Chapter 316: Chapter 162: Safety Car
After Qin Miao parked the car, Reyes and his team, who had been waiting at Qin Miao’s grid position for a long time, lifted Qin Miao’s car with two jacks.
At the same time, they removed the old soft tires from Qin Miao’s car and replaced them with the set of soft tires that Qin Miao used to clock the fastest lap in Q2, wrapping them with warming blankets.
Qin Miao’s strategy today is a one-stop red and white, although the Sakhir circuit is really not tire-friendly, being one of the circuits with the highest tire wear all year.
But whether it was the winter test or the three practice sessions of the Bahrain Grand Prix, Qin Miao’s tire wear data was impressively good. Data doesn’t lie, so Mercedes’ strategists prepared such a tactic for Qin Miao.
At the same time, Qin Miao brought enough fuel for 60 laps according to his own usage habits.
At this point, some might ask, the race is only 57 laps, won’t bringing these extra 3 laps of fuel negatively impact speed and tire wear?
But Qin Miao’s fuel usage rate is calculated based on Qin Miao’s driving consumption. If you swap the fuel in Qin Miao’s car with Hamilton’s, this tank of fuel is only enough for Hamilton to complete 52 laps.
After all, the 8% reduction in fuel consumption is right here; data won’t joke with you, there is as much as there is.
It can be said that Qin Miao’s car is currently the lightest among the 20 cars ready to start.
In addition, the tire compounds for this race are the familiar C2C3C4.
After checking some settings data on his steering wheel, Qin Miao got out of the car.
After all, there’s about half an hour before the race starts, and although during the race he will be lying in the car for over an hour, during which the car is in a constant state of motion, with lateral G-forces often exceeding gravity, the driver’s body is frequently tossed back and forth within the monocoque by G-forces, so there won’t be discomfort from staying still for a long time, but it’s different when waiting in the starting grid.
Staying in such a state for a long time, your butt really can get numb.
After getting out of the car, Barber handed a bottle of water to Qin Miao, and to avoid disturbing the technicians’ work, Qin Miao took the water cup and ran to the side of the track to wait.
It is worth mentioning that, although the pandemic situation isn’t optimistic, quite a few spectators have entered the paddock for the main stage of the Bahrain Grand Prix.
As Qin Miao leaned against the track barrier waiting for his vehicle to be ready, many spectators in the stands waved the large head placards and national flags of Qin Miao in their hands, greeting and cheering for Qin Miao.
Of course, Qin Miao also saw them, but at this time, he needed to prepare for the race and didn’t have the extra mind to interact with his fans, so he shook his leg while waving his hand at them, which was regarded as a greeting.
Twenty minutes later, the team’s chief technician, Reyes, gave Qin Miao a thumbs-up, indicating that all the preparations and checks on the car were completed, and he could get into the car and wait for the race to start.
Qin Miao stopped shaking his leg, stood up, stretched his limbs, took his thermos bottle from Barber for a sip of the energy tonic, and then walked to his car.
Following the familiar routine, after putting on the gear, Qin Miao got into the car.
"Radio check..."
"Radio check... sound is very clear," Qin Miao answered and then spoke again, "Frankie?"
"I’m here, what’s up?"
"Play me a song."
The radio paused for about two minutes, and then Frankie’s voice came through, "Okay, no problem, the same playlist from your F2 days?"
"Yes..."
Soon, Jay Chou’s singing voice rang out again, Qin Miao slightly lowered his visor, his eyelids drooping, his hands resting relaxed on his chest, quietly listening to the song in his headphones.
About seven minutes later, the song in Qin Miao’s TR stopped, and the voice came through the headphones, "The race is about to begin, and the team technicians are preparing to withdraw."
This message was broadcast on the team’s common TR, so besides Qin Miao, his crew members and Hamilton’s crew members also heard it.
Upon receiving the instruction, the technicians unwrapped the warming blankets from Qin Miao’s four tires, lowered Qin Miao’s car, and quickly moved to the sides of the track.
As the time on the Rolex overhead reached the hour, Verstappen, who was in the front, drove out from his position, and upon seeing Verstappen leaving, Qin Miao pressed the clutch button and drove out of his position.
In F2, a warm-up lap taking five minutes is quite normal, but F1 speeds are too fast, even though the drivers are trying hard to warm up their tires from the grid to running a warm-up lap, to when Verstappen finished the warm-up lap and parked the car in his grid, it only took about two and a half minutes.
A notable moment during the warm-up lap is when Verstappen reached the main straight, both Qin Miao and Hamilton lowered their speeds simultaneously.
From the video footage, it’s obvious that at least a dozen car positions quickly opened up between Verstappen and Qin Miao.
And when Verstappen realized and tried to slow down, it was too late, as he was already nearing his grid position.