How Did I Become an F1 Driver?-Chapter 775 - 315: Saudi Qualifying

Q2, Qin Miao and Hamilton both switched to medium tires.

In tomorrow's race, Qin Miao and Hamilton are both planning to start on medium tires.

Apart from them, the Red Bull team shares the same strategy, with Verstappen and Perez also opting for medium tires in Q2.

At the end of Q2, Hamilton led with a time of 1:27.750.

Hamilton's time on the medium tires was faster than Qin Miao's flying lap in Q1 with soft tires.

The drivers eliminated in Q2 were: Ricardo, Kimi, Alonso, Russell, and Sainz.

In the Q3 stage, there were fewer cars on track, eliminating issues with traffic and encountering slow cars during flying laps.

At the start of Q3, Qin Miao noticed that the car had a problem with tire warming.

Since it was completely dark, the lack of sunlight caused the track temperature to drop rapidly. After Q1 and Q2, any daytime warmth left on the track had completely dissipated.

So just in the warm-up lap, Qin Miao clearly felt that his tires had almost no grip.

To avoid tire issues due to insufficient temperature during the flying lap, Qin Miao ran an extra flying lap.

It's worth mentioning that Qin Miao's teammate, Hamilton, did not do the same.

As Qin Miao was completing his warm-up lap, he heard Frankie's voice through the team radio: "Hamilton made a mistake due to insufficient tire temperature, do you want to do an extra warm-up... oh, I didn't notice just now.

Yes, doing an extra warm-up lap is correct."

Due to the slip caused by cold tires, Hamilton's flying lap was naturally wasted, while Qin Miao's lap, despite some traffic issues due to the extra warm-up lap, was still decent, with a time of 1:28.123.

That temporarily put him in second place.

After a brief rest at the team's pit stop, Hamilton came out first.

This time, he didn't take any chances and ran two warm-up laps.

After completing the final flying lap, Hamilton showed his full potential.

His post-lap time was 1:27.511, putting him in first place.

Half a minute later, Qin Miao also completed his final flying lap of the race, with a time of 1:27.612.

The result was quite good, although for Qin Miao, this lap was his all-out effort, using all his strength, so he was content with securing second place.

Among the top three contenders for the championship, only Verstappen hadn't produced an effective lap yet, and his first flying lap only placed him third, behind Qin Miao.

Knowing how formidable Qin Miao's defending skills are, Verstappen was very aware that on a track like Jeddah, where overtaking is difficult, failing to secure a good position in qualifying would be awkward.

Therefore, all hopes would hinge on his start in Sunday's main race.

If his start goes poorly and he ends up behind Qin Miao, then this race, and even the season's driver championship, would likely slip out of his hands.

This made the final flying lap crucial for Verstappen.

Soon, with 20 seconds left before the timer stopped in Q3, Verstappen crossed the line for his final flying lap.

Verstappen's final flying lap officially commenced.