The only noteworthy point came as the race reached Q3, when a racing line had already formed on the track.

Although there were still some patches in low-lying areas with water, 95% of the track had a dry racing line.

However, all drivers, including Qin Miao, continued to use intermediate tires rather than switching to dry tires.

Qin Miao did the same; he initially used dry tires to achieve a lap time ranking third, then began to run cool down laps on the track.

Just as everyone following Qin Miao thought he would continue to run a flying lap after the cool down lap with this set of tires, Qin Miao was called back.

Then, with five minutes left before the end of Q3, Qin Miao went out for another flying lap.

Up to this point, no one noticed any issues, and Qin Miao was running qualifying normally.

However, with two and a half minutes left on the Q3 clock, Qin Miao entered the pits again.

Under everyone's watchful eyes, all the tire changers from the Mercedes team ran out of the pits with brand new soft tires in hand.

And just as Qin Miao stopped in the tire change area, Hamilton also entered the pits.

At this moment, Red Bull and Ferrari realized that Mercedes wanted to try dry tires for speed before the end of Q3 with Qin Miao and Hamilton.

Anyway, the two were currently in third and fourth places in qualifying, though Hamilton was third and Qin Miao fourth this time.

At this point, they had a 0.7-second gap to Alonso in fifth place, and the team estimated that Qin Miao and Hamilton's results were sufficient to end the race in their current positions.

Therefore, with two competitors down, the team decided to take the risk and have both drivers switch to dry tires.

As for how to allow the rear cars to pass, the two drivers would drive cars with dry tires into parts of the track with water to cool the tires...

Couldn't they just treat the warm-up lap like a race, prevent the rear car from catching up, and find a suitable time to progress?

After all, with only ten cars on the track now, is it so hard to find such an opportunity?

And right now, this is the entrance pit stop opportunity!

After Qin Miao came out, he immediately started accelerating, and where possible, he made slight adjustments on the racing line to heat up his tires as much as possible.

Even though other teams saw Mercedes' plan and immediately called their drivers back to the pits to switch to dry tires, Mercedes had perfectly timed the pit stop to call their drivers in just ten seconds after Verstappen and Sainz passed the pit entrance.

In other words, if the dry tires were actually useful at this time and Verstappen and Sainz planned to enter the pits, they wouldn't have enough time to switch to dry tires and go out for another flying lap after completing a lap.

And if this method is actually viable, the speed of the drivers behind them couldn't possibly match that of the two Mercedes cars.

This was a ploy devised by the Mercedes team.

You could see our actions the moment we start, but even if you do, there's no solution, leaving you no choice but to watch.

Ferrari and Red Bull had been focusing intently on Mercedes through the team TR, but before this happened, there was no sign from Mercedes, and no one mentioned it in the team TR.

It seemed as though this was a spontaneous idea by the entire team.

Thus, the two teams that had already excluded Mercedes from the list of competitors this season were caught somewhat off guard by this sudden turn.

Simultaneously, they couldn't help but start feeling a bit worried.

After all, what if Qin Miao and Hamilton actually stole first and second place in qualifying?

And the two Mercedes drivers were on good terms now.

If the two of them combined forces during the race, with Qin Miao using Hamilton behind him as a shield, attempting an undercut would pose major challenges.

Because Qin Miao and Hamilton would surely compress the car formation tightly.

In such a situation, even if you're in third place, after a pit stop, you might end up in twentieth.

Normally, you would just need to maintain your tires behind the lead driver, and at most wait for them to make the first pit stop.

But due to Qin Miao's exceptional tire-saving ability, the durability of the medium tires and some teams' hard tires' durability were comparable, and the speed was still moderate—a headache for anyone who sees it.

Therefore, with fans on-site eagerly anticipating and Ferrari and Red Bull fans watching nervously, Qin Miao and Hamilton completed their respective warm-up laps, starting the final flying lap of the Q3 phase.

Actually, during the warm-up lap, Qin Miao couldn't avoid compressing onto some corners where water hadn't dried.

At that time, the car showed signs of tires cooling and slipping.

But fortunately, Qin Miao stabilized his car.

Though that corner delayed Qin Miao by at least 0.2 seconds.

But compared to Red Bull and Ferrari, Qin Miao and Hamilton's cars still had an absolute speed advantage on the straights and on the corners that were already dry. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

Once the flying lap began, Qin Miao immediately set a purple in the first sector, beating Verstappen's time by a full 0.5 seconds.

Hamilton, in even better form, swiftly followed Qin Miao's purple timing and claimed the fastest time in the first sector.