How Did I Become an F1 Driver?-Chapter 648 - 278: Teammates Meet, Eyes Blaze with Rivalry

On Qin Miao's side, he barely undercut Russell, but then he had to face Sainz in front of him.

Although Sainz didn't have a direct point conflict with Qin Miao like Hamilton and Verstappen did.

There was still some unresolved tension between the two over that Ferrari seat.

So when Sainz saw Qin Miao appear behind him, he never thought of easily giving up his position.

Even though this year's Ferrari car couldn't match your Mercedes W12, not causing you any trouble would do injustice to the warm "greetings" I received from Ferrari fans after joining Ferrari this season.

Then Qin Miao felt the pressure from Sainz.

Before Qin Miao was in a threatening position behind him, Sainz had already started charging his car's battery, and once Qin Miao passed Russell and got behind Sainz, Sainz started discharging aggressively.

Qin Miao didn't have much battery power when he came out of the pit lane, and he needed electricity to follow Hamilton's train, as this season's cars were difficult to follow, and without power, it was easy to be thrown out of the DRS zone by the car in front.

When overtaking Russell just now, Qin Miao also used up all the small amount of battery power he had, and for a moment, he really had no way to deal with Sainz.

So when Qin Miao got behind Sainz, he could only barely maintain a distance of about 2 seconds behind Sainz, keeping the time gap between him and Sainz.

At this time, Qin Miao was both charging his battery and pressuring Sainz while also hoping for a potential mistake from Sainz.

On lap 25, Qin Miao was stuck behind Sainz due to battery issues and couldn't overtake him in the short term.

On the track, Hamilton, who had already run 24 laps on medium tires, even set a purple sector.

1 minute 39 seconds 908.

While the pace of others at this time was basically around 1 minute 40 seconds.

It should be said that it is indeed no wonder he is a seven-time champion. When he seriously protects his tires, he is not much worse than Qin Miao.

On the other hand, although Norris, in front of Hamilton, was gradually losing the advantage he had built up not long ago, the two of them still had an 11-second time gap between them, thanks to Russell.

So at this time, Norris just felt the pressure, but it wasn't enough to make Norris lose his composure.

On lap 28, with his car's battery charged to 80%, Qin Miao decided to stop fooling around with Sainz in front of him.

Again, it was the main straight after T18.

Your Ferrari engine may be powerful, but if I use DRS, ERS, and rich fuel mode with the slipstream from you, how will you respond?

Sainz: ...

After realizing Qin Miao's terrifying closing rate, Sainz didn't even defend, he just continued his rhythm on his driving line.

Qin Miao passed Sainz on the inside line after T1, and by the exit of the pit lane, he had completely overtaken Sainz; after passing Sainz, he quickly returned to the normal driving line.

By the time Qin Miao got to the T2 braking point, he had already pulled away from Sainz by a car's length.

Sainz, watching Qin Miao's car fade into the distance, could only helplessly say on the team radio: "Sorry, folks, the absolute speed of the Mercedes car is just too fast."

Sainz wasn't even willing to praise Qin Miao's driving skills, instead complaining about the performance of the Mercedes car.

However, no matter what, after passing Sainz, Qin Miao's position moved up to tenth.

The driver ahead of Qin Miao became Gasly, and there was a 3-second gap between them.

Checking his current battery level, 21%.

Qin Miao thought for a moment, during the time he caught up with Gasly, he might as well charge the car's battery, and when he caught up with Gasly, there should be enough power to launch an attack.

Moreover, Gasly at this time hadn't pitted, so Qin Miao was confident he could overtake him even with insufficient battery power.

But given Gasly's position as a Red Bull driver, he probably wouldn't slack off; he should defend against Qin Miao to the best of his ability.

Of course, the priority was to catch up with Gasly before talking about offense and defense.

However, Qin Miao's thoughts were indeed good. When Qin Miao caught up with Sainz, Marco had already pulled out his phone to call the Red Bull race director.

After Qin Miao passed Sainz, Marco reappeared in the Red Bull team's paddock like nothing happened.

And not long after, Red Bull gave Gasly the team order to defend against Qin Miao with all his might.

On the same lap, Hamilton finally chose to pit.

Although his speed had always been maintained well, the advantage Russell had built for Norris was too great, and even now, the time gap between Hamilton and Norris remained at 11 seconds.

Seeing that with this set of old medium tires, he couldn't catch up to Norris in front, Hamilton decisively chose to pit and change to new hard tires, naturally harboring the thought of undercutting Norris.

At the same time, Verstappen also opted to pit.

Hamilton and Verstappen entered the pit almost one after the other.