Chapter 1050: Chapter 403: Mercedes’ Brilliant Performance (Part 2)

Because of that, Hamilton’s car had a longer coasting distance and straightened earlier than Qin Miao to get back on the power, but at the same time, Hamilton also left enough space on the outside for Qin Miao to use on corner exit.

Qin Miao had actually already braced himself to be squeezed out by Hamilton, but what he didn’t expect was that Hamilton actually left him room.

Even though he didn’t quite figure out what Hamilton was thinking at that moment, Qin Miao still didn’t give up this golden opportunity on corner exit, with his left-front wedged by Hamilton’s sidepod as the two of them floored it together towards T16.

Before the T16 braking point, Qin Miao stomped hard on the brakes and increased the front brake bias by 15%.

This gave him better braking performance and allowed him to brake later; the only downside was that it made the front tires prone to locking up and could cause understeer during trail braking.

But in this heavy-braking zone for a right-angle corner, this kind of front brake bias was just right.

So even though Qin Miao was still behind Hamilton on the inside, after braking later, he moved ahead of Hamilton and entered the corner in front.

But Hamilton didn’t give up because of that; after being overtaken by Qin Miao, he took a wide line at the T16 apex, ran a switchback line with Qin Miao through T17, and was preparing to use the car’s top-end straight-line speed on the main straight afterwards to take the position back.

This time it was Qin Miao’s turn to "draw the dragon."

Fortunately, the start-finish straight was too short, and going into T18, Qin Miao just happened to block Hamilton’s optimal exit line—Hamilton’s exit speed was clearly better than his—making Hamilton lose the chance to pull alongside.

In short, after an attack that lasted two full sectors, it ended with Qin Miao successfully overtaking Hamilton to move up to fourth.

After being overtaken by Qin Miao, Hamilton was a bit unwilling, but still said over team radio, "Good time."

More or less meaning that the timing of Qin Miao blocking him from getting side by side was just too perfect, right in the direction where he was preparing to get on the throttle—completely shutting the door.

And after overtaking Hamilton, Qin Miao felt a wave of satisfaction in his heart.

After all, no matter what, the guy is still the seven-time world champion who dominated the paddock for seven seasons. Even if today’s Hamilton is no longer as mighty as he used to be and the car has brought him endless torment, as long as he’s still in the paddock, his title and his honors will always be there.

After passing Hamilton, Qin Miao’s race settled back down; he started hunting down Leclerc ahead at a rate of 0.2 seconds per lap.

Even though that chase pace was pretty slow, there were still more than 40 laps to go at this point, so Qin Miao still had a chance.

And right now the gap between Qin Miao and Leclerc ahead was only about five seconds.

Plus, with Qin Miao’s tire management, he could still dream a little about a podium this season, just like in the first few races of the year.

On lap 10, Sainz, leading a race for the first time in his career and with a strong chance of taking his first Grand Prix win, made an unforced error at T4 under pressure when Verstappen behind was 1.5 seconds away.

After all, ever since he joined Ferrari, he’d constantly been compared by countless Iron Buddha Temple fans to Ferrari’s discarded child Qin Miao, whom he had replaced.

Sainz admitted he wasn’t as good as Qin Miao, but he also wanted a race win to prove his own strength.

So he made the same mistake as Leclerc—he cared a bit too much.

He got on the throttle clearly too early on corner exit.

The car had a brief snap of oversteer and almost lost control.

Luckily, Sainz didn’t let the incoming win cloud his mind; his reactions were still there, and he caught the car immediately.

Because of that, Sainz’s losses didn’t snowball; he just ran off the track and handed the lead to Verstappen.

And because of this mistake, the gap between Sainz and Verstappen ahead stretched to one second.

On lap 11, the two Red Bull juniors had a proper clown-fight civil war at T3.

Tsunoda was planning to brake late on the inside at T3 and then use the inside on exit to pass his teammate, but after he hit the brakes and turned in, his rear wheels locked.

So when he was side by side with his teammate at the apex, his left-rear smacked into Gasly’s right-rear, and the two Red Bull juniors just spun together, twirling as they slid off the track.

Gasly’s outer rear diffuser even took some damage from the impact, shedding some carbon-fiber shards on the track; they were so small you basically couldn’t see them unless you got really close.

But just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean they’re not there.

On lap 12, Verstappen, who had been leading comfortably, took slightly too much curb at T3, and his tire rolled right over the bits of gear that had exploded off Gasly’s car.

Although the not-so-big carbon-fiber shards didn’t puncture Verstappen’s tire immediately, his absolute feel for the car told him right away that something was wrong.

The car started to drift slightly to one side, and its speed dropped noticeably.

So much so that on the not-very-long straight between T15 and T16 on lap 12, Verstappen got overtaken before the braking point by Sainz behind, who didn’t even have DRS.

Leclerc behind Sainz was also getting itchy.

But Verstappen didn’t give Leclerc any chance to pad his overtake stats on him.

He dove straight into the pits as he passed the pit entry and switched to a set of mediums.

At the same time, Qin Miao and Hamilton both gained another position.

One moved up to third, the other to fourth.

After coming out of the pits, Verstappen dropped straight down to seventh, behind Zhou Guanyu.

Zhou Guanyu didn’t really have any direct rivalry with Verstappen, but he definitely had something going on with Qin Miao.

So facing Verstappen, Zhou Guanyu threw everything he had into defending, basically using every trick he’d learned from Qin Miao on Verstappen behind.

For a moment there, Verstappen felt like the car in front wasn’t an Alfa Romeo, but last season’s W12.

It almost triggered Verstappen’s PTSD.

But you know what, Zhou Guanyu actually did manage to hold Verstappen off for a whole lap.

It wasn’t until the end of lap 14 that Verstappen used his car’s superior low-speed cornering and lines through the T16–T17 complex to pass Zhou Guanyu and move up to sixth.

But Verstappen had burned at least 1.5 seconds stuck behind Zhou Guanyu.

At that point Verstappen was genuinely a bit pissed—like, can we just drive and race normally, please? Why are you bringing personal feelings into this?

The cold, emotionless racing machine Verstappen was utterly baffled.

On lap 21, Qin Miao almost broke out in a cold sweat as he passed the pit entry.

Because out of the corner of his eye, he saw an Alfa Romeo stopped in the pit lane, and his first thought was that Zhou Guanyu had been screwed over by the Alfa Romeo team again.

Then as he passed pit exit, he still saw Zhou Guanyu’s name in seventh.

The retiring Alfa Romeo this time was Bottas.

Looks like Alfa Romeo had finally figured out who was really most important to the team and had shifted most of their attention to Zhou Guanyu, making sure he didn’t retire.

But sometimes Qin Miao really couldn’t wrap his head around it: is Alfa’s support crew really that bad? Out of two cars, they can only guarantee that one will make it through the race?

At this point, the gap between Qin Miao and Leclerc ahead had come down to 3.7 seconds.

As the race went on, Qin Miao’s tire advantage started to show.

Other drivers’ lap times in the first stint generally just kept getting slower, and only in the last stint would they pick up because the fuel load was dropping faster.

But Qin Miao’s pace in the first stint was always very stable, even getting quicker.

With his pace rising and others’ dropping, the rate at which he was closing on Leclerc each lap went from 0.2 seconds to around 0.4 seconds.

PS. I’m planning to keep Zhou Guanyu’s car around, since this is the best-performing F1 machine he’s had in his whole career.

And Russell’s seat has already been taken by Sanshui, so quali won’t be that bad, which means the crash probably won’t happen—so I’m not going to write that accident.