How Did I Become an F1 Driver?-Chapter 721 - 299: Did He Really Complete a Stint on Hard Tires?

Verstappen's speed today was outrageously fast, and he left Hamilton far behind right from the start of the race.

It can be said that since overtaking Hamilton at the first corner of the first lap, Verstappen has dominated this race.

After Red Bull brought in a one-three finish, Verstappen further widened the points gap between himself and Hamilton on the points table and narrowed the gap with Qin Miao. If Verstappen performs like this in the next race as well, he could directly top the leaderboard.

After Qin Miao crossed the finish line, the team sent him encouragement.

"Well done, Qin Miao, a genius performance, the tire preservation was excellent." Despite the almost miraculous feat of Qin Miao completing the entire race on one set of hard tires, Qin Miao could sense a hint of frustration in Frankie's tone.

Which is understandable, since Qin Miao shares that same sentiment.

After all, Qin Miao started the race in 2nd place, and finishing 4th ultimately did not meet the team's expectations before the race, leaving Qin Miao quite dissatisfied.

Moreover, if Qin Miao hadn't encountered that accident, as long as he and Hamilton cooperated well enough to hold back Verstappen, Mercedes could have secured the team championship early in this race.

But Verstappen's performance today, coupled with Qin Miao's crash, eventually led to Mercedes' plan to secure the championship today being thwarted.

Naturally, no one on the team was very happy.

After all, the sooner the championship is secured, the more bonuses the team's staff would receive.

As a result, Qin Miao was also somewhat uninterested after the race, considering he started 2nd and could have at least gotten a podium, but ended up finishing 4th after a lengthy stint without changing tires.

On the other side, Hamilton was in a similar state as Qin Miao; Red Bull was just too fast in this race, leaving Hamilton with a deep sense of powerlessness.

So, after the race, Hamilton complained quite a bit over the team radio: "The balance of the car is really poor, the acceleration after corners is insufficient, and the downforce in corners can't match Verstappen. I could only watch him pull away from me, and though I tried to attack, once I got within the three-second dirty air zone behind Verstappen, my car's speed dropped significantly. Plus, my tire degradation was severe..." 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

This might be what they call the survivorship bias; when winning the race, these flaws in the W12 were seen as characteristics in Hamilton's eyes.

As long as the car is fast enough to win the race, everything else isn't a problem.

But once the race is lost, falling short to Verstappen, all these flaws become unacceptable defects.

Fortunately, Qin Miao's communication channel was separate, so he could only hear Frankie, Toto, and other high-level Mercedes team members. Hamilton's complaints and negative emotions wouldn't reach Qin Miao.

After the race, Hamilton and the other top three drivers went to the bend at T13, surrounded by fans, to attend the final podium ceremony and post-race interviews.

Meanwhile, Qin Miao, like all the other drivers, drove his car back to the pits.

It's worth mentioning that Perez made history as the first Mexican driver to stand on the podium at his home race in Mexico.

As such, one can imagine how thrilled and excited the Mexican fans were after the race.

When Perez crossed the line, the cheers at the scene were so loud that even wearing a helmet with noise-canceling headphones, you could hear them loud and clear.