How Did I Become an F1 Driver?

Chapter 1144: Chapter 433: At Ferrari, You Can Be Lifeless, But You Can’t Lack Life

Lap 18, Leclerc pits.

Because Sainz was up ahead playing buffer for Leclerc, this pit stop went smoothly and Ferrari didn’t pull any clown moves on him this time.

He switches from softs to mediums, pit stop time 2.5 seconds.

A bit slow compared to Red Bull, but given Ferrari’s glorious history of disaster stops, Leclerc should be thankful and deeply appreciative of a 2.5-second stop. freēwēbnovel.com

On lap 18, Verstappen also chooses to pit for fresh tyres.

But this time Verstappen’s stop is a bit slow, taking 3.8 seconds.

As soon as the tyres are changed, everyone on the Red Bull side tenses up.

Because right before Verstappen dived into the pits, Qin Miao was only 1.1 seconds behind him on track.

If Qin Miao now takes advantage of Verstappen’s slow stop, pushes flat-out for one lap on track and then pits, there’s a high chance he pulls off an overcut on Verstappen.

Everyone knows that having Qin Miao show up in your mirrors isn’t that scary; if you’re fast enough, if he can’t catch you, he just can’t catch you.

But if Qin Miao appears in front of your car, that’s when the headache starts, because if you can’t pass, you just can’t pass.

Reality proved the Red Bull strategy crew were worrying for nothing—more precisely, worrying about the wrong thing.

Once Verstappen came out on mediums, his lap times weren’t actually faster than Qin Miao’s worn softs.

Their pace stayed roughly equal.

Which means that even without pushing that one lap, as long as his own pit stop is clean, Qin Miao can still come out ahead of Verstappen after he pits.

Mercedes’ upgrade this weekend is clearly doing serious work. Right now, aside from Qin Miao’s very strong race pace, Hamilton is also flying. He’s effectively up to third, and the gap between him and Qin Miao is only about seven seconds.

Keep in mind Hamilton is running mediums in this race.

But once they hit lap 20, everyone at Red Bull finally lets out a long breath, because Qin Miao’s pace starts to drop off due to tyre wear.

Even so, Qin Miao still doesn’t choose to pit, so Verstappen retakes the lead on track.

No matter how good Qin Miao’s tyre management is, he’s still only on a single set of softs.

After a long run, his lap times are inevitably going to fall away.

Finally, on lap 27, Qin Miao pits.

Seeing him stay out for almost 30 laps before pitting, all the teams now basically lock in what his pit strategy is today.

Red–yellow one-stop to the flag.

Just his usual routine. Ferrari and Red Bull, who both see Qin Miao as their main rival, are already used to this.

There are 45 laps left in the race. With Qin Miao’s tyre-saving ability, doing the rest of the race on one set of softs isn’t that hard.

Now Red Bull are starting to feel the headache.

Mercedes’ race pace this weekend is a bit beyond their expectations, and Qin Miao’s one-stop strategy is giving him close to a 24-second time advantage.

Those 24 seconds either have to be hunted down by Verstappen on pure pace, or he has to shave off a pit stop somewhere.

Red Bull originally planned to put Verstappen on mediums for the final stint, but after some quick discussion they’re forced to change tactics—let Verstappen stretch this middle stint, then bolt on softs for the run to the flag.

Otherwise, in the latter stages Verstappen might simply not be able to catch Qin Miao.

Right now the Red Bull strategy group really are getting a bit of a migraine. Just what the hell makes Qin Miao’s tyre management this freaking broken?!

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After Qin Miao comes out of the pits, he slots in three seconds behind Verstappen.

Mainly because late in that stint, Qin Miao’s pace dropped off a bit too much with the tyre wear; otherwise he could’ve come out straight into Verstappen’s DRS window.

Out of the pits, once he’s got his tyres up into the proper working range, Qin Miao’s lap times are actually slower than Verstappen’s—but not by much, only about 0.3 seconds a lap, still within an acceptable range.

And you can bet as the race goes on, heading into the final phase, Qin Miao’s advantage will only get bigger.

Lap 30, Hamilton pits.

In fact, before the race started, Hamilton’s pit strategy was planned as a two-stop.

But once the race got underway, Alonso, the first driver to switch to hards, showed really solid long-run pace and consistency on track.

So Hamilton’s strategy was changed to yellow–white one-stop, trying to run a long stint and see if he can, like his teammate, use fewer stops to grab a better position.

After exiting the pits, Hamilton comes out two seconds ahead of Leclerc.

Whether he can hold onto his podium now is up to Hamilton himself.

For the remaining laps, Verstappen and Qin Miao just quietly run their own rhythm on track.

And once Hamilton gets his tyre temperatures up, he gradually drops Leclerc behind him.

Hamilton’s pace on the hard tyre this race is actually pretty strong—at least quicker than Ferrari’s Leclerc.

Lap 44, the gap between Qin Miao and Verstappen has been stretched to 3.4 seconds, and it’s held steady at around 3.4 for four laps now. You can tell Verstappen’s tyres are also starting to give up.