Chapter 1062: Chapter 407: The Accident-Prone Sprint Qualifier

If this data is still not intuitive enough, Zhou Guanyu has never been overtaken on track by drivers competing for the same position as him this season.

However, nobody is perfect; even someone as strong as Qin Miao has the weakness of being slow in wet conditions.

Zhou Guanyu also has his shortcomings, but the audience just can’t see them.

His biggest issue is being a slow starter.

During practice sessions, Zhou Guanyu usually needs some time to familiarize himself with the car’s characteristics on a track, and he also requires time to bring the car’s speed up to the team’s expected pace.

Therefore, it’s easy to guess why Zhou Guanyu performed poorly in today’s qualifying.

A single practice session wasn’t enough for Zhou Guanyu to fully familiarize himself with the track and the characteristics of the car on this track.

As a result, during qualifying, he couldn’t fully showcase his speed.

Ultimately, the drivers eliminated in Q1 were: Zhou Guanyu, Norris, Ricardo, Stroll, Vettel.

For Zhou Guanyu, who was eliminated in Q1, Qin Miao had no better solution, as this isn’t something that can be learned, it’s more like an inherent trait.

After a short break, time moved on to Q2.

In Q2, Qin Miao used just one set of new soft tires to get the result he wanted.

And this result was stable enough to enter Q3.

Originally, after Qin Miao returned to the team’s pit, he didn’t intend to go out again.

There was no need, and Qin Miao was already familiar with the track; he didn’t need to use another flying lap to understand the track information more deeply.

However, just as Qin Miao was preparing to get out of the car to stretch his legs, Frankie suddenly asked over the team radio: "Since there’s still time, Qin Miao, do you want to try switching to hard tires and test the long-distance wear of the hard tires with heavy fuel load?"

Qin Miao was taken aback and then uncertainly asked, "Is this allowed under FIA regulations?"

"They haven’t prohibited it. The FIA’s racing regulations are like laws; if it’s not prohibited, then it’s allowed," Frankie replied.

"Alright."

Then a strange scene unfolded on the track: while all the other drivers were doing qualifying runs, Qin Miao was openly doing long-distance testing on hard tires in his Mercedes.

The broadcaster, stirring up the situation, fixed the camera on Qin Miao’s car while noting his lap times in the format used for recording qualifying results when the other drivers returned to their teams’ pits to make adjustments after their first flying laps.

The most surprising thing was that while Qin Miao was driving like this, his lap times were actually not bad.

He was posting green sectors almost every lap.

In fact, Qin Miao’s times were almost on par with the cut-off time in Q2.

But since Qin Miao was using hard tires, he didn’t refresh his fastest lap time during the last part of this session.

Ultimately, the drivers eliminated in Q2 were: Gasly, Russell, Albon, Bottas, Tsunoda.

Time quickly moved to Q3.

To avoid traffic issues, Mercedes returned to the track to start their flying lap only after the other drivers had completed one flying lap.

However, just as Hamilton finished his warm-up lap and started his flying lap, he made a mistake and went off the track at T7, triggering a red flag and halting the qualifying session.

Hamilton’s crash was extremely severe; the front wing was completely broken, the suspension of both right-side tires was destroyed, and even the right front mirror was smashed and went missing.

Of course, this wasn’t the most dramatic and visually impactful scene of the crash. The really dramatic scene occurred after Hamilton’s car stopped by the track barrier.

There was an outburst of enthusiastic cheering from the Red Bull fans dressed in orange or wearing orange hats.

The whole scene was filled with the "enthusiasm" of the spectators for Hamilton, the seven-time world champion.

However, Hamilton wasn’t the only unfortunate one in this crash; Qin Miao was following Hamilton on this flying lap.

Therefore, after Hamilton’s mistake, Qin Miao’s lap time was also invalidated.

Because of the yellow flag in the third timing sector where Hamilton went off, Qin Miao had to slow down.

As a result, neither Hamilton nor Qin Miao achieved the results they were aiming for on this flying lap.

Actually, Hamilton’s ability to control the car is also very strong, but unfortunately, he didn’t have much practice time for this race. At the same time, Hamilton was eager to achieve a good result in this race, which led to the current outcome.

After this crash, Hamilton’s race was over.

With the remaining five minutes, even if Hamilton’s car could be teleported back, it couldn’t be repaired.

As for Qin Miao, although he didn’t post a valid flying lap during qualifying, his last flying lap wasn’t obstructed by this incident, and he drove very aggressively, securing a time of 1:05.067, which satisfied the team greatly.

This result put Qin Miao in fourth position for tomorrow’s start.

Meanwhile, the final qualifying standings were as follows: 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

1: Verstappen