On the Mercedes side, they were still mainly relying on the solid performances of Qin Miao and Hamilton, while Leclerc wasted a lot of time stuck in the train of slow cars after suffering a car failure in qualifying, so he didn't get a good result in the latter stages of the race.

And on top of that, in the final phase of the race, Qin Miao pulled off a last‑lap kill on Sainz in front of him to take second place.

With those two factors combined, Mercedes had already moved up to second in the constructors' standings, seven points ahead of Ferrari.

To be honest, those seven points were basically earned off the back of the car's reliability.

After the Canadian Grand Prix, what came next was the British Grand Prix that everyone had been looking forward to.

This could also be considered a home race for the Mercedes team.

After all, F1 as a sport originated in the UK, and the UK is also where most F1 personnel live and work; many teams' factories and R&D bases are in Britain, so this is the "home circuit" for most F1 teams.

Mercedes is naturally among them.

For Hamilton, this is even more of a double home race.

And at the same time, just as he was still happily celebrating that second place in Canada, Qin Miao received some good news.

The team's three upgrade packages had all been fully developed and were confirmed to be ready for use at the British Grand Prix.

According to the updated simulator data, these three upgrades would bring at least a 0.2‑second improvement in lap time.

That might not look like a huge gain, but the new rear suspension and floor design can effectively improve the car's consistency and predictability.

The most important thing is that they widen the car's setup window, so that Qin Miao and Hamilton can have different setup options for different tracks.

Meanwhile, work in the simulator department was also progressing in an orderly fashion.

But as for fixing bugs and the final tuning and testing, they would still have to wait until just before the British Grand Prix to have a definitive result.

Even if the schedule was still a bit tight, at least the team finally had a usable simulator.

That would also allow the development speed of car upgrades to pick up accordingly.

This week Zhou Guanyu wasn't in any kind of depressive funk; after the race, he was happily bragging in the drivers' group chat.

To be fair, Zhou Guanyu really did have bragging rights this week—no matter how you look at it, he beat his teammate and Bottas, which is basically the best way for a rookie driver to show what he can do.

After the race, Qin Miao didn't go back to Monaco; instead, he flew straight back to the UK with his mechanics.

After all, they're Mercedes mechanics—almost everyone on Qin Miao's crew lives in the UK.

Even the ones who don't live in the UK live somewhere nearby.

Although the team covers food and lodging for the mechanics and even pays for round‑trip economy tickets, the tickets are all booked for Tuesday.

The reason it's the Tuesday after the Grand Prix instead of Monday, or flying out the same day,

is mainly because the team staff need until Monday night to finish packing up all the team equipment, so naturally they only leave on Tuesday.

That way everyone can take the same flight home, which saves the team a bit of money. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

There's really no helping it; back before the budget cap, Mercedes wasn't this stingy—basically once a Grand Prix was over, you could leave whenever you wanted, just hand in the receipt and the team would reimburse you.

But those days are gone.

All the teams now have strict budget limits, so wherever money can be saved, they just make sure things work and forget about comfort.

And once a race is done, naturally everyone wants to go home early to rest or spend time with family.

After all, the mechanics' salaries aren't that high, and a ticket from Canada back to the UK isn't cheap—burning a fifth of a month's wages on one flight would make anyone wince.

And it just so happened that Qin Miao was planning to head back to the UK right after Sunday's race, so during the team dinner that night he casually asked who wanted to fly back with him.

Then Qin Miao took all the staff from his own crew back to the UK with him.

After landing, Qin Miao said goodbye to his colleagues one by one, then took a car back to his house in Brackley.

After that, Qin Miao took two days to properly relax at home.

But when the third day rolled around, Qin Miao was back at the factory, starting his work as a professional driver again.

It's worth mentioning that while Qin Miao was at team headquarters, he overheard Hamilton's nutritionist chatting with Barber about Hamilton's schedule over the past little while.

It really did sound like he was going on a fairground tour—going to a company event in the morning, while also having to attend a fashion show; lunch apparently with some celebrity; a magazine shoot in the afternoon; and a dinner event at night.

And it was basically that level of workload several days in a row.

Hearing that made Qin Miao click his tongue in disbelief.

Guess that's what it means to be Britain's pride in F1, huh?

His own home Grand Prix, and he's already this busy even before the race weekend officially starts.

Qin Miao suddenly had a bit of a bad feeling—if the home Grand Prix in China comes back next year or the year after, will he end up this busy too?

Will it be that the moment he lands back home, as long as he nods his head, people will cram his schedule full—every kind of event, meeting all sorts of people, parties, chats, interviews?