How Did I Become an F1 Driver?-Chapter 735 - 304: Seventh Place After Five Laps (Part 2)

Qin Miao had no intention of attacking the Verstappen ahead, and Perez was gradually being left behind by Qin Miao and Verstappen.

At this point, the broadcast camera, noticing the lack of sparks between the three, decisively switched to Hamilton.

Compared to Qin Miao and Verstappen, Hamilton's performance in this race was what the live audience was more eagerly anticipating.

And Hamilton didn't disappoint the live audience's expectations.

With just one start, Hamilton moved from tenth to eighth.

One was O'Kang, who Hamilton overtook at the T1 braking point using his car's engine advantage after the start, and the other was Norris, who had a bright start but collided with Sainz afterward, causing a puncture after his left rear tire collided with Sainz's left front tire, dropping him to the back of the pack.

Additionally, at T8 of the first lap, Hamilton, relying on the car's superior mechanical grip, forced his way past Gasly on the outside line.

Just after crossing the line of the first lap, reaching T1 of the second lap, Hamilton once again used his terrifying rear speed with the new internal combustion engine to overtake Vettel at the end of the main straight on his long-standing, high-speed tail.

At this point, the DRS wasn't even activated yet.

After overtaking Vettel, Hamilton's ranking naturally moved up to sixth.

In just over a lap and a small section of the straight, Hamilton overtook four cars!

Four cars!

What else can you say but praise Hamilton.

Before the race started, everyone knew this race was Hamilton's pursuit show; he would inevitably catch up from tenth to Qin Miao and Verstappen's tails.

However, in everyone's expectations, Hamilton should have only managed to overtake one car per lap, similar to the sprint race.

No one anticipated that Hamilton would overtake four cars in just one lap before the race started.

Perhaps this is the golden value of a seven-time champion.

After overtaking Vettel, the drivers ahead of Hamilton were Ferrari's dynamic duo.

And Sainz from Ferrari didn't cause Hamilton any trouble; after exiting T11 in the second lap, Hamilton rapidly caught up to Sainz.

Entering the full throttle section, Hamilton used his terrifying rear-speed to quickly close in on Sainz ahead.

At the end of the second lap, and the start of the third, Hamilton effortlessly overtook Sainz ahead without using DRS.

The commentators were full of praise for Hamilton's driving in these laps.

When the race reached the third lap, and the situation on the track became clearer, the live broadcast began to replay what happened at the start phase of the race.

Mainly focusing on the starts of Qin Miao and Hamilton, as well as a replay of Norris' collision with Sainz.

The three commentators at Five-Star Sports hadn't lamented Qin Miao's start error for long when the camera switched, showing that the race had already reached the fifth lap, and the commentators noticed Hamilton had quietly overtaken another Ferrari ahead of him, with Perez now in front.

Five laps, in just five laps, Hamilton had chased forward seven positions.

Running ahead, Qin Miao inadvertently glanced at his rear-view mirror to determine his position relative to Perez and saw Hamilton behind from a distance.

At that moment, a big question mark popped up in Qin Miao's mind.

Did the engines of all the other drivers explode collectively? It's only five laps, and Hamilton is already in that B position?

However, at this moment, the pressure Hamilton was giving Qin Miao wasn't particularly significant, as Qin Miao, though maintaining himself within 2 seconds behind Verstappen, had already extended the gap over Perez by 3 seconds over five laps, while Perez was 3 seconds ahead of Leclerc behind him.

Hence, Hamilton's rapid overtaking momentum needed to slow down and would require a long-distance run before he could attack again.

Yet, before Qin Miao and Verstappen could further widen the distance from Hamilton, the safety car was deployed.

Although it was somewhat annoying to see the safety car erase the hard-earned time gap.

Both Qin Miao and Verstappen weren't surprised by this.

Because at the T1 position of the track, debris from Yuki Tsunoda's car remained on the track, with an entire front wing piece stuck on an advertising board at T2's apex.

Moreover, there were quite a few carbon fiber shards outside the T1 bend.

If any driver tried to overtake from the outside line of T1 at this time, they would easily run over those debris.

These debris had been there for more than two laps, and the safety car coming out at this point was arguably a bit too late.

When the debris appeared in the second lap, Qin Miao began to wonder when the FIA's work efficiency had become so slow.

The safety car led from lap seven to lap ten.

Due to the safety car leading for three laps, almost all teams' drivers had two laps more fuel in their car's tanks, and tire wear was reduced by at least two and a half normal racing laps.

After this safety car period, Frankie quickly informed Qin Miao that the team simulator department updated his pit stop timing, delaying it by one lap more than usual, which meant that Qin Miao wouldn't have to worry about tire wear before the pit stop.

After responding, Qin Miao decided to keep up with Verstappen's pace.

With the team's guidance, Qin Miao felt he could attempt to put pressure on Verstappen in the coming period.

By this point, the safety car had already withdrawn, waiting for Verstappen to restart.

Qin Miao believed that Red Bull would definitely instruct Perez to slightly hold up Hamilton's pace after the restart.

So, even though Hamilton swiftly reached behind him with the safety car, Qin Miao didn't pay much attention to Hamilton during the restart phase.

One reason was knowing that Perez was defending him from Hamilton, while for Qin Miao, the more important thing was not being pulled too far away by Verstappen after the restart.

Therefore, during the restart, it was quite clear that while Verstappen was swerving left and right to warm his tires, Qin Miao was sticking to the back of Verstappen's car, paying close attention to Verstappen without much movement.

And Perez, with more than a car length gap from Qin Miao, was also swerving.

Verstappen manipulated the field to the extreme, with his slowest speed being only 30 km/h, pulling the field all the way along Posi-line before suddenly accelerating vigorously.

Although Verstappen's field manipulation might have surprised some, it was understandable given Hamilton's performance and Mercedes' terrifying tail speed on this track, evident from both yesterday's sprint qualifier and today's post-start performances.

Beginning slightly later on this stage means Mercedes has a shorter acceleration straight, and these can be transformed into Verstappen's advantages.

Ultimately, Verstappen accelerated sharply as he approached the final grid position.

Thanks to Verstappen's extreme field manipulation, Hamilton, while not falling too far behind during the start reaction and his later speed gradually outstripping Perez ahead, still didn't catch Perez's inner line when reaching T1's braking point.

Although a little unfortunate that he didn't gain another position during the start, Hamilton was satisfied after the restart.

At least this safety car greatly shortened his time gap with Perez.

After the restart, Perez began speeding up.

He knew very well that he could defend against Hamilton but couldn't hold him forever.

So he started speeding up, intending to slipstream Qin Miao's slipstream while grabbing Qin Miao's DRS.

It was effectively trading tire life for speed.

The only outcome of this approach was greatly increasing the difficulty for Hamilton to overtake him and increasing Hamilton's tire wear.

Without question, this was a team order from Red Bull to Perez.

Just that Qin Miao never intended to give Perez slipstream.

However, the race had barely restarted when Mick had a collision with Kimi on lap twelve.

Mick's front wing was damaged, and after hanging on the front of the car through the entire second sector, it finally fell off onto the track.

Mick's front wing just remained there on the track.

This time, the race control didn't deploy a real safety car, instead opting for a virtual safety car.

This phase under the safety car lasted until lap fifteen.