How Did I Become an F1 Driver?-Chapter 761 - 312: Qatar Finale

This wasn't about Qin Miao trying to quickly wear out the tires and then make a pit stop at the right time; Qin Miao was deliberately creating trouble for Hamilton's team.

I put forward a hypothesis: do you want to follow it, do you want to consider the feasibility of my idea, and what possible consequences might arise if I do this?

In short, Qin Miao was running rather bored at this moment, so he used the team's TR to give Hamilton some more headaches.

After all, as the saying goes, idle time is still idle time.

Moreover, Qin Miao truly believed that it was feasible to switch to soft tires after pitting, so he wasn't worried that Hamilton's team wouldn't respond appropriately after knowing his idea.

And the fact was exactly as Qin Miao anticipated.

After learning through TR that Qin Miao was asking the team about the tires, there was a moment of panic on Hamilton's side.

However, before they could calculate anything, on lap 42, Verstappen chose to pit and switched to medium tires.

This was considered a rather effective solution provided by Verstappen for Hamilton. Since Qin Miao's soft tires could only last for 11 laps, I pit 15 laps before the race ends. Will you follow?

If you pit, you'll have to use medium tires. On this track, which wears out tires even more than Silverstone, soft tires can't retain enough speed after running 15 laps.

Even if Qin Miao has extraordinary tire management skills, the speed in the last few laps will certainly drop significantly, and at that time, facing the risk of being overtaken by Verstappen will be inevitable.

And if you don't pit and instead wait for the right pit window, then Verstappen, who uses medium tires, will surely undercut Qin Miao.

After all, medium tires on this track are 0.8 seconds faster than hard tires per lap.

Using soft tires to overtake on this track is indeed easier, but are you sure, Qin Miao, that after overtaking Verstappen, your tires will still have enough grip to chase Hamilton?

At this point, someone may wonder.

This was clearly a prime opportunity to watch Mercedes' two-car internal battle, so why would Red Bull help Hamilton?

But in fact, in this race, Verstappen couldn't catch up to the two Mercedes drivers.

As a second-best choice, compared to Qin Miao, they would definitely prefer Hamilton to win the race.

After all, Qin Miao is currently leading the driver standings. If he wins another race, the last two races of this season would be unnecessary to watch. As long as Qin Miao doesn't retire in the next two races, he will secure the driver's championship of this season.

So, this is also the main reason why Red Bull did so.

After Verstappen pitted, Mercedes also called Hamilton and Qin Miao back in sequence.

The reasoning has been explained earlier, and there is no need to elaborate further here.

Another double pit stop, and Mercedes once again completed their task steadily.

Hamilton switched to medium tires, with a tire change time of 2.4 seconds, and Qin Miao also switched to medium tires, with a change time of 2.0 seconds. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

Although Qin Miao's tire change was 0.4 seconds faster than Hamilton's, when reflected on the track, this advantage was directly negligible.

The only noteworthy thing about this tire change is that Hamilton used old medium tires while Qin Miao used brand new ones.

This could be said to be the only variable for the championship of this race.

After exiting the pit lane, the positions of Qin Miao and Hamilton remained unchanged, and Verstappen from behind didn't catch up either.

Even the time gaps among the three didn't change much.

However, on lap 44, Qin Miao closed in slightly on Hamilton and reset the fastest lap.

But in the next lap, Hamilton responded, widening the gap between them to 5.4 seconds and reclaiming the fastest lap.

Then on lap 47, Verstappen also reset the fastest lap.

Subsequently, the three drivers at the front kept resetting the fastest laps, but couldn't chase each other at all.

At this time, the director no longer focused the broadcast camera on these three drivers but instead showed Perez and other drivers.

During the last ten laps, for Qin Miao and the other two championship contenders, there wasn't much entertainment left in this race.

Instead, the drivers behind, Latifi and Russell, both suffered tire blowouts subsequently.

And the replay clearly showed that both drivers had hit the outer green curb at T8.

The excessive bumpiness of the green curb outside T8 led to the tire blowouts.

Seeing this incident, Frankie immediately alerted Qin Miao, "Avoid the outer green curb at T8. The two Williams drivers suffered blowouts due to hitting the outer green curb."

Qin Miao didn't see what exactly happened, but since the track only briefly showed a yellow flag and didn't trigger a virtual safety car or safety car, it was clear that the blowouts weren't too severe.

So Qin Miao didn't ask more questions and just replied, "Received."

Soon, the race reached the final lap.

At that time, Hamilton was 7 seconds ahead of Qin Miao, who was 3.9 seconds ahead of Verstappen.

Ultimately, Hamilton crossed the finish line first, securing the 101st victory of his career.

And Qin Miao, finishing second, completed all the tasks assigned by the team.