How Did I Become an F1 Driver?-Chapter 899 - 355: Ferrari’s Rise

But when Qin Miao finally crossed the finish line, his result was only 1 minute 31.509 seconds. Not to mention catching up with Ferrari and Red Bull, he even had a 0.3-second gap with his teammate Hamilton.

This was Qin Miao's performance throughout the race without any mistakes, giving it his all.

We can only say that Mercedes' car for the 2022 season is really underwhelming.

In the end, Leclerc secured the pole position for this race with a time of 1 minute 30.558 seconds.

And the only one who could potentially challenge Leclerc's position, Verstappen, ended up with a time of just 1 minute 30.681 seconds.

By the end of Q3, Ferrari surprised everyone by grabbing first place, which was unexpected yet inevitable.

The time gap between Leclerc and Verstappen was 0.123 seconds.

The final standings for the Q3 qualifiers were as follows:

1: Leclerc

2: Verstappen

3: Sainz

4: Perez

5: Hamilton

6: Qin Miao

7: Bottas

8: Magelsen

9: Alonso 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

10: Gasly

Ferrari kicked off the 2022 season with a great start.

Although Sainz was behind Verstappen, Sainz's final lap time was canceled due to a yellow flag on the track, and he actually had a good chance of surpassing Verstappen.

Moreover, with the last lap not run, the gap between Sainz and Verstappen was only 0.006 seconds.

One could say that if Sainz had completed the last flying lap, the Ferrari duo would have taken the top spots in this race.

Having achieved good results, Ferrari was naturally jubilant, and Leclerc shouted his catchphrase over the team radio: "Come on! let's gooooo!"

While Ferrari was celebrating, the atmosphere on the Mercedes team radio was a bit subdued.

Qin Miao looked at the sixth-place position displayed on his steering wheel, along with the time of 1 minute 31.871 seconds, and after a slight sigh, he said over the team radio: "I did my best."

There's nothing wrong with Qin Miao's words because, in this last flying lap, he really pushed his limits. His car was in extreme conditions several times in the corners, where a slightly larger maneuver could have led to a complete loss of control.

But even so, after completing the final flying lap, Qin Miao's time was still not impressive.

"Received, sorry Qin Miao, we couldn't provide you with a competitive enough car. Come back now and let's see what we can do." The person speaking to Qin Miao was not his track engineer Frankie, but Toto.

This was Toto expressing an apology on behalf of Mercedes to Qin Miao.

On the other hand, Hamilton's situation was similar, but compared to Qin Miao's simple "I did my best," Hamilton had more complaints.

"The porpoising on the car is too severe, my back hurts, the car doesn't have enough speed, and it's hard to warm up the tires…"

If there were people who felt bad seeing Qin Miao and Mercedes' poor performance, it would only be the domestic fan community.

After seeing Qin Miao's performance on the track, domestic viewers who had just started following F1 found it somewhat unacceptable.

After all, a large portion of Qin Miao's domestic fans are those who purely follow champions.

They like Qin Miao, follow Qin Miao because they know he can deliver eye-catching results on the track.

Or to put it bluntly, they like Qin Miao simply because he can win races in F1.

But the championship fans who watched this race discovered that Qin Miao doesn't seem to be as strong as they imagined this season, only qualifying sixth, even behind his teammate Hamilton.

[Is this the world champion?]

[Is this what's called a world champion?]

[Wasn't he dominating Hamilton last season? How come he can't outrun Hamilton in qualifying this season?]

[Come on Qin Miao, I didn't come to watch you lose.]

Although some were disappointed with Mercedes' performance, some even started mocking directly.

However, most of the champion fans, much like how they won't actively follow F1, even if they see Qin Miao not doing well in this race, they won't deliberately say anything and will just quietly leave.

But the veteran F1 fans are much calmer compared to these people.

Even though they also feel regret seeing Mercedes lose its former competitiveness under the new technical regulations,

they know this is F1, a sport with strong cycles.

No team can dominate the field forever, not to mention the ground effect rules introduced by the FIA seem to specifically target Mercedes.

After all, everyone knows Mercedes' dominance was not based on car design capabilities, but on its engine.

And to score on the tracks in the ground effect era, excellent aerodynamic design is required.

In short, even though old fans don't want to see such a scene, they can accept the result calmly after seeing it.

So they don't sarcastically comment on major media platforms, just quietly hoping Mercedes can gradually find its pace through subsequent upgrades.