For some reason, when Qin Miao snatched the fire extinguisher from Matthew at trackside and sprayed it into the flames at the rear of his car, he actually felt quite relieved that at least his car hadn't chosen to stab him in the back in the middle of the race.

And the problem should be some hidden issue inside the car; otherwise, before practice started he should've been able to sense something was off with his Man and Car Unity skill.

Anyway, for the whole of FP2, Qin Miao just sat next to Toto, watching Hamilton complete the tests that were supposed to be his.

Meanwhile, his own crew had opened up the engine cover and started checking over the power unit.

As for changing the engine? No rush; they at least had a full day to play with.

And basically both drivers, Qin Miao and Hamilton, were going to need an engine change between qualifying and the race, so when it came to swapping engines, everyone was already very practiced.

The issue with Qin Miao's car was quickly found; a fuel line was handed over to Toto and Qin Miao.

Reyes said, "After a preliminary check, the problem is this pipe cracked. It leaked a bit of fuel, and with the high temperature in the engine bay it caught fire. But the car's return valve stopped the flames from traveling back in time, so the engine itself wasn't damaged. As for the exact cause, we'll have to wait until after this Grand Prix to investigate."

Toto nodded, then turned to Hamilton's chief mechanic, who had come over to join the fun, and said, "After FP2, remember to check the lines on Hamilton's engine as well, so we don't get the same thing again."

The other man naturally agreed, and as chief mechanic, he would've paid extra attention to Hamilton's plumbing even without Toto's reminder.

Very soon, FP2 was over.

After FP2, there's usually about twenty minutes before the post-session interviews, for the drivers to rest and reset themselves.

During that time Hamilton went straight to Qin Miao, started telling him about the issues he'd noticed on track in FP2, and chatted about which corners you could push a bit more to the limit, plus the tyre degradation he'd picked up on.

Qin Miao of course just pulled out his voice recorder, recording while jotting down all these details from Hamilton in his notebook.

In the post-session interviews, Qin Miao naturally praised the upgraded car to the skies, but also voiced his concern that since he'd missed FP2, he might not be able to gather complete data in FP3.

Mercedes really seemed to have suddenly figured things out this time: the upgraded front wing and the changed floor were like they'd unlocked the car's performance, and all aspects of the car had taken a big step forward.

But exactly how big a step this upgrade had brought would still have to wait for tomorrow's qualifying results to tell.

Saturday, by now the car under Qin Miao already had the engine fitted that he normally only used for qualifying and the race.

As for the old engine, the team simply scrapped it and treated it as a donor unit.

Even though this incident was "only" a burst fuel line, there was no way for the team to guarantee there weren't other hidden damages in the rest of the engine's piping.

If the power unit failed again in quali or the race, that would be a nightmare scenario that nobody at Mercedes wanted to see.

And that race engine of Qin Miao's had been used for a long time anyway; it really was time to change it.

For qualifying and the race, the team was planning to bolt in a completely new engine for Qin Miao.

It was their home race, and the upgrades this time were spot on; both the team and Qin Miao himself naturally wanted to ride this strong momentum and get a great result in the race.

Best case, win the whole thing at home.

So of course they were going to grab every possible car advantage they could.

Plus, that race engine of Qin Miao's had already done nine Grands Prix, more than a third of the season, so you could say it had fulfilled its mission; it was about time to give him a completely new unit.

For FP3 on Saturday, Qin Miao had replayed Hamilton's FP2 footage the night before.

He naturally got a lot of useful data out of it, and after that, in FP3 he did his own testing, found his preferred car setup, then rushed to test fuel consumption and tyre wear. Once the team had the data they wanted, FP3 was wrapped up.

Next up was to put a brand-new engine into Qin Miao's car and wait for qualifying to start.

However, maybe Britain just wasn't too happy that Qin Miao had been pressing Hamilton down all season.

FP3 had only been a bit overcast, the weather office hadn't even spotted many rain clouds, but once it was time for qualifying, the skies just opened up, and not in a drizzle but a full-on downpour.

Hamilton did tell Qin Miao before quali how to deal with wet conditions at Silverstone, but inside he was actually pretty pleased.

If the youngest F1 world champion in history has any weakness on track, it's rain. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

It's like the moment it starts raining, that almost-overflowing talent and instinct in Qin Miao just gets doused like a bonfire under a bucket of water.