How Did I Become an F1 Driver?

Chapter 1186: Chapter 449: Pan: Damn, I’m Shattered

The next period of the race had little to do with the three drivers ahead.

Since Qin Miao’s defensive abilities were consistently strong, the director in the latter stages of the race hardly gave them any screen time, focusing more on the drivers behind.

No matter how much you watched Qin Miao, he was always alone in front, cruising with several cars behind him that couldn’t overtake.

Today’s other main character, who always worried Qin Miao’s fans, Verstappen’s performance this week greatly disappointed Red Bull’s fans.

Perhaps this was due to Red Bull’s strategies this week, combined with a fortuitous undercut by Qin Miao late in the race.

Verstappen’s typically steady mindset was inevitably affected in today’s race.

On the first lap after the safety car withdrawal, Verstappen tried to attack Norris ahead, but Norris defended fiercely, squeezing Verstappen to the outside, onto a wet spot.

The immediate consequence was Verstappen couldn’t stop, and his four tires emitted a huge white smoke trail on the track.

In F1 races, missing a braking point might just result in lost time, but Verstappen’s loss was much more significant this time.

He completely locked his tires, all four of them.

For Verstappen and Red Bull, this mistake had almost devastating consequences.

Not only did Verstappen’s error destroy his tires, but it also sent him into the track’s escape route.

Moreover, as mentioned earlier, errors at the beginning of a race cause significant drops in original placement.

Verstappen’s error happened as the safety car departed, with gaps over one second between the drivers behind, so he didn’t lose many places.

Still, Verstappen dropped directly from seventh out of the points zone to eleventh.

The tire lock destroyed the current set of medium tires, and unless Verstappen wanted his tires to provide no grip and become extremely unstable in corners, he had to pit and change tires.

If not, for at least the next four laps, Verstappen’s speed would look terrible.

And the race had just restarted; pitting now would certainly place him last.

Now it was up to Red Bull to decide whether to let Verstappen pit or try to persist on the track until the damaged medium tires regained normal condition.

After some discussion, Red Bull decided to keep Verstappen out, believing that, with Red Bull’s car performance and Marina Bay’s challenging overtaking nature, Verstappen could catch up to the leaders once his tire surface became manageable again.

But Verstappen personally requested to pit for soft tires.

The team naturally had no reason to object, so they brought Verstappen in for a change to soft tires.

Predictably, Verstappen emerged from the pit as the last, but the good news was that today, six drivers had retired, so Verstappen was still in fourteenth, ready to chase the cars ahead.

The loss was there, but not too substantial.

The last half hour of the race turned calm.

Qin Miao led upfront, 0.7 seconds ahead of teammate Hamilton, followed by Leclerc, then Perez.

The time gaps between the four drivers were not more than a second.

Tightly controlled by Qin Miao.

So during this time, the director focused on the back of the field, where Verstappen was, as Qin Miao’s cruising was uneventful.

Verstappen managed to climb back to tenth when 12 minutes were left in the race.

His speed showed no signs of slowing, rapidly closing the gap with Vettel.

However, late in the race, Verstappen found himself locked behind Vettel.

Vettel had Stroll ahead.

Stroll understood Verstappen’s threat and didn’t widen the gap when Vettel was under attack by Verstappen.

Considering the track’s difficulty in overtaking, even Verstappen was stuck in this situation.

Eventually, the countdown reached zero, Qin Miao finished another lap, crossing the checkered flag at the end of the track.

Qin Miao, Hamilton, Leclerc, and Verstappen crossed the line in succession.

Qin Miao started today in third and finished first.

"Checkered flag waves, race ends."

"Let’s congratulate Qin Miao on winning the Singapore Grand Prix main race!"

After Qin Miao crossed the line, the Three commentators at Five-Star Sports happily congratulated Qin Miao’s victory in the studio.