How Did I Become an F1 Driver?-Chapter 713 - 297: Orange Torpedo

Although he couldn't stop muttering to himself, after Toto spoke to Qin Miao, Qin Miao managed to collect his emotions, forcing himself to calm down, and began to keep up with the pace of the drivers ahead.

However, there was still a silver lining for Qin Miao, who had plummeted to the bottom at this point in the race.

That was the incident that had occurred on the track, involving O'Kang, Mick Schumacher, and Yuki Tsunoda, besides Qin Miao and Ricardo.

This track incident was primarily due to a Mercedes parked in the middle of the track, leaving insufficient space for the subsequent drivers passing through.

These three drivers all chose to exit the corner on the opposite side of Qin Miao's car.

With all three crammed together, the track space inevitably became insufficient.

As a result, Mick Schumacher and Yuki Tsunoda sandwiched O'Kang.

However, in this incident, O'Kang, who was the sandwich filling, wasn't significantly affected.

Realizing he was sandwiched and the track ahead was too narrow for him to enter the corner, O'Kang gently applied the brakes.

Then O'Kang's left front wheel collided with Mick Schumacher's right rear wheel, causing Mick Schumacher to take off.

After gliding in the air for a stretch, Mick Schumacher crashed heavily onto the ground.

Compared to Mercedes, Haas certainly cannot compare in terms of car body strength.

Therefore, after Mick Schumacher landed, the car's left rear suspension broke on the spot.

Despite the car still limping forward a distance after landing, the breakage of the right rear wheel's suspension made Mick Schumacher's retirement inevitable.

Without a moment of sadness for Mick Schumacher's retirement, Yuki Tsunoda immediately arrived behind O'Kang's left front wheel.

With the same maneuver and the same scenario, Yuki Tsunoda's right rear wheel hit O'Kang's left front wheel from behind.

With both wheels positioned forward, it was naturally the rear wheel that took off.

Just like Mick Schumacher, Yuki Tsunoda also took off.

O'Kang double kill.

When Yuki Tsunoda landed, he also shattered several carbon fiber pieces of the rear diffuser, and after the right rear wheel landed, it burst because it landed directly on the shattered pieces.

Although he didn't snap the suspension of his right rear wheel like Mick Schumacher, the damage to Yuki Tsunoda's car's chassis was quite severe, seemingly also hitting the gearbox, so the team decided to ask Yuki Tsunoda to turn off the car engine and reluctantly opted for retirement.

The collisions among the drivers at the back, coupled with Ricardo and Qin Miao's collision that left Ricardo's front wing on the track.

The chaos during this start was about that extensive.

A considerable number of innocent drivers were affected by this incident, but without a doubt, the worst-hit and most innocent driver among them was Qin Miao.

However, because of this incident, two cars were stranded on the track, the race committee soon changed the yellow flags to a safety car.

So, despite falling to the last place, Qin Miao still caught up to Stroll ahead of him just halfway through the first lap.

However, at this point, the team contacted Qin Miao through team TR.

"Qin Miao, BOX, let's put on hard tires for a particularly long stint; we believe in you." Frankie said.

The team's choice at that moment was understandable.

After all, Qin Miao had already fallen to the back, and continuing on medium tires in the race would only leave him with a performance advantage with the car.

At most, like the last race, after overtaking the cars in front, Qin Miao would find it challenging to progress.

Rather than that, it'd be better to broaden the strategy, find the weak points of the tires, and seek a differentiated approach.

They simply had Qin Miao pit to switch to hard tires.

Furthermore, with a safety car on the track, Qin Miao essentially suffered no time loss with this pit stop.

After being hit, Qin Miao knew that continuing would repeat the same process as the last race, ultimately finishing fifth.

Given that the team had more ideas, Qin Miao naturally chose to follow the team's advice.

"Roger, but I still want to know what exactly happened just now."

This was the first time Qin Miao spoke relatively calmly in team TR after being hit.

"Okay… just now Ricardo locked the tires, and after his car skidded out of control for a bit, his front wing collided with your right rear wheel, causing our car to lose control." After explaining, Frankie hastily added, "But don't worry, this collision didn't damage the car; our race isn't over yet."

"Alright, but I still want to say that Ricardo is an idiot."

Frankie: "Agreed."

After speaking, Qin Miao drove into the pits.

Meanwhile, Ricardo, who collided with Qin Miao, also chose to pit.

Because his entire front wing was knocked off during the collision with Qin Miao, he needed to pit for a new front wing.

And McLaren chose, like Mercedes, to change Ricardo to a new set of hard tires.

As a result, even though Qin Miao pitted after Ricardo, he still came out of the pit ahead of Ricardo.

After all, besides changing tires, Ricardo also needed to replace the front wing, which took more time.

"Qin Miao switched to hard tires during his pit stop." Fei exclaimed in surprise upon seeing Qin Miao pit.

"Mercedes probably wants Qin Miao to run a long stint and recover as many positions as possible." Bing analyzed.

"Strictly speaking, the difficulty for Qin Miao to catch up to the drivers ahead in this race is slightly less than in the last United States Grand Prix." Zhou Haoran added, "After all, Mexico's Rodriguez Brothers Circuit has three DRS zones, and the start straight is very long. Given the performance of the Mercedes car, Qin Miao just needs to catch the DRS and slipstream of the car ahead when exiting the corner to easily overtake at the end of the straight."