How Did I Become an F1 Driver?-Chapter 737 - 305: Working Up a Sweat, Toto

But it was just this little bit of force, the right front wheel of Qin Miao's car locked up directly, giving rise to a cloud of white smoke.

Actually, if Qin Miao had been on a normal racing line, the timing and force of the braking would have been fine, but the key point was that Qin Miao was on the inside line at this moment.

The slope here is slightly steeper than the outside line, and there are also more debris on the track.

In summary, Qin Miao still lost due to lack of experience, but in terms of defense and attack awareness, Qin Miao was evenly matched with his teammate.

The moment Qin Miao saw the white smoke, he released the brake to regain traction on his tires.

Thanks to Qin Miao's timely reaction, his exit speed from the corner wasn't pulled away too much by Hamilton.

However, this mistake did have an impact. At T2, Hamilton was ahead of Qin Miao by half a car length.

By T3, Hamilton had directly overtaken Qin Miao.

Seeing this, Toto really breathed a sigh of relief.

Like everyone else, Toto acknowledged Qin Miao's defensive abilities.

But precisely because of this, Toto was worried that Qin Miao might lock Hamilton right behind him.

Such an outcome would not be good for Qin Miao, Hamilton, or the team.

Fortunately, Qin Miao made a mistake while defending, ultimately giving Hamilton the chance to chase after Verstappen.

But just as Toto was finally relaxing, the next scene left him breathless.

Because after exiting T3, there is a straight stretch before T4 where DRS can be activated.

And as fate would have it, Hamilton completed his overtake of Qin Miao just before the DRS detection point.

So when they reached this stretch of straight, Qin Miao had DRS.

Moreover, because Qin Miao reacted promptly, his speed hadn't dropped too much; he was only 0.3 seconds behind Hamilton coming out of the corner.

Therefore, Toto saw Qin Miao's DRS rear wing open, and Qin Miao began to visibly close the gap between himself and Hamilton.

In the end, before the T4 braking point, Qin Miao took the inside line on Hamilton and braked late enough to gain the advantage.

Hamilton clearly didn't want to give up position, but because of Qin Miao's late braking, Qin Miao had the right of way.

Despite being unwilling, after seeing Qin Miao firmly hold the line, Hamilton finally chose to yield.

So after exiting the corner, Qin Miao reclaimed his position.

And for quite a long stretch thereafter, there weren't any opportunities for overtaking, so Qin Miao's defense was successful.

At this moment, the broadcast thoughtfully cut to a close-up of Toto in the Mercedes team's P room.

He still appeared expressionless, arms crossed, just as when he first saw the looming encounter between Qin Miao and Hamilton.

But those who knew Toto understood that his inner emotions were far from calm.

If at this time they brought over the heart rate monitor from the neighboring MotoGP team leader, viewers would see Toto's heart rate was already above 150.

Other teams and neutral fans were genuinely excited to witness this, as the duel between these two drivers was quite thrilling to watch.

Some fans, the types who enjoy adding fuel to the fire, even wished Qin Miao and Hamilton would replicate the famous intra-team duel and double retirement that Hamilton and Rosberg once had.

Luckily, the relationship between the two hadn't soured to that extent.

However, fans in China felt a bit conflicted over this, because with Qin Miao, Mercedes has become like the home team in the eyes of Chinese fans.

Chinese fans genuinely liked Hamilton and the other staff at Mercedes.

This kind of scene was definitely not what they wanted to witness.

Meanwhile, the commentators were extremely anxious.

"Be very, very careful~" Bing's palms were sweating as he said this.

Compared to others, the commentators thought it through more deeply; they knew that if Qin Miao and Hamilton really had a racing incident, causing both to retire,

then the formerly harmonious relationship between the two might be gone forever.

But fortunately, despite Qin Miao's wheel lock during this attack and defense, nothing unexpected happened.

The commentators were surprised and delighted that Qin Miao ultimately held onto his position, not letting Hamilton overtake him.

After one failed attack, Hamilton adjusted for a while. At the second DRS zone of lap twenty-two, where Qin Miao had previously retaken Hamilton, Hamilton launched another attack on Qin Miao.

This time, Qin Miao's defense again involved holding the inside line and late braking.

However, Hamilton's attack was just a probing one, noticing Qin Miao's strong defensive intent, and the straight wasn't enough for Hamilton to accelerate past Qin Miao, so this attack also failed.

But this attempted attack and using the DRS to get close invisibly added pressure to Qin Miao.

Furthermore, Hamilton used this DRS to get even closer to Qin Miao.

After coming out of T11, Hamilton rapidly approached Qin Miao again, preparing to attack him.