, given Verstappen's position and character, there's no way he would let Qin Miao pass easily.

The early-stage advantage of the soft tires was lost just like that.

But Qin Miao wasn't bothered, after all, this is F1 racing, with wins and losses; not everything goes smoothly.

Qin Miao couldn't attack the cars in front, but Verstappen, using his positional and speed advantage in low-speed corners, found an opportunity to suppress Sainz from the outside line at T2 and, using his inner line advantage at T3, overtook Sainz.

He climbed from fourth to third right after the start.

Apart from this, there were no other positional changes among the drivers ahead of Qin Miao.

Behind, Zhou Guanyu once again experienced a baffling start-up error. Starting from eleventh, he encountered the start-up stall protection again right after setting off.

When his car regained power, he found himself in last place.

However, Alfa Romeo's car speed this season was commendable, so it didn't take long for him to catch up to Russell ahead.

He completed an overtake on Russell by the second lap.

Russell did put up some struggle, but in terms of straight-line speed, Williams couldn't match the Ferrari engine in the Alfa Romeo.

Unlike Zhou Guanyu quickly regaining momentum, Hamilton's qualifying struggles carried into the race. By the sixth lap, he was still in fourteenth, while Zhou Guanyu had even caught up behind Hamilton.

Meanwhile, Qin Miao, leveraging the soft tire advantage, didn't fall too far behind Sainz ahead after the start. By the sixth lap, he was still only 3 seconds behind Sainz.

Moreover, Qin Miao had opened up a gap of over 6 seconds between himself and O'Kang behind, and this was just in six laps.

But despite Mercedes seeming to regain competitiveness, in reality, Qin Miao still couldn't catch up to Sainz.

When the gap between Sainz and himself dropped to 2.5 seconds and airflow disturbance from the car ahead barely affected him, Qin Miao tried to push fully.

But even with a full push, Qin Miao could only maintain the same speed as Sainz.

In such a state, getting close to the car in front was tough for Qin Miao, let alone overtaking it.

Therefore, Qin Miao entered cruising mode, trying to stretch the life of his soft tires for as many laps as possible.

An interesting event unfolded in the ninth lap; Qin Miao noticed O'Kang behind him had, for some reason, engaged in a duel on track with his teammate, Alonso.

It was a back-and-forth battle.

By the time Qin Miao realized it, the squabble between the teammates had extended the gap between Qin Miao and them to 8 seconds.

At the end of lap 15, Leclerc learned from Mercedes and announced over the team radio before pitting that he was going to pit.

The pit crew prepared four brand-new hard tires on the track according to Leclerc's instructions, ready to put them on once he came in.

Leclerc began to speed up after notifying the team, giving the impression he was going to use up all his tires in this lap.

Red Bull immediately bought it.

Red Bull's approach was straightforward: as Perez was ahead, they decided to copy.

Whatever you do, I'll do the same. So, Perez pitted.

What followed was a dramatic turn of events; after Perez entered the pits, Leclerc didn't come in, and Perez was tricked into pitting.