How Did I Become an F1 Driver?

Chapter 1103: Chapter 419: Esteban the Great Teammate O’Kang

In this way, Qin Miao maintained his position.

And he gained a 0.7-second time advantage out of thin air, now the time gap between Sainz and Qin Miao was at 0.9 seconds.

From the aerial view, Qin Miao’s defensive maneuvers were quite impressive; every move was just right, blocking Sainz’s most frustrating points without violating any FIA prohibited rules. freewёbnoνel.com

It’s difficult to describe Qin Miao’s current performance as anything less than elegant.

Yet for Qin Miao, this is simply a normal defensive line.

At the start, O’Kang, in an attempt to defend against Alonso, who was faster both in starting speed and on-track lap speed, backfired, allowing Hamilton behind Alonso to pass through.

Although he did block Alonso, both his and Alonso’s positions dropped by one, Hamilton moved up to fifth, and he and Alonso fell to sixth and seventh.

The few French fans watching this felt mixed emotions.

Because at the end of this season, Alonso’s contract with Alpine was due to expire, and similarly for O’Kang.

So at this time, team interests could be set aside.

Only by defeating his teammate on the track would O’Kang have more leverage to demand a higher salary from the team during contract negotiations.

That’s why today, O’Kang was intensely guarding Alonso behind him.

He even let Hamilton directly pass to ensure his teammate would not surpass him.

Everyone was driving, fully focused, with adrenaline surging as standard operating procedure.

So Alonso, seeing O’Kang’s defensive actions, couldn’t help but complain on the team radio: "I’ve never seen O’Kang defend so seriously before, never!"

But having gone through many ups and downs over the years, the old driver saw things clearly and thoroughly.

Despite having no prior preparation, Alonso easily guessed the reason behind O’Kang’s actions.

Yet at that moment, Alonso was powerless, forced to continue seeking opportunities behind O’Kang.

On the second lap, a virtual safety car was deployed on the track.

This virtual safety car was mainly because Albon and Vettel behind had a collision, leaving debris on the track.

On the third lap, when the race resumed, Qin Miao began using his soft tire advantage to gradually widen the time gap with Sainz behind him. freewebnovel.cσ๓

And during the virtual safety car period, Sainz misjudged his time gap with Qin Miao, so once the race resumed, the gap between Sainz and Qin Miao expanded to 2.3 seconds.

Next, Qin Miao gradually widened the gap with Sainz behind him at a pace of 0.2 seconds per lap.

By the time the race reached the tenth lap, the gap between Qin Miao and Sainz behind him was already at 4 seconds.

Sainz found it somewhat helpless that the lap speed between him and Qin Miao not only didn’t shrink over the course of the race but instead kept widening.

On the 14th lap, when all the drivers behind using the C4 soft tire compound began to experience varying degrees of degradation, Qin Miao directly clocked a purple lap, snatching the fastest lap from Sainz.

Qin Miao’s fastest lap made the two Ferraris behind him and everyone in Ferrari’s P room twitch their eyelids.

On lap 16, Leclerc, who had been conserving energy behind Sainz, had closed into the DRS zone behind Sainz.

To avoid blocking the faster Leclerc and to prevent a repeat of the British Grand Prix tragedy, Ferrari called Sainz into the pits to switch to medium tires.

Looking at this pit stop tire choice, Ferrari was clearly planning for two stops.

After all, Sainz started out with medium tires.