How Did I Become an F1 Driver?

And once Hamilton realized Qin Miao had caught up, he also started to pick up the pace to keep Qin Miao from reeling him in.

Soon, the two of them crossed the finish line one after the other, and on the FIA world feed, the display above the timing tower on the right side of the driver list was already showing 56/56.

This was the final lap; once they crossed the finish line, the United States Grand Prix would be over.

And by using the long main straight plus his car’s DRS, Qin Miao tucked into Hamilton’s slipstream at the end of the main straight and cut the gap between them down to 1 second.

Now Qin Miao really only had one last chance to launch a threatening attack on Hamilton, and that was in the DRS zone of the second sector—the very last DRS zone of this race.

Over the entire first sector that followed, Qin Miao shaved another 0.2 seconds off the gap to Hamilton.

Sector 1 at COTA is basically soft-tyre paradise, so it was normal for Qin Miao to slash the gap to Hamilton there.

Out on track, by the time Hamilton and Qin Miao arrived at the DRS detection point one after the other, the gap between them was down to just 0.7 seconds.

As they hit the detection line, Hamilton actually considered stabbing the brakes hard just before the DRS detection point, letting Qin Miao cross it first, and then using DRS and the slipstream in the following DRS zone to latch onto Qin Miao.

But very quickly, Hamilton thought of Qin Miao’s downright monstrous defensive ability, plus the 0.7-second gap between them, and in the end gave up on this rather bold idea.

On one hand, Hamilton really didn’t want to throw away this relatively safe shot at winning the United States Grand Prix; on the other, that move was indeed a bit too risky. Most importantly, Hamilton didn’t believe that, with Qin Miao’s sharpness and reaction speed, Qin wouldn’t see through that sudden brake check.

It could very easily turn into trying to steal a chicken and losing the rice instead.

So Hamilton chose to take the corner normally.

Qin Miao followed right behind. On exit, he shaved another 0.08 seconds off the gap to Hamilton, and once past the DRS detection line, he naturally went ERS full deploy, opened DRS, latched onto Hamilton’s slipstream, and started closing the gap rapidly.

But just as Qin Miao was in the middle of the DRS zone, getting ready to dive up the inside of Hamilton, Hamilton moved to the middle of the track before Qin could make a move, completely shutting off all of Qin’s lines to switch to the inside.

This move from Hamilton looked a bit like the one in that earlier incident between Stroll and Alonso right after the first safety car ended.

The difference was, this time Hamilton directly pre-read the timing of Qin Miao’s pull-out, and completed his move to the middle of the track just before Qin could dive to the inside.

Of course, Qin Miao also reacted to Hamilton’s sudden move. Originally he’d been about to jink to the inside, but now he could only keep the car on his original racing line.

...

"Qin Miao has finally got his chance. This is the last attacking opportunity of today’s race. Whether he can stand on the top step of the podium all comes down to whether this move works!" Bing was rubbing his hands nervously.

That’s how it is with any competitive sport: once you’re invested, once you care deeply about a certain driver’s win or a team’s victory, watching the race becomes insanely fun and immersive, and your mood will swing wildly with every change on track.

The other two Five-Star Sports commentators also had sweaty palms now, eyes locked on the world feed: "Qin Miao’s got a pretty good shot with this attack. His tyres are very fresh. After chasing for so long his ERS might be a bit low, but he’s got Hamilton’s slipstream to work with."

"Hamilton has proactively moved to the middle of the track to defend already in the middle of the DRS zone! Qin Miao is coming in hot, this overtake is still on!" Libao’s commentary was full of excitement.

Out on track, when Qin Miao saw Hamilton leave the outside line open, he instantly guessed Hamilton’s defensive plan: force him to go around the outside, while Hamilton would go in on the inside and brake late.

But judging from Qin Miao’s defensive IQ and reading of the race, this kind of defending from Hamilton was more or less self-deception—like a last struggle before death, utterly pointless.

The closing rate between them was way too high; in this state, Hamilton practically had no chance of holding him off.

Right now Qin Miao was overflowing with confidence—but just as he was gearing up to use his soft tyres and ERS to simply blast past Hamilton on the straight...

Qin Miao suddenly realized that the ERS mode on his steering wheel wouldn’t switch.

The ERS deployment on his steering wheel was stuck in that qualifying-mode setting that automatically burns through the remaining energy over a single lap according to the system’s allocation, instead of the overtaking mode that dumps as much ERS as possible over the shortest time.

Because of that, the burst of acceleration that should have let Qin Miao completely clear Hamilton before the braking point at the end of the DRS zone just couldn’t be fully unleashed.