How Did I Become an F1 Driver?-Chapter 774 - 315: Saudi Qualifying (6K, Bonus 10/14)_3

So when they received what Qin Miao handed over, each of them was overjoyed.

After ensuring everything reached them, Qin Miao waved at them and said, "Go back early, I'm heading back to the hotel to rest."

After saying that, Qin Miao drove away, but on the way back to the hotel, he couldn't help but recall a sentence the fans had just said to him: "You might clinch the championship early in this race!"

"Win the championship early...?" he murmured, smiling a bit bitterly.

Hamilton is still at his peak, though it's nearing the end, his strength is still formidable.

Although Hamilton's driving style is similar to Qin Miao's, the team's design for the W12 is actually based on Hamilton's driving habits.

Qin Miao just benefits from having a similar driving style to Hamilton.

This bonus is something Qin Miao won't enjoy for long as their driving styles are close but not identical, with clear differences in some operational habits.

Fortunately, the W12's setup window is decent, and Qin Miao always has the time and opportunity to adjust the car to his most comfortable condition.

As for the championship... do your best and leave the rest to fate.

After returning to the hotel and having a video call with Qimeng for a while, Qin Miao took an early bath and went to rest, after all, there's qualifying tomorrow, which is critical for this circuit, so maintaining ample energy is necessary.

The next day, Qin Miao arrived at the paddock once more.

Today was different from yesterday; although many spectators were present yesterday, at least half of the seats in the stands were empty.

But due to the qualifying session today, both the VIP section and the regular spectators' stand were already full.

It was apparent that the local people in Saudi Arabia are very enthusiastic about F1, which is understandable since spending money is the favorite pastime of these wealthy folks, and buying cars is naturally one part of it.

Beside the Saudi Grand Prix, in the tourist area, many car companies were unveiling their new cars.

Here, unveiling new cars has a significant advantage—the local tycoons would make a purchase on the spot if they fancy something.

They don't even need your car to be exceptionally great; as long as there is something that slightly attracts them, they would blindly spend money, after all, their money seems to be blown in by the wind.

After returning to the team, Qin Miao went through another busy FP3 session.

By the end of FP3, Verstappen clocked a time of 1:28.100, clearly faster than the previous day.

This was partly because after three practice sessions, everyone was already quite familiar with the track, and partly because the track temperature hadn't dropped yet, providing ample grip for the tires.

After FP3, Qin Miao made a final adjustment to the angle of the car's front wing, slightly increasing it by 0.3°.

When track performance started to degrade in the last test lap as the temperature began to drop, Qin Miao noticeably felt some understeer in his car during low-speed corners, needing to slightly increase the front wheel grip to enhance this shortcoming.

After resting for a couple of hours, Qin Miao donned a new racing suit, and after pushing open the door to the team's hospitality area, he headed to the team's garage.

Half an hour later, the qualifying session would begin, and Qin Miao needed to prepare in the team house.

Having struggled in F1 for so long, Qin Miao knew that sometimes drivers need to be in the paddock, staying close to their team's engineers.

Just being there, even if doing nothing and idling around, your presence is enough to provide a type of confidence to your team's mechanics.

So Qin Miao usually appears in the team's garage ahead of time.

Half an hour later, the qualifying session officially started.

At this time, Qin Miao was already fully geared up and inside the car.

The Mercedes team was still in no hurry to fight for the first outing; the team waited for other teams' drivers to leave the pit lane before finding a gap to let Qin Miao and Hamilton out together.

In his first flying lap, Qin Miao clocked a time of 1:28.501.

Honestly, this time isn't too fast for a driver of Qin Miao's caliber.

Nonetheless, with this time, Qin Miao could safely advance to Q2.

In the next flying lap, Qin Miao didn't change tires but used this set of old soft tires for another flying lap.

Even though these were just old soft tires, after Qin Miao completed this flying lap, the time got refreshed to 1:28.450.

Though only 0.05 seconds faster, this indicated a significant potential for improvement in Qin Miao's timings.

Having made this time, Qin Miao temporarily ranked fifth.

After this lap, Qin Miao didn't continue but returned directly to the team's garage.

When Q1 ended, Qin Miao advanced to Q2 in fifth place, and it's worth noting that his teammate Hamilton also didn't go all out in Q1 this race, securing a place in Q2 with a time of 1:28.466, ranked sixth.

Ultimately, the drivers eliminated in Q1 were: Latifi, Vettel, Stroll, Mick Schumacher, Mazepin.

In fact, Martin's car doesn't lack overall performance, but due to the team's design philosophy, Martin's car doesn't have much room to perform on such a high-speed circuit, so it's understandable that Martin's car was eliminated early in Q1.