How Did I Become an F1 Driver?-Chapter 719 - 299: Did He Really Complete a Stint on Hard Tires?

At this moment, Qin Miao's tires began to uncontrollably deteriorate, and naturally, the tire condition of Sainz ahead of Qin Miao was the same.

In fact, because Sainz was using medium tires, his deterioration was more severe than Qin Miao's, so Qin Miao could slowly but steadily shorten the time gap with Sainz.

The team noticed that Qin Miao's lap times were starting to drop, so on the team radio, they asked, "Qin Miao, how are the tires doing?"

"I think they're still alright."

"Okay, please continue to maintain."

This exchange seemed like an ordinary communication between a driver and a race engineer, but in reality, the team was asking if Qin Miao was ready to pit and change tires.

And Qin Miao refused.

Mercedes also knew about Qin Miao's tire-saving ability, so they believed Qin Miao's words.

They also guessed Qin Miao's strategy, thinking that he might pit on lap 51 to switch directly to soft tires for the race. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

Red Bull had their suspicions too, but theoretically, soft tires could last about 20 laps on the Rodriguez Brothers Circuit.

However, after Qin Miao fell behind Leclerc, he would definitely have to overtake the drivers ahead, which would heavily wear out the soft tires, so Red Bull was even less worried about Qin Miao surpassing Gasly in this race.

In Red Bull's pit box, Marco smiled and said to Horner, "This young Qin Miao indeed has some strength and talent, but sometimes his decisions are too hasty."

Horner, beside him, nodded in agreement with Marco's viewpoint.

Meanwhile, Sainz finally decided to pit and change tires.

The tire change time was 2.3 seconds. While the circus might clown around often, to be fair, when Ferrari plays it straight, they live up to their name and years of F1 history.

After coming out, Sainz was 6.8 seconds behind his teammate Leclerc, in 7th place, with Ricardo 7 seconds behind him.

Which meant that if Qin Miao pitted at that moment, he would also emerge ahead of Ricardo, matching Sainz's current position, 7th place.

In 43 laps, Qin Miao climbed from 17th at the back of the grid to 7th place, moving up 10 positions in 43 laps.

Even if Qin Miao finished this race in 7th place, no one could say that his performance wasn't good enough, but neither Qin Miao nor the people at Mercedes thought this was sufficient.

After Sainz pitted, many thought Mercedes would also let Qin Miao pit to prevent losing too much distance to Sainz. However, to their surprise, Qin Miao did not do so but continued to persevere on the track.

At this time, Qin Miao was 11 seconds behind Perez, with Gasly 6.5 seconds behind him, in 4th place.

On lap 51, just when everyone thought Qin Miao would pit, he chose to stay on the track, and the time gap between him and Gasly, which was previously narrowing, evened out, maintaining a constant distance.

As for Perez ahead of Qin Miao?

Unreachable, truly unreachable.

On lap 55, the time gap between Qin Miao and Gasly was still 6 seconds, leaving the commentators uneasy.

"Qin Miao... is he planning to run the entire race on a single set of hard tires?" Bing asked, seeing Qin Miao who still hadn't pitted, his eyes full of disbelief.

"Actually, the optimal window for pitting has already passed. I feel like Mercedes is indeed trying to let Qin Miao run the whole race on one set of hards, but can the hard tires last this long?" Fei was also bewildered.

"According to the data provided by Pirelli, this set of hard tires can run a maximum of 60 laps. After 60 laps, the tire's grip will significantly decrease." Zhou Haoran said, "And at this point, has Qin Miao already been on these hard tires for 54 laps??"

But Bing quickly found another point of interest: "What's Qin Miao's speed like now?"

Upon hearing this, Zhou Haoran glanced at the data on his laptop and then replied in a slightly odd tone, "The speed is starting to drop, but compared to Gasly, Qin Miao is only about 0.2 seconds slower per lap."

Hearing this, the commentators in the Five-Star Sports Studio fell silent for a while.

After a moment, Fei sighed and asked, "Is Qin Miao really going to finish the race on one set of hard tires? That's impossible, right?"

What the commentators didn't know was that the Mercedes team had actually asked Qin Miao back on lap 53 if he needed to come in for a set of soft tires or something. According to the team's strategy group's calculations, pitting for soft tires at that moment meant Qin Miao wouldn't need to worry about tire wear for the remainder of the race, regardless of how he overtook others.

But Qin Miao still used the same reason: "The tire condition still feels alright, I think I can continue to hold on the track."

Ultimately, the steering wheel was in Qin Miao's hands, and even if the team had thoughts, without Qin Miao's cooperation, they could only watch idly.

Moreover, the speed Qin Miao was showing at that moment did indeed exhibit a certain competitive edge.

...

As time passed, by the time the race reached lap 56, Qin Miao was more than 28 seconds slower than Perez ahead of him.

Although it seemed quite hopeless, after the accident at the start, the fight for the podium was no longer related to Qin Miao in this race. The key now was whether Qin Miao could maintain his fourth-place position.