How Did I Become an F1 Driver?-Chapter 716 - 298: Overtake! Overtake Them Hard!

Fortunately, the telemetry data shows everything is normal.

"Received." After responding, Qin Miao continued to chase the driver in front of him.

Now the person in front of Qin Miao was O'Kang.

Because Qin Miao used up all his battery power on the previous long straight, his speed inevitably declined.

After following behind O'Kang for a lap, he launched an attack on the start/finish straight in the 7th lap.

This time it was also an easy overtake for Qin Miao, as mentioned before, the start/finish straight of this circuit is too long. As long as there's no mistake exiting T16 and the vehicle performance isn't significantly different, overtaking the driver ahead is a breeze.

It's worth mentioning that after Qin Miao overtook O'Kang, Norris also used Qin Miao's slipstream to overtake O'Kang.

Initially, O'Kang was calm when he saw a Mercedes overtaking him.

A Mercedes, and Qin Miao, it wasn't surprising for O'Kang to be overtaken by this Supernova, though he wondered why Qin Miao had fallen behind him.

But seeing Norris behind Qin Miao also overtaking him, O'Kang started cursing.

"Young people have no sense of chivalry, coming to deceive and ambush an old driver like me!"

Reaching the 14th lap, Qin Miao naturally set his sights on Latifi in front of him.

The race hadn't been going on for too long, and the gaps between drivers weren't too wide, so Qin Miao was naturally in full pursuit, overtaking as many cars as possible.

On lap 9, Qin Miao again overtook Latifi on the start/finish straight. The method was simple but effective and efficient.

Next up is Mazepin in 12th place.

By the 11th lap, two laps later, Qin Miao had overtaken Mazepin.

This overtake wasn't on the start/finish straight. It was in the DRS zone between T3 and T4, with Qin Miao late-braking on the inside of T4, easily taking on the Russian.

However, after overtaking Mazepin, Qin Miao's pace of overtaking the cars ahead slowed down.

The gap to Alonso and others ahead was already 3 seconds when Qin Miao overtook Mazepin.

On lap 13, Qin Miao finally caught up to Alonso, but he was stuck there.

Qin Miao was still charging, preparing to take a breath, slightly cool down the engine, and check the tire temperatures before attacking again.

Meanwhile, during this time, Alonso had overtaken Russell in front of him.

Russell had been overtaken, but seeing Qin Miao behind him made him explode with energy.

"Tire-saving? Engine temperature control? Non-competitive position?"

Not at all. If I can bother you, Qin Miao, even a little, I will.

The main goal was to harm others at one's own expense.

Then everyone saw Russell, who seemed powerless against Alonso's attack, suddenly speed up and grabbed Alonso's slipstream and DRS.

Qin Miao: ???

The DRS train starts again, huh?

Never-ending, huh?

On lap 16, Qin Miao finally overtook Russell after he overheated his tires and fell out of Alonso's DRS zone.

The good news is, after overtaking Russell, Qin Miao moved up to 11th place, just one more overtake into the points.

The bad news is... Russell had put all his effort into defending Qin Miao while he was about to fall out of Alonso's DRS zone, adhering to a defense philosophy of 'harm an enemy by a thousand, damage oneself by twelve hundred.'

Russell even deliberately left a gap on the outside for Qin Miao to exploit in T6, only to lock his brakes and squeeze Qin Miao off the track during the turn.

Qin Miao was cautious due to Ricardo's previous incident, noticing Russell taking the inside line and missing the braking point.

So when Russell locked his brakes, Qin Miao ran off track to avoid the torpedo-like move; otherwise, he would've taken a hard hit.

In short, after a lap of defensive driving, Russell incurred a 5-second penalty and will likely face a reprimand in the steward's room post-race.

However, for a driver in Russell's position, a 5-second penalty is insignificant, as with the performance of the Williams car, he cannot enter the top ten anyway.

The penalties were given because, when Russell squeezed Qin Miao off the track, the right of way wasn't his.

As for Qin Miao, after finally overtaking Russell, the gap to Alonso ahead was back to 3 seconds.

To be honest, it's quite frustrating.

If Russell had defended properly without any shenanigans, the gap to Alonso after overtaking Russell would've been at most 1.5 seconds.

But there's no choice; this is F1.

Nothing much to say; just chase.

Once he catches Alonso, he can formally enter the points zone.

By lap 16, some drivers were already pitting to change tires, including Russell whom Qin Miao had just overtaken.

Russell had a tire lock-up, creating a flat spot, and his speed was dropping quickly, so pitting now was a reasonable choice.

But all this has nothing to do with Qin Miao, as he's on hard tires, and it's not his pit window yet.

On lap 17, Giovinazzi pitted for hard tires, dropping behind Ricardo afterward.

Qin Miao, before overtaking Alonso, naturally entered the points zone.