Chapter 1242 - 467: The Outcome
There’s not much to say about Zhou Guanyu in tenth place. Zhou Guanyu once again defeated his teammate during the race, bringing back a point for the Alfa Romeo team.
However, at this point, the Alfa Romeo team has basically locked in fourth place in the 2022 season’s team standings. This point added to the tally, aside from making Vassel and Zhou Guanyu’s end-of-year report look a bit better, doesn’t play a very critical role.
On one hand, there is a 35-point gap between Aston Martin and Alfa Romeo behind them. Given Aston Martin’s current car strength, it’s practically impossible to surpass Alfa Romeo in points in the remaining races of this season.
On the other hand, McLaren finally woke up towards the end of the season. Although Ricardo has no seat for the next season and is jokingly racing around in the McLaren, Norris is still constantly scoring points on the track.
The points gap between the two teams keeps widening.
After all, a thin camel is bigger than a horse, and McLaren hasn’t declined as severely.
So in the remaining races this season, whether advancing or falling behind, Alfa Romeo finds it relatively difficult.
At least this point in the tally has stabilized Zhou Guanyu’s standing among mid-range drivers in F1 during his rookie season.
Considering the Chinese market developed by Qin Miao in the paddock in 2021, as long as Zhou Guanyu doesn’t lose his form and maintains his current capabilities, he never needs to worry about his seat; some team will always want him.
However, Qin Miao presents both advantages and disadvantages for Zhou Guanyu.
The advantages have been mentioned earlier, and the biggest downside is that because of Qin Miao’s presence, Zhou Guanyu’s achievements in F1 are hardly acknowledged by domestic viewers.
The threshold for domestic fans has been raised too high by Qin Miao.
But Zhou Guanyu seems quite relaxed about this. At least if the race doesn’t go well, he won’t be harshly criticized by domestic fans.
He can race without much burden on the track.
Moreover, due to his identity, there are plenty of domestic sponsors willing to advertise for him, and his income is quite considerable.
Compared to drivers from other teams, Zhou Guanyu’s biggest advantage is actually his stability; he rarely makes mistakes or crashes due to overly aggressive pushes.
In several teams’ future driver selections, Zhou Guanyu is either a top candidate or the first choice for a second driver.
Now, back to the main points.
After this race, the changes in the driver standings are as follows:
1: Qin Miao.352
2: Verstappen.300
3: Leclerc.241
4: Perez.226
5: Hamilton.197
6: Sainz.167
7: Norris.89
8: O’Kang.72
9: Alonso.43
10: Bottas.38
11: Vettel.28
12: Zhou Guanyu.26
13: Gasly.21
14: Ricardo.20
15: Magelsen.19
16: Tsunoda.9
17: Stroll.7
18: Mick.6
19: Albon.1
20: Russell.1
21: De Vries.1
After this race, there weren’t any positional changes on the driver standings, but the gap between Qin Miao and Verstappen has widened to 52 points.
There are 3 races remaining until the end of the 2022 season.
If Qin Miao wins the Mexican Grand Prix in the next race, Qin Miao doesn’t even need the fastest lap; just the victory would allow him to secure the 2022 world champion title two races in advance.
So Perez’s home race is particularly important for Red Bull in the upcoming matches.
Meanwhile, after this race, the team standings are as follows:
1: Mercedes: 592
2: Red Bull: 546
3: Ferrari: 428
4: Alpine: 133
5: McLaren: 113
6: Alfa Romeo: 71
7: Aston Martin: 36
8: AlphaTauri: 30
9: Haas: 25
10: Williams: 3
Although Hamilton’s form has clearly rebounded recently, the team standings aren’t as straightforward as the driver standings. After all, the next race is Perez’s home turf. If Perez’s performance is good enough, the Red Bull team can still challenge for the team title.
After the race, Qin Miao completed all the post-event activities quite calmly.
He then naturally returned to the Mercedes team garage.
At this time, Frankie and the others had already brought back Qin Miao’s car and began checking the steering wheel and the car’s internal ERS system.
After confirming all these tasks were progressing orderly, Qin Miao didn’t stay long in the team garage, returning instead to the team headquarters.
Once back, Qin Miao didn’t retire to his lounge as usual to rest and wait for the post-race meeting to start. He directly sat in the team’s meeting room to await the meeting’s commencement.
The attitude Qin Miao demonstrated was quite clear with this move.
Car issues are internal matters and not to be aired publicly, so externally, he gave the team some face by not blasting them directly.
But after returning to the team, they need to give him an explanation.
Honestly, with Qin Miao’s dominance on the track and his performance under pressure this season, indeed, he has the capacity to act this boldly within the team.
Toto noticed Qin Miao appearing early at his seat and paused for a moment before understanding the situation.
Since there was nothing else to do, Toto sat beside Qin Miao in Frankie’s usual office spot and began chatting with Qin Miao.