How Did I Become an F1 Driver?-Chapter 734 - 304: Seventh Place After Five Laps

However, no matter what, the race still has to run.

So when the other drivers had gradually stopped in their starting grids, Alfa Romeo also removed the tire warmers from Kimi's car, sending Kimi off.

Soon, with the medical car positioned at the back, the green flag waved, and the Brazilian Grand Prix race was about to start.

The five red lights came on and then went off.

At the moment the five red lights went out, Qin Miao had a smooth start, with no unexpected events.

This start for Qin Miao could only be described as average.

Not fast, but not slow either. After the red lights went off, Qin Miao began accelerating in 0.2 seconds, which was Qin Miao's average level during daily training.

What was different from Qin Miao's average start was that Verstappen's starting reaction was slightly faster than Qin Miao's.

Besides the start advantage, Verstappen also had the advantage of tire temperature and the inside line.

So after the start, one could see that Verstappen, originally behind Qin Miao, was rapidly and steadily reducing the gap with Qin Miao.

Seeing this, Qin Miao knew Verstappen's starting speed was a bit fast, and he might not be able to defend against it.

But the race positions, after all, concerned his ranking on the leaderboard and the team's total points.

So even though Qin Miao noticed Verstappen's speed, he was already prepared in his heart.

However, at the T1 corner apex, Qin Miao still braked late and tried to push Verstappen off the track.

But at that moment, due to various advantages, Verstappen was side by side with Qin Miao at the apex, so he had no reason to yield his line position.

Seeing Qin Miao squeezing towards him, Verstappen was not flustered at all and simply did not yield.

Then the sidewalls of both their tires slightly collided.

However, the collision was not severe, or even barely noticeable, and neither car lost any parts.

This was mainly because Qin Miao slightly straightened the wheel upon realizing Verzappen was not yielding.

In comparison to Verstappen, with Qin Miao leading in the overall leaderboard, Qin Miao became the one with "more to lose" today.

Unlike at the start of the season, where he would provocatively say, "I'll crash with you!" acting recklessly.

But because of this, Qin Miao completely lost the pole position advantage.

At the T2 apex, Verstappen directly overtook Qin Miao by half a car length.

Facing Verstappen's pressing car, Qin Miao had no choice but to steer his car to the runoff area outside the track.

After all, with Verstappen ahead, the track position was his; a collision would have been Qin Miao's responsibility.

The good news was that when Qin Miao returned to the track, his position had not significantly fallen, only dropping to second place.

He then exited T3 smoothly.

It is worth noting that after exiting T3, Perez took advantage of Qin Miao's slow speed in regaining track position after going off at T2, and caught Qin Miao's slipstream on the straight between T3 and T4.

It was not hard to guess Perez's intentions at this point; he simply wanted to take advantage of Qin Miao's moment of vulnerability to overtake him.

After catching Qin Miao's slipstream on the main straight, Perez aimed to overtake Qin Miao from the inside line for a position gain.

Being a veteran driver, Perez seized this opportunity excellently.

Unfortunately, the person he needed to overtake was Qin Miao, someone even Alonso would praise for his extraordinary defensive capabilities.

After Perez caught up, Qin Miao immediately moved to the inside line to defend.

Then, after passing the braking point by 10 meters, Qin Miao braked late.

Just as Perez thought Qin Miao would definitely go off track with his braking point...

Qin Miao managed to brake in time.

Not only did he brake in time, but he also entered the corner faster than Perez, with a quicker corner exit speed, effortlessly neutralizing Perez's attack with this late brake.

Qin Miao didn't even lose too much ground to Verstappen ahead because of defending against Perez.

This completely showcased his individual driver skill; Qin Miao's braking on the inside line was reminiscent of Verstappen's spectacular brake move at the start of the previous week.

Everything was so extreme.

Watching Qin Miao regain his position and swiftly steady his car to enter race rhythm, Perez could now stay quite calm internally.

He was not even surprised anymore.

At the beginning of the season, seeing Qin Miao's performance on track, Perez felt he was facing a monster, questioning if he had become outdated.

But now, the only thing remaining in Perez's heart was calmness, realizing that people cannot, or at least should not, compare themselves with these kinds of monsters.

After fending off Perez's attack, Qin Miao followed behind Verstappen for two laps, and these two laps made Qin Miao realize deeply that his speed in this race was similar to Verstappen's.

Because of this, unless something unexpected happened, it would be challenging for him to overtake Verstappen on track after losing the position.

Although somewhat reluctant to accept, Qin Miao had to admit.

The only chance to overtake Verstappen would be in the latter part of the race when Verstappen's tire grip diminishes, allowing Qin Miao to exploit his better tire grip to attempt an attack on Verstappen.

As a result, shortly after the start, the time gap between the top three drivers stabilized, and all three entered cruise mode.