How Did I Become an F1 Driver?-Chapter 687 - 289: Austin Qualifying Session

Friday, the day when the first and second practice sessions begin.

Even though Qin Miao has to take a penalty at the US Grand Prix, there is still some good news.

That is after arriving in America, there will be no rain during the three days of the race and practice sessions.

Moreover, the track temperature averages around 50 degrees Celsius, making it an extremely suitable condition for racing.

This means that during the Sunday race, Qin Miao can go full throttle without any concerns, chasing down the drivers ahead of him.

First practice session.

Due to unfamiliarity with the American circuit, Qin Miao was unable to reach his expected speed during the entire first practice, with his fastest time only ranking sixth.

Throughout the first practice, Qin Miao focused on getting familiar with the track and running long-distance tests.

The team has become accustomed to Qin Miao's slow warming up during practice sessions.

Although Qin Miao's slow start prevents the team from using the practice session time to improve his single-lap speed,

all rookie drivers face this situation when dealing with unfamiliar tracks, which is something teams like Williams, Haas, and Alfa Romeo are quite familiar with.

Mercedes is somewhat unaccustomed to this because they have rarely dealt with such new F1 drivers.

As the defending champion team, the drivers joining Mercedes are generally those who have already achieved certain results in the paddock.

And these drivers do not usually make the kind of mistakes that rookie drivers like Qin Miao might make.

Of course, even so, Qin Miao always manages to quickly familiarize himself with the track and achieves results in subsequent practice sessions that satisfy the team.

At the end of the first practice, Hamilton was first, Verstappen second, Leclerc third, and Qin Miao sixth.

During the mid-session break, Frankie also talked with Qin Miao about what could be improved in his practice and what adjustments are needed for the next practice session.

Notably, during this practice, when Barber went to Hamilton's assistant to request Hamilton's car data, he was politely refused.

Which means that for this race, Qin Miao will have to rely on himself and his team for his car's setup and adjustments.

Qin Miao was a bit surprised when he got the news, but he didn't find anything wrong with Hamilton's decision, nor did he harbor any negative emotions, thinking that Hamilton's sudden withholding of data was stingy or belittling him.

Sharing his data unconditionally is Hamilton's favor, and not sharing is his duty.

There is an old saying in China, "Rely on people, people run; rely on mountains, mountains collapse."

It's better to rely on oneself than on others.

Instead, it was Barber and Frankie who were somewhat disgruntled.

Qin Miao also counseled them a bit.

Second practice session.

By the second practice, Qin Miao had developed a clear understanding of his car and also became familiar with the track.

In fact, compared to other tracks he hadn't raced on, Qin Miao found it easier to get to know the American track.

After all, the American circuit is actually a combination of other tracks, and you can see the silhouettes of many other tracks here.

What impressed Qin Miao the most were those sequences of corners similar to the ones at Silverstone.

So in the second practice session, having familiarized himself in the first, Qin Miao started his fastest lap tests.

And during the second practice, while other drivers were testing long distances, Qin Miao astonishingly ended the session in first place.

However, if we compare Qin Miao's results with Hamilton's from the first practice, Qin Miao was only less than 0.1 seconds quicker than Hamilton.

So, if Hamilton were to run a hot lap at this time, he would likely be faster than Qin Miao nine times out of ten.

Therefore, Qin Miao didn't find this first place in the second practice session particularly noteworthy.

Friday, third practice session.

This session saw an unexpected figure emerge as the leader; when it ended, Perez surprisingly secured first place, and the second place wasn't any of the three title contenders but Sainz.

Verstappen, Hamilton, and Qin Miao, the three title contenders, ranked third, fourth, and fifth respectively.

Of course, whether these three deliberately held back in the third practice session remains unknown. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

In any case, at the end of the third practice session, their positions weren't what the audience had expected.

After resting for a few hours, the qualifying session began.

During the break, the team completed the engine part replacement for Qin Miao.

In the qualifying session, although he would have to start from the back of the grid due to penalties, Qin Miao still went out on track.

Despite having a brand new engine and gearbox in the car at this time, the team couldn't guarantee that Qin Miao's power unit wouldn't have any issues.

So during Q1, the team wanted to test the stability of Qin Miao's power unit and let Qin Miao go through the engine's break-in period.

Once the break-in period was over and the engine checked out without issues, they wouldn't need to worry about Qin Miao's engine stalling midway through the race.

After the new engine was installed, Qin Miao showed a significant speed improvement.

After the end of Q1, Qin Miao advanced to Q2 in first place, with his main competitors Hamilton and Verstappen behind him.

In Q2, not only Qin Miao opted for a new engine, but Vettel, Alonso, and Russell also chose to switch to a full set of power units.