How Did I Become an F1 Driver?-Chapter 710 - 296: Red Bull Hesitant to Act, Part 2

Without Qin Miao's relentless slipstream assistance, Hamilton knew that with his own speed, he might not be able to break the 1 minute 15-second barrier.

After the interview ended, Qin Miao's day of work was also over.

He returned to the hotel, took a comfortable shower, and then did nothing else, just laid down on the bed and fell asleep.

The next day, Sunday, the day of the Mexico Grand Prix race.

Today, the number of fans present at the race was more than the previous two days combined, amounting to a total of 360,000 people.

In the eyes of these people, the pandemic seemed nonexistent, just a matter of continuing the music and the dance.

Almost all the visible stands were filled with fans, whether standing areas or restricted areas, they were gathered in small groups.

After two days of the grand prix, Qin Miao vaguely had a hunch that this crowd might be supporting Perez just incidentally; their real purpose for attending the grand prix was to be part of a large-scale party or entertainment event.

To put it simply, they were just here for fun.

The pre-race press conference and driver parade went smoothly, and Qin Miao spotted quite a few compatriots among a crowd of fans dressed in black Red Bull team gear, it was rare to see several fans in white Mercedes team uniforms.

Naturally, Qin Miao took out his phone, snapped a photo of them, and immediately posted it on social media, thanking them for coming to support him on-site, and stated he would try his best.

This method was something Old Man taught Qin Miao, to increase fan retention and attract fans who like you to come watch your race live.

Honestly, compared to driving techniques and knowledge about car adjustments, Hamilton taught Qin Miao more about how to manage his fanbase and maintain good relationships with them.

Even though some of it didn't quite fit his profession, at least Hamilton's teachings were indeed useful.

After all, to this day, even at the Red Bull Ring, Qin Miao still saw Chinese fans cheering for him on-site.

Of course, some of it was due to Qin Miao's own efforts, but he couldn't deny the role Hamilton's guidance played in it.

...

Very quickly, all the pre-race preparations were over, and Qin Miao returned to the familiar cockpit of his race car.

Once all the preparations were complete, Reyes gave a routine handshake to Qin Miao before leaving.

"Good luck with the race, we'll be waiting for your good news in the pit box."

Qin Miao reached out with his other hand, patting Reyes on the back of his hand and said, "Don't worry, just watch my performance."

After exchanging a few words with Qin Miao, Reyes and his team withdrew from the track with their equipment.

As the two green lights lit up, the two black Mercedes cars drove out of their starting grids.

Soon, as the warm-up lap came to an end, Qin Miao noticed that before Hamilton stopped in his grid position, he was clearly doing his best to keep the cars behind him at bay.

Compared to Hamilton, Qin Miao was much more at ease. While Hamilton was still holding back the cars behind, trying to let them enter the grid later, Qin Miao was the first to stop in his position.

Half a minute later, the drivers behind finally began to stop in their respective grid positions one after another.

At this moment, Qin Miao was very relaxed, with no pressure to win, and his points position was quite secure, making him perhaps the most relaxed driver in the entire race.

But soon Qin Miao regretted it… 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

As Stroll, who was last on the grid, stopped in his starting position, the chase cars behind also aligned.

As the green flag waved at the back, the five red lights started to light up one by one.

Qin Miao instinctively increased the engine's revs, his eyes fixed on the distant indicator lights.

"Five red lights… off!"

"The Mexico Grand Prix race starts!"

"Qin Miao's start was relatively average; he didn't close the gap with the cars in front like he did in the previous grand prix races!"

"Verstappen had an excellent start, and we can clearly see Verstappen charging up from the back."

"Can Hamilton maintain his position?"

On the track, Verstappen's start was actually better than both of the Mercedes drivers, but this advantage wasn't significant.

Normally on a regular track, this advantage would be negligible; you could say Verstappen had no starting advantage.

But the Rodriguez Brothers Circuit is different; the starting straight here is quite long.

The direct consequence of such a long start straight is that Verstappen had enough distance to slipstream Hamilton and gradually expand his initially small advantage.

But that's just for the top three drivers.

Because if you look behind Verstappen at Perez and Gasly, you'll find that it didn't take long after the start for the gap between these two and the top three drivers to open up to the extent that they could enter their respective driving lanes.

So it's not that Qin Miao and Hamilton didn't start well, it's that all three had good starts.

As the saying goes, without comparison, there is no harm. When all three have good starts, it naturally seems at first glance that none of them started well.

Soon, as they continuously accelerated, Verstappen got closer and closer to Hamilton's car rear, but the position between Qin Miao and Hamilton didn't change much.

After all, like Hamilton, Qin Miao didn't have any car in front of him for slipstreaming.

Moreover, the engine performance of their cars was roughly the same, and without significant differences in air resistance, and given neither made any starting mistakes, trying to quickly widen the gap with other drivers at the start wasn't realistic.

However, just before reaching the braking point, Verstappen had already completed an overtake on Hamilton's outside line, and by taking advantage of the slipstream, he was side-by-side with Hamilton before the braking zone.

The reason Verstappen didn't take the inside line was mainly because Qin Miao was already there. Verstappen drives aggressively, but he's not stupid; forcing a gap between two Mercedes drivers might not even work, and if he managed, what if he got sandwiched into a 'sandwich' situation?

At the same time, Perez was following closely behind Qin Miao.

Although Perez didn't start as fast as Qin Miao, with the slipstream advantage in the later stage, he still caught up to Qin Miao before the braking zone, positioning himself behind Qin Miao's car.

Meanwhile, there was also a McLaren on the inside of Perez.

As we know, Norris had been penalized to start from the back of the grid due to an engine change, so the McLaren appearing on Perez's inside could only be Ricardo.

Ricardo also had a very good start in this race, it could even be said his start was better than Hamilton, Verstappen, and Qin Miao.

Therefore, starting from seventh, he hadn't even completed the first straight before charging up to fifth position, and based on his current position, he might very well push aside the home driver Perez, advancing his position to fourth.

However, since Ricardo was on the dirty side of the track, and considering the Rodriguez Brothers Circuit is typically not used for racing except for F1 and FE races, the grip on the dirty side was completely different from that of the racing line.

And Ricardo was on the innermost side of the dirty side, almost running onto the grass.

Still, Ricardo wanted to try his signature move: late braking.