How Did I Become an F1 Driver?-Chapter 757 - 310: Head-to-Head Showdown (Part 2)

So by the time they reached T2, Verstappen, taking a different line from the other drivers, had a very fast exit speed and was right on Alonso's tail.

However, at this time, Verstappen did not have the right of way. Therefore, as Alonso prepared to take the outside line into the corner, Verstappen had to move off the track to avoid a collision.

As a result, Verstappen fell behind Alonso.

The key point is, Alonso was in third place!

Rejoining the track, Verstappen was wheel-to-wheel with Norris, who had pulled away from Qin Miao.

And coming into T4, with superior high-speed cornering capabilities, Verstappen overtook Norris on the outside.

Meanwhile, Qin Miao had just overtaken Sainz, who was racing alongside him.

After witnessing this, Qin Miao could only sigh silently: "The boldest survive, the timid starve."

Had it been Qin Miao in that situation, he truly wouldn't have dared to aggressively snatch a corner in such a congested state.

If there's no time to avoid, in a worst-case scenario, you'd have to retire from the race immediately, and even a minor incident could damage the car or break the front wing, necessitating a pit stop for repairs.

During this crucial period for scoring points, any setback is unacceptable.

Yet Verstappen dared to take the risk, and he succeeded.

Thus, after the start, Qin Miao only managed to overtake Sainz in front of him. However, since Verstappen shot from seventh to fourth after the start, Qin Miao was still in fifth.

However, Qin Miao also noticed that in this race Norris's car was indeed significantly slower compared to his Mercedes, so in the next timing sector, Qin Miao stuck to 0.5 seconds behind Norris until the last corner of the first lap.

After the main straight, Qin Miao started to latch onto Norris' slipstream and opened ERS to accelerate.

Because of his tight slipstream exit from the corner, Qin Miao moved to the inside line past Norris by the midpoint of the straight.

Although Norris knew he might not be able to keep Qin Miao from passing, he didn't want to simply hand over his position. So after Qin Miao moved to his inside, Norris instinctively edged towards the inside, trying to push Qin Miao towards the dirty side of the track.

He attempted to slow Qin Miao's acceleration by forcing Qin Miao's tires to pick up debris from the track.

However, Qin Miao successfully drafted, and by the white line at the pit exit, he was already half a car length ahead of Norris and had the line into T1.

Moreover, the Mercedes engine was powerful enough to thwart Norris's plans.

Realizing he couldn't defend against Qin Miao's attack, Norris returned to his normal racing line.

So, before completing the first timing sector of lap 2, Qin Miao had overtaken Norris and moved into fifth place, which put him directly behind Verstappen.

Because of the skirmish with Norris, the time gap between Qin Miao and Verstappen widened to 1.5 seconds.

However, when Qin Miao approached Verstappen, he wasn't in a hurry to attack, instead following behind Verstappen for two laps until lap 4.

After those laps, Qin Miao distinctly felt that his speed should be comparable to Verstappen's, or perhaps even slightly faster. Throughout these laps behind Verstappen, Qin Miao was conserving his tires and not pushing hard, yet the time gap between them remained constant at 1.5 seconds.

It's important to note that with a time gap of 1.5 seconds, the slipstream of the front car would impact the aerodynamics of the car behind.

Qin Miao was still contemplating what to do next when moments later, Alonso, using DRS, overtook Gasly in front of him.

On the next lap after Gasly was overtaken, exiting T16, Gasly had an incident and "accidentally" drove off the track.

Therefore, on the long straight, Verstappen utilized DRS to a smooth overtaking maneuver on Gasly in front.

But Qin Miao, being too far from Verstappen, hadn't even entered the DRS zone behind him, leaving him to watch as the chance to gain a position was missed.

Not long after, Frankie's voice came through the team radio to Qin Miao:

"The Red Bull junior team leader just issued team orders to Gasly; they want him to push your tires as much as possible."

"I'm starting to dislike the Red Bull junior team!" Qin Miao muttered under his breath.

"Who doesn't agree? Anyway, focus on the race. I am confident you'll soon get past Gasly." 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

"Copy that."

After silently grumbling to himself, Qin Miao continued to accelerate.

Gasly's performance in the second half of the season was indeed impressive, even suppressing Red Bull's Perez more than once.

But, after all, he was driving a junior Red Bull car, and in terms of aerodynamics package design, it definitely couldn't compare to the Mercedes.

Therefore, there was no way to open up a time gap from T2 to T16, where overtaking was tough, with Qin Miao always staying tightly behind at a 0.4-second gap.

After T16, upon seeing the time gap between himself and Qin Miao shrink after the exit, Gasly even lost the desire to defend against Qin Miao.

How could he defend?

A kilometer-long straight, coupled with Mercedes' crazy powerful engine and DRS, meant he simply couldn't defend against it.

Indeed, after exiting the corner, Qin Miao quickly reduced the time gap with Gasly, and by the grid position, Qin Miao was already entirely past Gasly.

Qin Miao moved up to fourth place.

In the same lap, Verstappen, using the same method as Qin Miao, overtook Alonso in front of him.

Just like Gasly, Alonso made no defensive moves as Verstappen passed him by.

Verstappen moved up to second.

At this moment, the time gap between Hamilton and Verstappen widened to 5.2 seconds.

Now it was up to Verstappen to see if he could effectively reduce the time gap with Hamilton.

On the other side, Qin Miao, on lap 8, used DRS to overtake Alonso and gained another position, moving up to third.

This time, Qin Miao didn't even use ERS, overtaking Alonso with just DRS.

After reaching third place, Qin Miao and Verstappen both recovered from their penalties.

However, due to Alonso's blocking, Qin Miao was 3 seconds behind Verstappen and even more than 8 seconds behind his teammate Hamilton.

"Beautiful overtake, maintain this pace," Frankie said after Qin Miao completed his overtake. "Our current speed is really good, and at this rate, we'll catch up to Verstappen in about 5 laps."

Qin Miao was surprised: "5 laps? Am I faster than Verstappen in this race?"

"Yes, since DRS opened, you've set two fastest laps."

Hearing this, Qin Miao didn't feel any joy but rather a bit of frustration, suspecting that Hamilton was currently managing his tires.

As soon as Frankie finished speaking, on the 10th lap, Hamilton reclaimed the fastest lap from Qin Miao.

Hamilton's race engineer probably reminded him that Qin Miao and Verstappen were closing in.

After setting the fastest lap, the time gap between Hamilton and Verstappen widened to 5 seconds.

And as the race progressed, the time gap between Hamilton and Verstappen continued to grow.

By the time the race reached lap 13, the gap between them had already expanded to 6.5 seconds.

Meanwhile, Qin Miao was simultaneously charging up and reducing the time gap between himself and Verstappen to 1.5 seconds.

A familiar position.

Having stored a sufficient charge, it was time to use all that electricity against Verstappen.

So, during lap 14, as Qin Miao began to unleash the power stored in his car, he entered the DRS zone behind Verstappen.