How Did I Become an F1 Driver?-Chapter 731 - 302: Sprint Qualifying Win Secured in Advance

At the end of the first lap, Sainz was within 0.4 seconds behind Verstappen.

In the braking zone at T1, Gasly surprisingly overtook Verstappen effortlessly.

While everyone was surprised at how easily a Ferrari could take down a Red Bull.

Just halfway through the second lap, Red Bull's Verstappen's TR sounded: "This stupid gear sync setting keeps erroring!"

"Copy MAX, we'll deal with it from here, don't worry."

Turns out, Verstappen became easy prey for Ferrari due to a gear issue.

Now it made sense.

Meanwhile, Hamilton, starting from the back of the grid, had already moved up to sixteenth.

Despite not having DRS enabled yet, Mercedes' new internal combustion engine's exaggerated top speed and acceleration allowed Hamilton to effortlessly overtake drivers ahead at T1 with its tailwind.

Third lap, Hamilton chased up to fourteenth.

Fourth lap, Verstappen reclaimed his position, seemingly due to the team remotely fixing his gear issue.

Sixth lap, Hamilton moved up to twelfth.

Relying purely on top speed, Hamilton slaughtered through the group of drivers on Earth cars who dared not make too big defensive moves.

At this moment, Qin Miao maintained a time gap of 1.8 seconds with Verstappen behind and began managing his tires.

Even someone as brilliant as Qin Miao couldn't guarantee he could run a competitive pace on softs for the entire race without managing tires.

Eighth lap, Hamilton passed Alonso to reach eleventh.

Alonso wished to apply some pressure on Hamilton just like in this year's Hengelo, but Interlagos isn't Hengelo, overtaking is much easier here.

So Alonso couldn't hold him for a single lap.

By this time, the gap between drivers in front was starting to widen, and the cars' performance got stronger as the race progressed, inevitably slowing Hamilton's overtaking rate.

Tenth lap, Qin Miao maintained a 1.5-second gap with Verstappen behind.

The gap wasn't due to Verstappen catching up, but Qin Miao intentionally keeping it, so his car's turbulence affected Verstappen the most, while also using the cornering advantage to offset what Verstappen caught up in the straight sections.

In short, Qin Miao could lock Verstappen at this time gap.

It's not that Qin Miao wanted to take risks, but that, after only ten laps, the gap between Verstappen and Sainz behind had already extended to 5 seconds.

You could say it's not that Qin Miao didn't want to push, but Verstappen was pushing ahead, making it hard for him to ease up.

Though the plan to block Hamilton using a DRS train got ruined by Verstappen's blockage, Qin Miao was confident in defending Verstappen's attack. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Twelfth lap, Hamilton caught up to Ricardo in front but got briefly stuck in the DRS train formed by Vettel and Ricardo.

Having suffered several times against DRS trains this season, Qin Miao knew how vexing it was.

Had it been Qin Miao, he might not immediately think of a good solution facing this DRS train.

However, Hamilton being Hamilton, his experience was richer compared to Qin Miao.

At several corners threatening Ricardo, Hamilton forcefully drew alongside so that his car appeared in Ricardo's rear-view mirror to put pressure on him.

Then on the straight after DRS activation, he aggressively sucked into Ricardo's slipstream, completing the overtake before the braking point of the long straight.

After shaking off Ricardo, Vettel in front was next.

Fifteenth lap, Hamilton overtook Vettel.

The same overtaking method: DRS and slipstream on the long straight.

Against Hamilton behind him, Vettel didn't show any resistance.

At this moment, Qin Miao was still keeping the 1.5-second gap with Verstappen.