How Did I Become an F1 Driver?

In fact, the impact of Perez’s crash was much greater than imagined.

Basically, all the mid-to-upper echelon teams started to busy themselves in their factories at this moment.

Mercedes directly prepared to replicate the structure of Red Bull’s car floor from the on-site pictures in a 1:1 scale, and then install it on their W14 for wind tunnel testing.

Mercedes wanted to quickly analyze the purpose of Red Bull designing the floor this way and the effect of such a design.

And they prepared to quickly apply the upgrades to their own car.

Other slightly wealthier teams were doing similar things.

As Perez’s car was cleared away, the qualifying practice resumed, but Qin Miao still did not go out to run.

After the end of Q1, Bottas became the biggest beneficiary after Perez retired, just managing to qualify for Q2 ahead of De Vries by 0.03 seconds.

Without the vacancy left by Perez, Bottas would definitely have been eliminated in Q1.

The drivers eliminated in Q1 were: De Vries, Zhou Guanyu, Magelsen, Hockenheim, Perez.

Qin Miao, who understands Zhou Guanyu, was not surprised by Zhou’s elimination in Q1.

It’s a simple reason; Zhou Guanyu’s driving style is not suited to the Monte Carlo track.

Zhou Guanyu’s driving style is somewhat conservative.

The advantage of this driving style is that the driver will not make active and serious mistakes on the track, allowing for maximum protection of the car.

However, the disadvantage is also obvious, which is that the speed won’t be very fast.

Of course, this disadvantage is not very fatal; on some wider tracks, the speed difference won’t be very noticeable.

But once it comes to narrow tracks like Monaco, Zhou Guanyu’s limitations are destined not to be high.

Compared to drivers like Qin Miao who would almost stick to the track every lap, Zhou Guanyu is still too far from the track’s barriers when cornering.

There’s no point in elaborating further on the other drivers; their skills are just as they are.

After a short rest following Q1, Q2 began.

When Q2 started, Qin Miao also began to get serious.

Because the team realized from the data collected today and yesterday that on the Monaco track, there was at least a 0.4-second lap time gap between Mercedes’ and Red Bull’s cars.

There was even a 0.1-second gap with Aston Martin; this track really limited the characteristics of Mercedes’ car.

So, this race is considered the slowest in the entire calendar for Mercedes cars.

Thus, the team believed that if Qin Miao and Hamilton were still casual, it would be difficult to qualify for Q3.

And indeed, at the end of Q2, the first flying lap for both drivers was not enough to advance to Q3, but only during the second flying lap using a set of new soft tires did they manage to update their times and qualify for Q3.

𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

It was a close call.

At the start of Q3, Qin Miao became the driver with the most soft tires left in the paddock.

Even if Qin Miao used all new soft tires in the next three flying laps, he could still have two sets of new soft tires left for the race.

At the beginning of Q3, Verstappen and Alonso were the first to hit the track for flying laps.

Their positions and times alternated between each other.

Qin Miao and Hamilton followed these two drivers on the track.

In the first flying lap of Q3, Qin Miao drove to the extreme, yet despite this extremity, he did not make any mistakes on the track; during the lap, the broadcaster showed the closest distance to the track barrier and position of Qin Miao’s car.

It was during the swimming pool corner at T15, the spot where two Ferrari cars broke their steering rods and retired in previous years.

Qin Miao’s car was only 0.1 centimeters away from the barrier at the closest moment.

The slow-motion footage captured by high-speed cameras showed Qin Miao’s tire rims nearly grazing the barrier at this corner.

Of course, this was just the closest distance to the barrier for Qin Miao in this lap; he was also close to the barriers in other corners, averaging less than a centimeter away.

Even though many people had a clear expectation of Qin Miao’s strong control over the car, the live broadcaster replayed Qin Miao’s onboard footage of the first flying lap in Q3 while all drivers returned to the team’s pit to refuel and rest after completing their flying laps.

In the footage, Qin Miao reached the limits in almost every corner; it was another textbook flying lap.

But the final result of this limit-breaking lap was only 1:11.499.

Although Qin Miao with this time took the first place in the first flying lap of Q3, he knew this was just his limit and not the limit of Red Bull and other teams’ cars.

While Qin Miao could still refine a few details, speeding up his lap a bit more and improving his lap time by about 0.1 seconds, the process of gaining this 0.1 second was extremely risky.

From Qin Miao’s feeling, if he actually did it, he’d likely replicate Leclerc’s mistake on the track in 2022 under the current track conditions.

Crashing into the wall in the final lap of Q3, ruining everyone’s last flying lap of Q3.

Therefore, in the final lap of Q3, although Qin Miao was still serious, he didn’t take reckless risks.

Because he knew that even improving his time by 0.1 seconds wouldn’t change his position after the qualifying session; the disadvantage of the car on this track was too great, something that couldn’t be compensated for with individual skills.