How Did I Become an F1 Driver?-Chapter 752 - 309: A Blessing in Disguise

On Wednesday, Qin Miao went out for a walk.

Qin Miao had been to the Middle East before, whether during his F2 days or the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix when he first entered F1.

Back then, Qin Miao had some spare time, so he explored a bit, and was quite familiar with this area of the Middle East.

At least Qin Miao knew he wouldn't be easily recognized by fans, even fully armed, as he would in the European races.

As it turned out, Qin Miao's assumption was correct. As long as he wore a mask and sunglasses while walking the streets of Qatar, no one could recognize him.

Qin Miao, however, returned to the hotel just half an hour after leaving.

There's no choice, it's the desert, there's nothing much but sand.

After wandering around, Qin Miao returned with enough sand in his shoes to shake out, plus there wasn't much interesting to see on the streets.

So, instead of eating sand outside, Qin Miao thought it better to stay indoors at the hotel.

On Thursday, the race weekend's work began.

Being the last of three back-to-back races, everyone was quite exhausted by this point.

It wasn't just the result of one back-to-back race, but also because it was the end of the season with the exhaustion accumulated from the twenty-one Grands Prix already run this season.

In the past three weeks, Frankie and the team hadn't had a full day off, with the longest break being just half a day.

The only consolation for these hardworking folks might have been the bonus Toto distributed to everyone after Mercedes clinched the Constructors' Championship last week.

The bonus amount was kept confidential from others, and such things aren't usually shared anyway, as there's an old Chinese saying: It's not the scarcity that's feared, but the inequality.

Notably, Qin Miao also received a substantial bonus, a hefty 660,000 euros.

The amount coincided with Qin Miao's driver number.

At that time, Qin Miao felt a bit regretful for not choosing a larger number when registering his driver number.

The Thursday morning work routine for Qin Miao wasn't distinctly different from usual.

Mornings involved arriving at the paddock, doing a track walk, conducting interviews, hosting a fan meet-and-greet event, and finally attending the pre-race press conference.

Before the pre-race press conference began, it's worth mentioning that both Red Bull and Mercedes team principals were interviewed by journalists.

Both team principals laid out their expectations for the team's placement and points in this race, and then, as expected by the audience, they began to exchange barbs through the media.

The tension grew.

When the first practice session began on Friday, at that familiar yet unfamiliar track, Qin Miao's hands trembled slightly.

This trembling came from the excitement and thrill of challenging a track he had never driven on before.

After completing all pre-race preparations, the first practice session began.

Before FP1 started, Frankie briefed Qin Miao on the characteristics of the track, and although Losail International Circuit has a one kilometer long straight, the team had set up the car with high downforce tuning for Qin Miao.

After all, the track has many high-speed corners, and since it was designed for Moto GP, there are essentially no low-speed corners; most are medium to high-speed corners.

After evaluation, the team felt that high downforce setup provided more advantages for the car.

Once FP1 started, Qin Miao put on a new set of hard tires and drove his car onto the track.

This phase mainly focused on data collection, also familiarizing Qin Miao, driving on this track for the first time, with the track environment, and if possible, the team planned to have Qin Miao do a few qualifying simulations on hard tires.

Due to timing, the qualifying and race will start in the evening, and by the end of the race, it will be completely dark.

Thus, the temperature during the qualifying and race will differ by at least 10°C compared to FP1 and FP2, so tire wear can't be tested under race conditions during the afternoon FP1 and FP3 sessions.

Therefore, during FP1, the team primarily had the drivers complete relatively simple yet repetitive tasks.

At the end of the hour-long FP1, Qin Miao's fastest lap was fifth overall.

Even though the team switched to a new set of soft tires for Qin Miao to run two flying laps.

But in the final two flying laps, Qin Miao's time was affected by the strong crosswinds on track.

So the final time wasn't ideal.

But it didn't really matter.

Because FP2's times and data were more important for the team.

As time moved to FP2, the sky gradually darkened, and with no direct sunlight, the track surface temperature dropped rapidly from 45°C during FP1 to 31°C before FP2 started.

And the wind also increased as night fell.

However, at this time, the track conditions best matched those for tomorrow's qualifying and Sunday's race.

So this practice session was crucial.

Soon, FP2 began.

This time, all teams had their cars out of the pits before the Q2 countdown ended.

Everyone knew the importance of FP2 and wanted to gather more data during it.