How Did I Become an F1 Driver?-Chapter 87 - 77: Huh?

So it was both unexpected and expected that Qin Miao made a mistake, and it was quite a basic one. freёnovelkiss.com

From Qin Miao’s understanding, this year’s Ferrari team’s car design philosophy is low drag and high speed, unlike Mercedes’ F1 car, which can take turn T9 at Silverstone with full throttle.

Although the Ferrari doesn’t have so little drag that you need to brake to get through this turn, you still have to ease off the throttle a little.

However, under immense pressure, Qin Miao was a bit late easing off the throttle at this corner, which caused him to go a bit wide, forcing him to hit the brakes to steady the front of the car.

This small mistake cost Qin Miao at least a second.

Originally, Qin Miao only needed to drive steadily to win, but now he has to face the attack from the Ferrari behind.

The following car naturally noticed Qin Miao’s mistake, as the distance between the two cars was already gradually closing, and Qin Miao’s mistake occurred at the end of the long straight, where the taillights of Qin Miao’s car were still visible.

Actually, the defending driver thought Qin Miao was indeed strong, as generally, he caught up with others after just three or four laps.

But Qin Miao was different; if he didn’t make any mistakes, he couldn’t even catch up with him before five laps were completed.

However, now it seems Qin Miao has the skill, but his mentality is a bit lacking; a little pressure caused a mistake.

The last lap, the gap between the two cars closed to two seconds.

This was also the lap where the defending driver really intended to strike.

T1 and T2 are pseudo-corners, and Qin Miao maintained the same gap with the car behind, but after T3, when Qin Miao normally braked into the corner, the braking point of the car behind was the same as Qin Miao’s. But somehow, after entering T3 and going to T4, the car behind was able to erase Qin Miao’s 0.2-second lead.

After exiting T4 and passing through the pseudo-corner of T5, they came to the DRS zone between T5 and T6.

Because the opponent hadn’t caught up to Qin Miao when passing the DRS detection point, they didn’t have DRS at this position. However, a gap of 1.8 seconds was enough for the opponent to slightly draft some of Qin Miao’s slipstream, coupled with a higher tail speed exiting T4, the opponent eliminated approximately another 0.2 seconds of Qin Miao’s lead after the DRS straight.

So by the time the two cars entered T6, Qin Miao felt slightly anxious as he realized the gap was now only 1.6 seconds.

The combination corners of T6 and T7 passed smoothly according to Qin Miao, but the opponent could still effortlessly shrink the speed gap between the two cars on such basic corners, costing 0.2 seconds again.

Unbeknownst to Qin Miao, his clothes had already been soaked with sweat, and his forehead was slightly wet.

Still, exiting T7 led to Silverstone’s fastest corner, letting Qin Miao breathe a sigh of relief as there was no DRS on this straight.

At first, this was the case; the car behind only caught a small portion of Qin Miao’s slipstream and couldn’t make up much time between T8 and T9, but the opponent directly closed another 0.2 seconds at T9.

The opponent’s closing speed scared Qin Miao into a cold sweat and left him bewildered, making him question if he was driving the same car as the opponent.

How could he make up 0.2 seconds in the high-speed T9? On what basis?

Before Qin Miao could figure it out, the two cars reached the combination corners of T10 to T14, and unsurprisingly, Qin Miao lost another 0.3 seconds to the opponent there.

The opponent had now closed to within a second of Qin Miao, with the good news being they hadn’t caught up to within one second at the DRS zone detection point between T10 and T11, hence couldn’t activate DRS after T14.

The bad news was: the opponent had already entered Qin Miao’s slipstream, easily drafting off him, and had a faster exit speed out of the corners than Qin Miao.

Still, Qin Miao felt a slight relief that before reaching T15, the opponent had not yet pulled alongside.

Slipstream is indeed a good thing, but without DRS, completing an overtake between two equally performing F1 cars is difficult.

Thus, both cars passed T15 without incident.

Since T15 was indeed not difficult, Qin Miao didn’t get caught by the opponent here and actually gained himself a 0.2-second breather.

But Qin Miao knew the real test was coming next.

If he held off through T16 to T18, the mini-race win would be his; if he didn’t, those five previous laps would have been in vain.

In the straight between T15 and T16, the opponent kept picking up slipstream speed; however, with the groundwork set earlier, by entering T16, the defending driver had enough speed to pull alongside.

However, Qin Miao was mentally prepared this time and protected the inside line before the opponent could pull alongside.

Then someone might question: although T16 at Silverstone is a left-hand corner, T17 and T18 after that are right-handers. Protecting the inside line at this point has its advantages, but wouldn’t Qin Miao get taken down by the defending driver in the side-by-side battle in the corner?

That argument is indeed correct, but what if Qin Miao never intended to get into a side-by-side battle with the opponent?

Blocking the inside line, Qin Miao placed his car in the very center of the track before entering T16, while the opponent was on the outermost normal racing line.

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