How Did I Become an F1 Driver?-Chapter 600 - 258: News About Zhou Guanyu (Part 2)
Zhou Guanyu's tone, which was full of confusion just now, suddenly became serious: "Okay, good luck with the race, I'll keep watching."
...
Actually, Zhou Guanyu's words about the confidentiality agreement were clearly telling Qin Miao that he was already negotiating with Alfa Romeo, and there was a confidentiality agreement. Most likely, both sides were very keen, the negotiations would progress quickly, and it might even be possible that he had already signed with Alfa Romeo and would enter F1 next season.
Qin Miao was genuinely happy for his friend.
However, with Kimi leaving, the only veteran drivers still active in the paddock were Hamilton, Alonso, and Vettel.
Many veteran fans sighed at this.
The new generation surpasses the old.
And Qin Miao felt a bit sentimental, after all, he did quite like Kimi.
But that's F1, people come and go, but the pursuit of the championship never changes.
Thursday's event was still the same as usual, nothing much to say, but indeed there was a scene on Thursday just as Qin Miao had predicted.
When attending a fan meet-up before the race, the fans at the venue warmly greeted Qin Miao: "F**k you Chinese! F**k you Qin."
"You're a clown, you're worthless!"
Although being cursed was very uncomfortable, Qin Miao knew that if he showed anger, these Dutch fans who had opinions about him would be very happy.
So despite hearing people in the audience cursing him by name, Qin Miao's performance was no different from Verstappen when he was cursed at the British Grand Prix, with little emotional change on his face, maintaining a faint smile, doing whatever the host asked, and constantly interacting with the audience.
He seemed entirely unaffected by the cursing.
Those who didn't understand English might have thought the audience was cheering for Qin Miao.
Though being cursed was somewhat unpleasant, fortunately, after Qin Miao's fan meet-up event ended, he heard from Barber that Hamilton also had the same treatment, and even more lavish than his own.
The cursing of Hamilton lasted a full five minutes, while the entire fan meet-up event lasted only 15 minutes.
After this little episode, the work after Thursday became calm.
Friday: The day the two practice sessions begin.
Qin Miao was finally free from Spa's continuous rain; the weather around Zandvoort this week has been particularly nice, with no rain hazards.
Both practice sessions on Friday were focused on collecting data, nothing particular happened, so no need to elaborate here.
Saturday: The day for the third practice session and qualifying.
The third practice session was also focused on collecting data, determining the car setup. After ensuring everything was okay, Qin Miao prepared to adopt a medium-high downforce setup for the qualifying and race stages.
This week Mercedes had only a small upgrade on the front wing end plate, with little improvement in car performance. It mainly streamlined the airflow, directing more dirty airflow to the rear of the car rather than the front wheels, thus affecting the trailing car.
However, last week's high downforce tail wing could just be used at Zandvoort.
Zandvoort is also an overtaking-difficult track because Zandvoort has many corners, and these corners are extremely narrow, with most of the track's corners having banking.
This makes it easier for the drivers to take corners, while also increasing the chances of spins on the track and the probability of a safety car being deployed.
Moreover, because the track is particularly close to the beach, there are often unexpected gusts during the race.
During practice, Qin Miao was once caught off guard by these winds, causing him to run wide, but luckily he managed to control the car without incident.
Hopefully, the wind won't intensify during the qualifying.
Pirelli has provided three tire options for this race, ranging from the hardest C3 to C1.
At the same time, Pirelli has also proposed three pit stop strategies for all teams this week.
There are two two-stop strategies and one yellow-white one-stop strategy.
Because Zandvoort is a track with relatively high tire wear, many teams are expected to opt for the two-stop strategy, though a yellow-white one-stop finish could still be possible.
However, things are a bit special for Qin Miao. According to tests from the three practice sessions, the team has prepared a white-red one-stop strategy for him.
Nevertheless, the possibility of the car encountering other situations on the track cannot be ruled out, so the team has also reserved a new set of three types of tires for Qin Miao.
It is worth mentioning that last week's Belgian race canceled the rule of using tires in the Q2 qualifying stage for the race stage.
However, because it rained in Belgium at that time, all drivers were using intermediate tires throughout Q2, so it wasn't noticeable.
So from now on, if soft tires are used to run the fastest lap in Q2 qualifying, hard or yellow tires will be used for the race.
After the three practice sessions, the team retained a total of six new sets of tires for Qin Miao.
These include four sets of soft tires, one set of medium tires, and one set of hard tires.
Soon, the qualifying began.
Qin Miao sat in the car, and Frankie on the command post informed Qin Miao of the current track conditions.
"Today the air temperature is 18°C, track temperature is 35°C, air humidity is 62%. These numbers are the same as during the third practice.
There's one thing you need to pay special attention to, today's wind is particularly strong, blowing a western wind at 18 kilometers per hour, quite a bit stronger than during the third practice, so be careful of the loss of downforce due to crosswinds when exiting T3. You can also brake a bit later at T11. Feel this yourself during the warm-up lap."
"Alright, received," Qin Miao responded, then started waiting for the end of the qualifying countdown.
The director was also idly switching cameras at this time, showing the audience the cars and drivers.
Soon, the camera came to Alfa Romeo's pit room.
Then everyone saw Kubica in Alfa Romeo's car with the number 88.
The reason why Kubica appeared in Kimi's car was because Kimi, who had just announced his retirement at the end of the season, confirmed positive for COVID-19 and couldn't race at the moment. So for this race, Kubica would be substituting in for the qualifying and race stages.
Because Zandvoort Circuit is quite narrow, even if the driver ahead intentionally clears the racing line for the driver behind, running at Zandvoort Track, which only fits four cars in parallel, is still quite thrilling.
Therefore, the timing of letting the cars out becomes very important.
Some teams even deliberately let the drivers out during a time when no one is running.
Of course, this is naturally not Mercedes. The strategy team of Mercedes is not like Ferrari; they have some level of skill in letting cars out during qualifying.
Although Qin Miao's first flying lap in Q1 was a full push, he used a set of soft tires that were used during practice session qualifying simulation, so his result after the first flying lap was not particularly outstanding, only ranking tenth.
Actually, the time gap between Qin Miao and the leading Verstappen was only 0.8 seconds, but the speed gap between drivers during dry conditions qualifying is very small.
So Qin Miao's ranking after the first lap wasn't very ideal.
And Qin Miao's fans, upon seeing his Q1 results, burst into tears: [It's back! That familiar sense of cerebral thrombosis is back!]
[It's starting again] 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦
[I don't know where you picked up this bad habit; look at Hamilton and Verstappen. Although they like to keep things secret, they're not teasing fans' blood pressure]
[Hamilton and Verstappen hide things in their pockets; you, Qin Miao, hide them in your damn backside]
[Too deep]
[I wish next time an instant understanding comes for math]
[Can you still drive on this crappy road?]
[Ever since I started supporting Qin Miao, watching qualifying necessitates having quick-acting heart relievers on hand, or I'll be gone suddenly]
[Damn it, watching qualifying is scarier than watching horror movies]
