How Did I Become an F1 Driver?-Chapter 711 - 297: Orange Torpedo

After all, his teammate Norris was penalized to start from the back of the grid, so Ricardo didn't want to miss this opportunity.

This season, Ricardo has been thoroughly outperformed by his teammate Norris, which was quite embarrassing for Ricardo, who was brought in by McLaren as the number one driver.

Faced with such a situation, Ricardo was anxious, so he couldn't possibly miss this chance to prove himself.

For once, he wanted to make a mark, at least to avoid ending the season with particularly poor statistics.

But as the saying goes: the ones who drown are those who know how to swim.

At such high speeds, on a less-than-clean track, and with the influence from the dirty side.

The most direct consequence was that Ricardo's right front tire locked up during braking.

A plume of white smoke rose instantly as the tire rubbed against the track.

The locked right front tire brought disastrous consequences to Ricardo, who was already on the edge.

His car lost control and missed the braking point.

Meanwhile, Perez, racing on his home track, knew that completing the race was more important for his hometown fans than his finishing position.

So during the start phase, he was extremely vigilant.

He wished he could have a third-person view to take in all the information on the track, trying to avoid any accidents as much as possible.

When Ricardo was alongside Perez on the inside, Perez had already focused most of his attention on Ricardo.

So, the moment he saw white smoke from Ricardo's right front tire, Perez immediately steered left to dodge any potential danger.

And indeed, he managed to avoid it.

Perez managed to avoid the danger, but Qin Miao in front of him didn't have such a good opportunity.

At that moment, Qin Miao wasn't paying attention to what was behind him because Hamilton and Verstappen were on the outside, both about to enter the corner faster than Qin Miao, so Qin Miao wasn't planning to fight them for the racing line.

As a result, Qin Miao braked earlier.

Then Qin Miao unexpectedly noticed Verstappen making an extreme brake on the outside, directly overtaking him and Hamilton.

Verstappen, with later braking than Qin Miao and Hamilton, passed them both on the outside line.

It may sound like just one sentence, but the difficulty of Verstappen's late braking is comparable to using an excavator to peel an eggshell without breaking the membrane inside the shell.

Using an excavator!

Due to this highly difficult extreme braking, the effect was outstanding, making it look as if Qin Miao and Hamilton both slowed down to let Verstappen pass.

Because of Verstappen's exceptional maneuver, Qin Miao was so focused that he didn't notice the orange missile coming up from behind.

After Verstappen entered the corner, Hamilton followed suit, while Qin Miao, due to his position on the track, was forced to go over the curb from the inside line.

Just as Qin Miao's right front wheel hit the track curb, he suddenly felt a jolt from his car.

Followed by the familiar "crack" sound of carbon fiber breaking.

Being the start phase, all cars were in a very extreme state; nobody wanted to lose positions during the start.

So when Qin Miao entered the corner, he pushed his car to the limit, and in such a state, even a slight disturbance to the steering wheel could cause the car to lose control, let alone having a car collide from behind.

So this collision directly broke the fragile balance of Qin Miao's car, the rear wheels lost traction instantly, and the car spun in place.

The only good news was that Turn 1 at the Rodriguez circuit is a slow corner, so both Qin Miao and Ricardo weren't moving at high speeds.

Qin Miao's car was merely spun around 180 degrees, facing the direction of the pits.

And the instigator Ricardo, his car didn't lose control, just his front wing was knocked off in the collision.

Because of Verstappen's godlike braking, the three commentators from Five-Star Sports were mostly focused on him.

But given Qin Miao's special status among domestic fans, the commentators did allocate some attention to Qin Miao's car.

The moment Qin Miao's car collided with Ricardo, Bing exclaimed, "Qin Miao! It's over; he got hit by a McLaren!"

"Oh no! It looks like Qin Miao's car has stopped on the track!" Fei caught a glimpse of a Mercedes spinning around and stopping against the traffic.

Seeing this scene, the three commentators felt a chill down their hearts.

"Ricardo! It was Ricardo's braking mistake that hit Qin Miao!" Zhou Haoran, even though he was mostly focused on Hamilton and Verstappen's braking, subconsciously caught sight of that iconic orange color, remembering Ricardo was the only McLaren among the front starters.