How Did I Become an F1 Driver?

With the terrifying tail speed of Qin Miao’s car at this moment, he no longer needs to consider from which direction to attack Perez. All he needs to do is rely on his absolute speed to overtake Perez before the braking point.

However, Perez has a strong willingness to defend against Qin Miao.

So as soon as Perez saw Qin Miao coming up from behind, he immediately changed lanes to the inside to defend.

However, once Perez realized that Qin Miao’s speed was too fast and moving to the inside wouldn’t really work,

he immediately began to squeeze Qin Miao’s attack line to the outside. But throughout this process, Perez was always watching his rearview mirror.

During the entire process, Qin Miao’s car remained still, directly keeping his steering wheel pointed forward and accelerating.

It was as if he hadn’t seen the Red Bull car squeezing in from the inside.

Perez originally intended to disrupt Qin Miao a little; he hadn’t planned on directly clashing with Qin Miao on the track.

So when he saw Qin Miao wasn’t planning to yield, Perez backed off with an intimidating defensive maneuver.

Ultimately, Qin Miao completed the overtaking of Perez on the outside line.

Actually, this overtake by Qin Miao was also thanks to the help of Old Man.

Because of the track properties and car characteristics, Qin Miao didn’t put too much pressure on Perez during the race, allowing Perez to run his race rhythm more focused on the track.

However, despite this, Perez did not catch Hamilton in the DRS zone behind him on the track.

It’s worth noting that the Red Bull car’s DRS efficiency this season is extremely terrifying, even higher than Mercedes’. If Perez had Hamilton’s DRS during this overtake, it wouldn’t have been easy for Qin Miao to take down Perez.

But in the end, overtaking Perez is still a positive outcome, even though everyone on the team broke into a cold sweat when Perez directly squeezed towards Qin Miao on the outside line, and Qin Miao didn’t dodge.

But at least the final result was satisfactory to everyone.

Having completed the overtaking of Perez, Qin Miao began to focus his attention on his teammate ahead.

At this moment, however, the time gap between Hamilton and Qin Miao is quite large, at 1.9 seconds.

Furthermore, Qin Miao doesn’t believe that after catching up to Hamilton’s rear, he would give up his position to him.

So, on the eleventh lap, after closing in within 0.4 seconds behind Hamilton, Qin Miao began looking for opportunities.

It’s not that Qin Miao didn’t want to make a move on Hamilton, but because in this race, Leclerc seemed to be on fire.

After being overtaken by Verstappen on the ninth lap, Leclerc used DRS to catch Verstappen’s slipstream, and did not get pushed out of Verstappen’s DRS zone.

While Hamilton’s car speed is decent, and its DRS efficiency is terrifying, with Ferrari having Red Bull’s DRS and slipstream, Hamilton doesn’t have much of a solution against Leclerc.

Hamilton and Leclerc at this moment are trapped in a DRS train.

And now, Qin Miao has also joined this DRS train.

Qin Miao has reason to suspect that this DRS train is deliberately manipulated by Verstappen, with the intention of preventing himself and Hamilton from posing a threat to his sprint race victory on this track, which is very suitable for Mercedes cars.

Thinking carefully, this is indeed the easiest way for Verstappen to win the sprint race round under current race circumstances.

After all, DRS trains were already terrifying in their protective capability even last season when following cars wasn’t as difficult as now. It trapped Qin Miao in a blissful agony; this season following cars is even harder, and being stuck in a DRS train, unless the car ahead makes a mistake, it’s challenging to advance a few more places.

Moreover, Pan open the train, not only to protect his own tires but also to utilize Leclerc to defend against the two Mercedes cars, reducing his defensive pressure.

Facts have proven that Verstappen’s tactics have indeed significantly reduced his pressure for today’s race.

Although Qin Miao and Hamilton’s cars are fast, it can’t be helped that neither Hamilton ahead of Qin Miao or Leclerc are willing to give up their positions to the cars behind, and neither do they dare to fight too fiercely for that single point during the sprint race phase.

And in the 13th lap, another Red Bull car joined behind Qin Miao.

When Verstappen suppressed Qin Miao’s speed, Perez also caught up with the rhythm of this DRS train, and he even started to put pressure on Qin Miao.

In the previous two laps, Qin Miao still had the chance to try to take Hamilton on the inside or outside line, looking for an opportunity to attack the Old Man.

But after Perez got behind Qin Miao, whenever Qin Miao made a move, Perez was eager to act.

Other people may think of avoiding car damage during the sprint race, but Qin Miao has a strong sense that Perez might not have that idea for today’s race. Probably, this person is thinking about how to clash with him.

Even if he crashes with himself, his position within Red Bull might actually become more secure instead of being unstable.

Qin Miao now begins to abhor the concept of the DRS train.

So despite feeling that he still has the energy to attempt attacking Hamilton, there’s full defense from Hamilton ahead, and a keen Perez behind.