Chapter 326: Chapter 165: The Three Laps of God
"But on the other hand, this also proves that after changing drivers, there have been no issues with driver discord within Mercedes."
"Originally, there were no issues between drivers within the Mercedes team. It should be said that Toto, with his keen eye, discovered Qin Miao, a driver not weaker than Bottas, and who wouldn’t cause unnecessary internal conflicts, and has immense growth potential.
As long as nothing unexpected happens, just Qin Miao alone is enough for Mercedes to use for more than five years."
...
After racing for a while on the F1 circuit, Qin Miao now has a basic understanding of his own strength.
Just like he had guessed after being invincible in F2, he already possessed the strength of an F1 driver early on, and that too, of a top-notch driver.
However, he is not among the pinnacle of top drivers, because both Hamilton and Verstappen are faster than Qin Miao. If nothing unusual happens, Qin Miao’s strength should be at the level of Perez and Bottas, perhaps slightly stronger than Perez, but not sure about Bottas, as Qin Miao currently has no opportunity to compete directly against him.
So, knowing the gap, Qin Miao didn’t deliberately block his teammate because it was unnecessary, and letting his teammate pass through cost less than a second, which wasn’t enough for other drivers to catch up with him, nor would it affect Qin Miao’s position in this race, so he did it as a matter of course.
On lap 40, Verstappen finally decided to pit, and this time he switched to hard tires. In the last sixteen laps, Verstappen can go all out without saving tires to chase the leading Hamilton.
Coincidentally, as Verstappen exited the pit, a Mercedes just happened to appear in front of him.
After exiting the pit and seeing the red light flashing on the rear of the car in front, Verstappen suddenly had a bad premonition.
Even though Red Bull only took 1.9 seconds to change tires in this pit stop, Verstappen had a sense that his 1.9-second advantage was a complete joke in front of this Mercedes.
At this moment, while Qin Miao was conserving tires for long distances, he heard a voice from his team’s TR again, but this time it wasn’t Frankie, it was Toto: "Qin Miao, Verstappen is 1.7 seconds behind you, try to help Hamilton defend against him for a few laps."
Qin Miao was stunned. Didn’t that guy just pass by? How did he end up behind me again?
Despite his doubts, Qin Miao wouldn’t, and had no reason to refuse Toto’s request, but he did ask: "Specifically how many laps should I defend him?"
This time, it was Toto’s turn to be stunned. Can you precisely control the number of laps to defend against the opponent?
However, without thinking deeply, after Qin Miao asked, Toto said, "The more the better, but according to our calculations, you only need to defend Verstappen for three laps, Hamilton’s victory in this race is virtually secured."
"Understood."
Qin Miao didn’t refuse Toto’s request. As mentioned earlier, Qin Miao’s speed in this race isn’t up to Verstappen’s and Hamilton’s, and other drivers can’t cause Qin Miao any trouble, so rather than doing nothing, he might as well defend against Verstappen for fun. Anyway, defending against Verstappen won’t affect Qin Miao’s speed significantly.
After responding, Qin Miao’s lap time showed a slight decrease, approximately 0.2 seconds slower per lap than his cruising state.
Primarily, Qin Miao needed to defend against Verstappen at this point, and to do so, Qin Miao needed to use his ERS system. While Verstappen was pursuing him, Qin Miao needed to recharge his battery as much as possible.
When an F1 car is in a charging state, the rear tail light will flash, and seeing Qin Miao’s flashing tail light, Verstappen swallowed and felt a subtle pressure mounting on his shoulders.
Verstappen didn’t know why, but he always felt that the car of this Chinese driver ahead was much wider than those of the other drivers, making it especially difficult to overtake.
Five-Star Sports.
The three commentators also became excited at this point.
When Qin Miao first defended against Verstappen, it brought enough surprise to the three commentators. Now being able to watch another round of offense and defense between Qin Miao and Verstappen, as spectators and commentators, they indeed felt quite happy.
"Verstappen is exiting the pit! Although the 1.9-second tire change speed is really fast, it might even be the fastest tire change speed of this race, but coincidentally, Verstappen fell behind Qin Miao again after exiting the pit," said Bing happily.
"Now there’s a good show to watch. How many laps can Qin Miao defend against Verstappen this time?" Fei was also full of anticipation.
"I feel Qin Miao only needs to block Verstappen for three laps, and Hamilton’s victory in this race is assured," Zhou Haoran still liked to rely on data.
"It probably won’t last that long, after all, Qin Miao’s set of hard tires has already been used for 22 laps, and at this point, Qin Miao’s tire wear is already quite high," Bing said, despite looking forward to the upcoming battle.
Zhou Haoran refuted, "But from what I observed in last year’s F2 races, Qin Miao’s tire management ability is unparalleled in F2. His set of tires should still be in pretty decent condition, right?"
"Do you think it’s possible that Qin Miao’s set of white tires is prepared to run the entire race?"
...
Actually, as Zhou Haoran speculated, Qin Miao’s tire wear at this moment is only 29%, not even reaching a critical point, still maintaining enough grip, and under normal circumstances, sustaining the entire race wouldn’t be a problem.