Chapter 1303 - 490: Post-R
However, what Toto didn’t know was that Ferrari had also started preparing at this time.
And this time, it wasn’t Binotto who wanted Qin Miao; Bi is about to leave, and he can’t decide on personnel appointments for the Ferrari team anymore.
This time, it is Ferrari’s chairman John Elkann’s decision to have Qin Miao join Ferrari.
This is also Ferrari’s tradition, which is upper management giving orders to subordinates beyond their authority.
However, because it’s John Elkann’s decision, the people below executed it without much pushback since not doing a good job on this matter could really get them fired.
Then Ferrari learned about Mercedes building a school for Qin Miao’s future child.
Upon hearing this, Ferrari thought, we’ll build one too! Even with full Chinese instruction!
Of course, this was done secretly by Ferrari, so not many people knew.
In short, Ferrari truly wanted Qin Miao now.
Because Qin Miao’s phenomenal tire-saving ability could indeed partly compensate for the car’s performance shortcomings.
Another reason is that many at Iron Buddha Temple genuinely sighed when they saw Qin Miao.
Damn, this guy should have been ours! These two driver’s championships should have belonged to Ferrari!
...
Inside the paddock, after chatting with Toto for a while, the two refocused their attention back on the track.
Soon it was time for Hamilton’s first pit stop window.
Actually, Qin Miao was quite interested in the team’s tire change process. Before, Qin Miao watched it on TV, but after entering F2 and F1, Qin Miao watched it from inside the car and hadn’t seen the tire change from other perspectives.
So before Hamilton pitted, Qin Miao curiously moved to the team’s pit wall.
And then witnessed a 2.7-second tire change.
This pit stop speed was actually the average for Mercedes, as their pit stops had been slow all season.
This was mainly due to Mercedes not optimizing the tire change process, the wheel bolts, and the air guns, and they hadn’t had time to address this issue.
But just when everyone thought Hamilton might lose his position due to this 2.7-second tire change, Verstappen also pitted for a tire change.
And Verstappen’s total pit stop time this time was up to 3.4 seconds.
Now, Verstappen, who was entangled with Hamilton, completely lost all opportunities to attack Hamilton on the track.
Pan, who naturally wasn’t very temperamental, was already filled with anger from the on-track entanglement with Hamilton. This pit stop not only didn’t help him but also held him back, so naturally, he swore a bit over the team radio after being released.
Although, strictly speaking, Red Bull didn’t make any mistakes with this tire change, the speed was just a bit slow.
On the other side, Qin Miao also got to witness firsthand what a pit stop tire change was all about, and then imagined himself in that scenario...
Hmm...
Couldn’t do it.
After satisfying his curiosity, Qin Miao naturally returned obediently to the team’s pit wall, continuing to watch the remaining last Grand Prix of the 2022 season.
At this point on the track, it had turned into a play where Hamilton was leading in front, Verstappen furiously chasing behind, and Leclerc constantly closing in on the two.
As for Perez...
In this race, after Master Pei and Qin Miao had an accident on the track, although his state was still good, almost everyone on his way forward was doing everything to block Perez’s progress.
In this race, with Qin Miao’s retirement, it wasn’t too difficult for Perez to regain the front row, but trying to snatch a podium position among Hamilton, Verstappen, and Leclerc was particularly challenging.
Not to mention he had a 10-second penalty to contend with.
However, it seemed like fate was set to challenge Mercedes today. Even though a driver had already retired due to a crash, with two laps left in the race, Hamilton’s car developed a hydraulic system failure.
The brakes began to intermittently fail.
This type of failure is extremely fatal, so Hamilton had no choice but to retire.
Throughout the whole season, without any car issues, Mercedes retired two drivers at the critical moment of competing for the team championship this year.
Even if Hamilton’s car had completed the race without any problems, Mercedes still wouldn’t have won this year’s Constructors’ Championship, but ending the season in this way was indeed somewhat farcical.
And after learning that Hamilton had also retired, the happiest driver on the track was undoubtedly Perez.
Even after Hamilton’s retirement, Perez toned down his aggression towards Sainz in front of him.
After all, he finally secured his fourth place in the driver standings this year.
On the other side, Red Bull team was also in an uproar of cheers, because although they missed this year’s driver world championship, with both Mercedes drivers retiring, they could secure this year’s Constructors’ World Championship.
After Hamilton’s retirement, his mentality was surprisingly calm.
Because in the mid and later stages of the race, on the 45th lap, Hamilton was overtaken by Verstappen, who quickly pulled a 3-second gap away from Hamilton.