How Did I Become an F1 Driver?

Meanwhile, in the sprint race qualifying sessions Q1 and Q2, only medium tires can be used, and Q3 is limited to soft tires.

The DRS rules for the sprint race have also changed, with DRS activation occurring one lap earlier than in the main race.

However, this set of rules only applies to the sprint race on Saturday, not to the main race.

There are many other detailed rules, but I won’t go into each of them here.

In summary, these are the rules for the sprint races over the next few years.

To be honest, these sprint race rules really are quite complicated. Qin Miao spent quite a while looking at them, and it reminded him of the fear he felt when his textbooks ruled his life during school.

But Qin Miao knows one thing: as long as he completes this Grand Prix weekend normally and performs at his best in every qualifying session and sprint qualifying session, that’s enough.

Meanwhile, this year’s Baku Grand Prix track has also been modified, with the DRS zone on the starting straight reduced by 100 meters.

Honestly, this season it’s clear the FIA’s initial intent with designing ground effect cars has gone off track, but this isn’t the FIA’s fault; it’s the other teams in the paddock.

The aim of the FIA in pushing cars into the ground effect era was to reduce turbulence behind the cars, making it easier for trailing cars to follow and creating more overtaking opportunities on the track.

In 2022, the beginning of the ground effect era, this was indeed the case.

Almost every car on the track achieved this.

With downforce primarily provided by the ground effect floor, less turbulence was indeed emitted to the rear of the car.

But as the season approached its end, there were always teams that brought out upgrades, and while these components improved their vehicle performance, they also emitted more turbulence to the rear of their car.

Even Mercedes did this.

After all, it’s within the permissible range of the rules, and if everyone else is doing it, not doing so would mean falling behind.

After the first three races of the 23rd season, Qin Miao clearly felt that his car was struggling a lot more in terms of following compared to last season.

Yet despite this, the FIA still cuts the DRS zone length, leaving Qin Miao unsure of their rationale.

Moreover, what made Qin Miao somewhat uncomfortable—almost insecure—was the fact that there was one less set of tires available this Grand Prix weekend, making it impossible to reserve as many tires for the main race.

However, when the strategy team calculated this Grand Prix weekend’s tire usage on Friday, Qin Miao breathed a sigh of relief.

Because according to the strategy team’s calculations, after skipping two practice sessions, Qin Miao would actually have more tire reserves in the main race phase than a regular Grand Prix weekend.

Not only Qin Miao, but nearly every driver would have plenty of tire reserves for the main race this Grand Prix weekend.

The tire consumption during two practice sessions is substantial, and unless a car suffers a blowout on the track during the sprint race, nobody would enter the pits to change tires; even in the most tire-consuming sprint qualifying, at most they’d only use four sets of tires.

Since SQ2 and SQ3 run for much less time compared to normal qualifying, drivers don’t have time to pit for tire changes, and in SQ1, to avoid congestion, they’re unlikely to pit either.

Upon hearing this news, Qin Miao relaxed quite a bit.

As time progressed, Friday’s first practice session began.

Because the Baku track has minimal tire consumption, given its lack of high-speed corners—mostly right-angle turns and long straights—the primary tire wear affects rear tire durability.

Therefore, Pirelli offered the C3-C5, the softest three tire compounds, for this Grand Prix weekend.

The sprint race weekend is quite challenging for teams because they have to determine all the settings for the Grand Prix weekend in a single practice session, and those settings apply to qualifying, sprint qualifying, the sprint race, and the main race.

For the team and the drivers, this is undoubtedly a formidable challenge.

Throughout Friday, everyone was tense.

Qin Miao was no exception.

Known for his leisurely pace during practice sessions, he was also busy this Grand Prix weekend, as he and the team aimed to gather as much data during the first practice session as possible to adjust the car’s condition to optimal before qualifying began.

The practice session saw a number of incidents on the track, including red flags, but these had little to do with Qin Miao.

The only thing worth mentioning was the top speed Qin Miao achieved during the practice session.

Although the top speed achieved wasn’t as high as what Qin Miao runs on the team simulator, it reached 343 km/h.

This speed was achieved with nearly 40 kilograms of fuel in Qin Miao’s car.

When the practice session concluded, the official speed comparison was released, showing Mercedes’ W14 was leading by a wide margin.

It was a full 8 km/h faster than the second-place Red Bull driven by Verstappen.

Of course, despite having such an advantage, Qin Miao’s lap time was not much faster than Red Bull’s car—only by 0.08 seconds.

But these are merely simulated flying lap results from the practice session; whether there is a gap between the two drivers, and how large it is, are unknowns at this point.

Of course, during Friday’s first practice session, Qin Miao also found a setup he was relatively comfortable with.

Despite visually apparent areas for optimization in this setup, time no longer allowed Qin Miao to make more adjustments. Reckless adjustments could easily backfire at this point.

So, Qin Miao and his team simply created a setup based on the existing data.

When Qin Miao finalized his setup, it was already qualifying stage time.

In the past, Qin Miao felt quite composed when it came to qualifying.

After three practice sessions, he already thoroughly understood the characteristics of his car on the current track and knew the car’s limits and how to push it to achieve its maximum potential.

This gave Qin Miao confidence during the race.

But his current car...

One could say Qin Miao was indeed adept at controlling it, but he wasn’t keen on probing its limits. He couldn’t be sure that going slightly faster wouldn’t push the car beyond its limits and result in some surprise.

If he were to make a rookie mistake pushing too hard in qualifying, like Leclerc’s infamous incident, Qin Miao felt he might as well find a hole and bury himself.

It’d be embarrassing, having just made a bold move in front of Leclerc, and then a mistake, ensuring that every year from now on, during the track walk, Leclerc would keep an eye on him, and every time he reached the corner where he made a mistake, Leclerc would surely taunt him.

...

Hence, when qualifying just started, Qin Miao was a bit anxious, worrying about potential accidents in today’s qualifying, though mostly he was concerned about his lap times being inferior to Red Bull’s.

But when qualifying began, Qin Miao realized he might be overthinking.

Because considering Qin Miao’s skills, even though he hadn’t fully gotten used to the characteristics and features of his car on this track, he was still better than the drivers from other teams.

After his first flying lap in Q1, Qin Miao achieved a time of 1:41.555, and while he thought it was quite ordinary, he found that it was enough to directly move into Q2.

And this was just the baseline lap after holding back somewhat.

In a regular Grand Prix weekend, Qin Miao’s lap time would typically rank seventh or even further back.

But after completing his first flying lap in Q1, he ascended straight to the top, 0.1 seconds faster than Verstappen in second.

When Qin Miao returned to the team for a break after running his first flying lap in Q1, Reyes curiously asked, "Why the sudden change today? Running so fast in Q1? Didn’t you always say you’d hide your strength in Q1?"

Qin Miao scratched his head, somewhat surprised himself: "You might not believe this, but my approach to this race hasn’t changed much today... It’s just like my usual Q1 qualifying run. Logically speaking, my results shouldn’t be this great..."

Reyes was also surprised: "Are you sure? You were even faster than Verstappen by a tenth."

Qin Miao reached up and lifted his visor: "I’m sure, I have no reason to lie..."

"Maybe it’s because the others didn’t perform well..." Qin Miao could only come up with this explanation at the time.