How Did I Become an F1 Driver?-Chapter 733 - 303: Brazilian Grand Prix Main Race (Part 2)

The post-race procedure differed from the usual qualifying routine. Qin Miao first received a wreath made of olive branches before being interviewed.

"A clean and decisive race, Qin Miao. Congratulations on winning the sprint qualifying race. How did the tire condition feel during the race?"

"Thank you." After politely thanking him, Qin Miao began to answer the host's question: "Actually, initially the tire wear was somewhat unexpected for us. That's why you could see our speed constantly decreasing. The tires struggled, especially in the mid-stage of the race, which prevented me from shaking off Max.

Luckily, the team's calculations were accurate. The tires completed the whole race before reaching the cliff point. Although the later stages of the race gave me a real scare, thankfully, the final results were satisfying for us."

For those unaware of the inside story, Qin Miao's answer seemed detailed and reliable, without a single flaw.

However, once this response reached Verstappen's ears, his eyelids nearly performed a canon.

Listen, listen to what you're saying.

What do you mean by not being able to shake him off at all? Damn, you were slower using soft tires in the first few laps than Hamilton with medium tires in the latter half. Is serious driving what you call not being able to shake off, huh?

Before reaching the cliff point? Just go check your four B tires downstairs now. The tire gel has only dropped slightly more than half; it's at least a race away from the cliff point!

We'll put aside Verstappen's inner grumbles for now. As the interview wrapped up, points increased for Qin Miao, Verstappen, and Sainz on the driver's standings.

But these six points weren't enough to change the ranking among drivers significantly.

Following the conclusion of the sprint qualifying race, the team acquired a significant amount of useful data, and Hamilton and Qin Miao's performances on the track gave confidence to everyone at the Mercedes team.

Of course, today's strong emergence by Mercedes also had something to do with the team reallocating some of the funds meant for next season's development, after last week's setbacks.

Overall, the victory in this race instilled confidence across the Mercedes team to suppress Verstappen.

Back in the team's P room, Qin Miao naturally received a round of praise, and the delighted Toto came over to encourage Qin Miao.

"Well done, Qin Miao. Today's race was brilliant. I'm looking forward to your performance tomorrow."

"Thank you, Toto. It's not just my achievement. The team has helped a lot."

If it were the old Toto, he might've been surprised hearing Qin Miao's humble words, especially given how Hamilton would claim all the credit in terms of words and actions.

Sometimes Qin Miao was overly modest.

But now Toto had gotten somewhat accustomed to Qin Miao or perhaps the innate humility that Chinese people have.

After chatting with Toto briefly, Toto went to find Hamilton. Hamilton's performance was equally outstanding today, and as the team principal, he also needed to encourage him personally.

When Toto left, Qin Miao tidied up his belongings while reviewing today's race. Qin Miao's workday ended here.

After tidying up, Qin Miao headed back to the hotel with Qimeng.

The night passed without any incident. The next day, Sunday, was the day the Brazilian Grand Prix race started.

There's no need to even think about it; Mercedes was determined to win the race, and Qin Miao had his own ambitions.

As for whether Red Bull can find out why there's such a speed gap between them and Mercedes in the main race, it's hard to say. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

After the pre-race parade ended, they quickly moved into the race preparation phase before the start.

For this race, Qin Miao employed the same settings as yesterday's sprint qualifying race.

Initially, Qin Miao planned to start the race with soft tires, having experienced starting from the inside line in yesterday's sprint qualifying. He knew the advantage inside-lane drivers had.

As long as he started just a bit faster than the pole position driver, it would be easy to gain the leading position.

However, the team strategy group didn't let Qin Miao decide for himself. Instead, they chose medium tires for him.

According to the simulation after the strategy department input Qin Miao's data, a red-yellow one-stop wasn't the fastest pit choice for Qin Miao in this race; a yellow-white one-stop was faster since the soft tire's speed would decline significantly later.

Qin Miao raised no objections to this; he trusted the professional decisions made by the team strategy group.

So, during the early phase of this race, Qin Miao used medium tires.

Other drivers also used medium tires at the start, except for Yuki Tsunoda.

Perhaps the Japanese driver had a unique understanding of the start phase; he started with soft tires.

However, Tsunoda's starting position was far from Qin Miao's, so his soft tire start didn't affect Qin Miao at all.

Soon, after all the pre-race preparations ended, Qin Miao parked at the spot where Verstappen started yesterday.

It's worth mentioning that this spot was not only on the outer line but also conveniently placed under a spectator stand, casting a shadow over Qin Miao's car.

Although this may seem trivial, just a shadow, mind you, F1 tires are extremely sensitive to temperatures. Due to the shadow, Qin Miao's tires didn't get direct sunlight while waiting to start, while Verstappen on the outer line didn't have this issue.

This means that at the start, Qin Miao's tire temperature was at least 1-2 degrees lower than Verstappen's due to the sunlight exposure.

This 1-2 degree temperature difference might not seem significant in data, but in the time-critical world of F1, this difference could be decisive for Qin Miao's starting speed.

Therefore, even before the race started, the team was actively heating the track locations of Qin Miao's four tires, trying their best to warm Qin Miao's tires.

As time progressed, the race start time arrived.

After typically encouraging Qin Miao, Reyes and others withdrew from the track along with their equipment.

The warm-up lap began.

Qin Miao took the warm-up lap relatively slowly, and since he didn't need to worry too much about tire wear, he pushed the tire temperature of his car excessively, peaking at around 130℃.

No matter how much Qin Miao slowed down, there were always drivers even slower behind him.

When Qin Miao parked his car in the pole position, Verstappen behind took his time and only stopped at his grid position after quite a delay.

Verstappen's strategy was simple: I can park in my grid spot earlier than the driver behind me, but I must stop later than you, Qin Miao.

Hamilton behind took it to the extreme, leaving more than twenty-car-length distance between him and Vettel in front.

When Hamilton finally parked at his spot, ten seconds had already passed.

Ultimately, these little tricks before the start were just appetizers before the main course of the race.

Precisely how much you can achieve on the track depends on how the race unfolds after it officially begins.

As Mazepin, the last driver, took his position, all preparations before the race were complete.

Notably, Kimi was penalized to start from the pit lane in this race because the team's engineer mistakenly set the rear wing configuration.

This error wasn't Kimi's fault; it was the Alfa Romeo team's staff who made a mistake.

Upon hearing this news, Kimi was furious, unleashing a stream of curses at his crew through the team radio.

The insult density was exceptionally high during this moment.

Truth be told, you can't blame Kimi for losing his cool.

Imagine if it were Qin Miao, driving a lousy car, having worked hard for a thirteenth place finish in qualifying, itching to launch a points challenge in the main race, and you tell me that due to operational errors, the rear wing was mistakenly adjusted and couldn't be reverted?

And, moreover, because of the rear wing modification, you get penalized to start from the pit lane.

If it were Qin Miao, he might quit the race altogether and first go clobber that fool before anything else.