How Did I Become an F1 Driver?-Chapter 694 - 292: Qin Miao Chases with DRS Like a Little Train (6K, Extra Update 12/20)

But all of this depends on Qin Miao catching up to Norris ahead of him.

Because of the gap in vehicle performance and the obstruction from these two Red Bull cars before the race began.

Once Qin Miao overtook Stroll and Vettel pitted, Norris became the driver in front of Qin Miao, with a gap of a full 14 seconds between them.

This time gap didn't shake Qin Miao's confidence to catch up, after all, he was driving a Mercedes.

Even though the performance advantage of Mercedes over Red Bull is not as pronounced now, and on some unsuitable tracks, Mercedes sometimes can't even beat Red Bull.

But compared to McLaren, the advantage of the Mercedes cars is still apparent.

The only concern may be that after catching up, Qin Miao's tire condition might not be very good.

However, all of these things are left to the team to consider, so after thinking about it briefly, Qin Miao didn't delve into it further.

He just ran his own rhythm well.

After getting away from the two Aston Martins and running another lap, the broadcast provided the time gap between Qin Miao and Norris ahead of him, as well as their rate of closing.

The data showed.

Qin Miao's speed was 0.7 seconds faster than Norris's.

From this perspective, it's inevitable that Qin Miao will catch up to Norris in this race. The only question now is how many laps Qin Miao will need to catch Norris, and if he has enough energy left to chase those ahead like Sainz and Ricardo after catching Norris.

On the 20th lap, the time gap between Qin Miao and Norris was reduced from the initial 14 seconds to 11 seconds.

Qin Miao alone closed the gap by two seconds on that 20th lap.

This was mainly because Qin Miao used a whole lap of power, so his speed was faster, and Norris also encountered Mazepin's slow car on the track, which affected his speed to some extent.

On lap 23, Qin Miao closed in to 8.6 seconds behind Norris.

On lap 25, it was 6.5 seconds.

On lap 29, it was 1.5 seconds.

The closing rate between Qin Miao and Norris increased, and Qin Miao closed 12.5 seconds on Norris in ten laps.

Although this closing rate seems quite incredible, it's actually because Qin Miao took advantage of tire wear.

And this advantage increased over time.

On one hand, Qin Miao pitted two laps later than Norris, and with Qin Miao's tire conservation ability, when comparing directly with Norris, Qin Miao's tires became more advantageous as the race progressed.

On the other hand, because of the presence of System Skills, Qin Miao's tire wear was the least in the paddock, adding another layer of advantage.

However, Qin Miao also knew that even though Norris was friendly with him privately, during on-track combat, Norris wouldn't show him any mercy.

Even if Norris knew he wasn't a match for him on the track, and there was no real competition between them.

But Qin Miao understood Norris, and when facing him, Norris definitely wouldn't hold back, he'd surely try to engage with him for a few exchanges.

Although Qin Miao didn't know Norris's internal motivation for doing so, he was sure from his understanding of Norris that he would do it.

On the 30th lap, Qin Miao entered the DRS zone behind Norris.

But surprisingly, Norris didn't defend against him.

In the DRS zone between T11 and T12, Norris just ran his own rhythm, not taking any defensive line.

When Qin Miao overtook Norris, he just took advantage of catching Norris's slipstream, then dove to the inside, and went side by side with Norris at the braking point, using the better grip of Qin Miao's tires out of the corner to distance from Norris.

As he exited the corner, Qin Miao glanced at Norris in surprise.

But at this moment, Norris wasn't looking at Qin Miao, he continued to run his own rhythm.

Qin Miao was truly curious, had Norris changed? Why didn't he defend against me?

But soon, as the race reached the 31st lap, Qin Miao knew the reason, as Norris behind him directly pitted.

Actually, Norris was reaching the pit window designated by his team.

Norris felt that since he was going to pit in the next lap anyway, there was no need to create trouble for Qin Miao at this moment, so he simply let Qin Miao pass without affecting his rhythm.

If Qin Miao could overtake him, he'd let it happen, if not, he wouldn't actively let Qin Miao pass either.

Besides Norris, Ricardo ahead of him also chose to pit.

The McLaren double pitted, but since there was a 10-second gap between the two drivers, pitting simultaneously wouldn't affect their tire change rhythm.

Once the McLaren drivers were out, they both fell behind Qin Miao, and Qin Miao moved up to fifth, with Perez 8 seconds ahead.

In the face of 8 seconds of clean air, Qin Miao naturally started to push hard.

But just as Qin Miao began to accelerate, Frankie's voice came through on the TR: "Qin Miao, how are the tire conditions on the car feeling now?"

At that moment, Qin Miao was just going through turns T3T4T5, which were quite similar to the ones at Silverstone, and under the lateral G-force pressure, he couldn't spare the focus to speak, so after exiting T19 when there were no turns, Qin Miao replied: "Pretty good."