Chapter 1442 - 543: Sprint Race
Of course, even though Hamilton realized Qin Miao’s car setup was much better than his own, he had the intention to change his car’s setup.
But in the end, Hamilton still didn’t take action.
After all, it was already somewhat late, and even if optimized, it would only bring about a lap time improvement of approximately 0.2 seconds.
While this 0.2 seconds per lap seems tempting, compared to being penalized to the back of the grid, the 0.2-second speed gap isn’t unacceptable.
Moreover, if an accident occurs during the sprint race or sprint qualifying session, and the car suffers damage to its suspension or elsewhere, he would have to start the main race from the pits.
So, after weighing the pros and cons, Old Man could only admire Qin Miao’s car setup without doing anything else.
To be honest, it’s a bit irritating.
However, it’s not worth wasting the qualifying result for these eight points from the sprint race.
Furthermore, Hamilton estimated that for today’s race, only Qin Miao’s car setup was closer to the optimal state, while the setups of other drivers were about the same as his.
Indeed, it was true that Qin Miao’s setup was the closest to a typical Grand Prix weekend setup among all the drivers.
Saturday, Sprint Qualifying.
Since it was the qualifying for the sprint race, it differed from the regular qualifying sessions, with the three phases of sprint qualifying having shorter time slots than normal qualifying.
Moreover, the first two phases required the use of medium tires, and the final phase required the use of soft tires.
The time allotments for SQ1, SQ2, and SQ3 were 12, 10, and 8 minutes, respectively.
Therefore, apart from SQ1, where drivers had the opportunity to pit for tire changes, SQ2 and SQ3 required drivers to use one set of medium tires and one set of soft tires to complete two flying laps on the track.
Although the 10 and 8 minutes seem sufficient, it’s still important to consider that the Baku circuit is one of the longest tracks on the F1 calendar.
The 6-kilometer track requires nearly two minutes for a full-speed flying lap, not to mention the out lap and the cooldown lap.
Therefore, the sprint qualifying session was really tight on time.
During the SQ1 phase, Qin Miao maintained his usual rhythm. However, as the tires were ample, Qin Miao used a brand-new set of medium tires to run three flying laps in SQ1.
The result was quite good, a 1:41.730, advancing to Q2 behind Alonso.
Actually, the weather conditions weren’t much different from yesterday. The reason for slower lap times compared to yesterday was mainly that Toto mentioned during the pre-race meeting that sprint qualifying had much less weight compared to the main race, with the 8 points compared to 25 points being obvious to everyone.
Consequently, for this sprint qualifying session, everyone raced more conservatively than they did in the regular qualifying session.
Thus, the speeds weren’t as quick.
It wasn’t just Qin Miao or Mercedes; nearly all the teams were like this.
There’s not much to say about SQ2.
However, in the final SQ3, Qin Miao’s performance wasn’t ideal.
Although the team had Qin Miao complete a race-level pit stop tire change on the track after his first flying lap.
But for his second flying lap, Leclerc lost grip at turn 5 and hit the wall, directly affecting the race rhythm of Sainz and Qin Miao.
Therefore, Qin Miao could only rely on his first flying lap’s time in SQ3.
He ended up in fifth place in SQ3.
This was Qin Miao’s worst qualifying performance of the season.
Besides the yellow flag Qin Miao encountered on the track, there was also an element of overconfidence after yesterday’s qualifying.
After all, in Friday’s qualifying, Qin Miao had snagged a pole position with no pressure at all.
Thus, Qin Miao subconsciously assumed that the other drivers would be in the same state as they were on Friday.
However, it was clear that Qin Miao underestimated his rivals.
These are all top F1 drivers, and even if the car setup isn’t in their ideal state, they can adjust their driving style within a day.
Give these top drivers a suitable car, and they can achieve unimaginable speeds.
But their vast experience also allows them to drive a car they’re unfamiliar with and still post respectable lap times.
On top of that, during SQ3, almost all drivers helped their teammates with slipstreaming.
And coincidentally, Hamilton helped Qin Miao with slipstreaming on the last lap of SQ3.
In short, Qin Miao’s sprint qualifying results weren’t ideal, not only due to some bad luck but also because he was too relaxed in his first flying lap of SQ3.
However, at least for Mercedes, this was an acceptable mistake, just eight points, if lost, then lost.
Besides, even though Qin Miao didn’t secure a good qualifying result, isn’t Hamilton still up ahead?
The final SQ3 standings for sprint qualifying were as follows:
1: Leclerc 1:40.203
2: Verstappen
3: Hamilton
4: Perez
5: Qin Miao
6: Sainz
7: Alonso
8: Norris
9: Tsunoda
10: Stroll
Four hours after the conclusion of the sprint qualifying session, the sprint race itself commenced.
For the sprint race, the Mercedes team stuck to their original strategy of protecting the car, preferring to forego any points from this sprint race to ensure the car remained undamaged during the race.