Chapter 1426 - 536: Twists and Turns
It might even be possible to go off the track due to poor braking performance from overheated brakes.
Qin Miao also noticed his car’s tires starting to smoke, and hearing from the team’s TR that his car’s brake pads were smoking, he couldn’t help but get a little nervous, just as mentioned earlier.
Of course, while Qin Miao was nervous internally, he didn’t forget to observe Hamilton behind him.
The Old Man hadn’t made any noticeable waves in today’s race, but damn, his starting ability shouldn’t be underestimated.
Do you really think his seven world championships came from FIA manipulating behind the scenes?
If you don’t have some skills, you wouldn’t even have the space for manipulation even if you wanted to.
As the last driver parked his car, the safety car was in position, and the race was about to restart.
Five red lights lit up one by one and then went out, the race began!
Qin Miao’s brake disc temperature was indeed a bit high, but this was a double-edged sword, with both advantages and disadvantages.
The most direct consequence was that during the 20 seconds of standing on the grid, Qin Miao’s tire temperature was on average 15 degrees higher than Verstappen’s and Hamilton’s.
𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦
Moreover, Qin Miao didn’t make any mistakes at the start.
After the start, Qin Miao quickly began to close the gap with Verstappen.
Before Verstappen could shut the door on Qin Miao, Qin Miao’s front nose was already wedged against Verstappen’s right rear wheel.
Seeing this, Verstappen frowned, puzzled as to how Qin Miao could have such a fast start?
Qin Miao was also a bit surprised; how could his tires be over seventy degrees now, and his start speed only slightly faster than Verstappen’s? This time Pan’s start was quite good!
But Qin Miao didn’t mind, as his tire traction and car power were much stronger than Verstappen’s.
So Qin Miao felt he could still catch up with Verstappen before the braking point and get alongside.
And although Verstappen was surprised, he didn’t hesitate at all when squeezing Qin Miao towards the inside line.
Seeing Verstappen pressing towards him, Qin Miao naturally chose to back off.
At this moment, with Verstappen in front, if an accident occurred,even if Qin pushed Verstappen out, his own car might not have any problems, but there was a very high chance he’d be penalized five seconds and face public pressure.
If it was during a normal start phase, Qin Miao might not have cared so much, but now, with only two laps left of the race, a five-second penalty would practically mean saying goodbye to the podium.
So Qin Miao chose to do the same as at the start of the race, getting squeezed onto the grass again.
The outer layers of grass were rolled up by the tires, but it was just the outer wall of the tire scraping, and it didn’t affect the acceleration ability of Qin Miao’s car at all.
During this process, both Qin Miao and Verstappen kept staring at each other’s cars, while simultaneously scanning with peripheral vision for their braking point reference.
Now it was time to test who had more guts.
To see who would hit the brakes first.
Then, when they passed the 150-meter marker, the two originally on the inside track almost simultaneously switched to the outside track.
Then, while Qin Miao was staring at Verstappen’s car, he suddenly noticed that Verstappen’s car, which he was gradually overtaking, suddenly moved back, and soon he couldn’t see Verstappen’s car in his peripheral vision at all.
In an instant, Qin Miao realized Verstappen had braked early.
Qin Miao had originally planned to see when Verstappen would brake and then brake slightly later than him, just in time to use his car’s body to block all of Verstappen’s entry lines.
But if Verstappen braked early, he might be planning to attempt a crossover move.
Given his current braking state, Verstappen could indeed use the crossover line to regain the lead position.
Qin Miao’s reaction speed was nothing short of remarkable; 0.1 seconds after Verstappen’s car disappeared from his view, Qin Miao hit the brakes.
Then Qin Miao saw Verstappen’s car suddenly appear ahead of his left front.
Even though Qin Miao released the brakes the moment he saw Verstappen’s car, preparing to hit the gas again, any mistake on a racing car traveling at high speeds is fatal.
Due to that bit of braking, Verstappen completely overtook Qin Miao and got to the T1 entry point earlier.
Even though Qin Miao was a little disrupted after getting shaken by Verstappen, he didn’t make any major mistakes during this process.
Although Hamilton managed to take half a car length on the outside, as Qin Miao cut toward the T2 apex, Hamilton had no choice but to give the position back to Qin Miao.
Otherwise, he knew he would really be squeezed off the track by his teammate Qin Miao.
Qin Miao’s start was excellent, but ultimately this excellent start didn’t translate into a higher position.
Qin Miao was still in second place.
Of course, in general, the most direct consequence of a move like Verstappen’s is the other party ignoring you, just running their own race rhythm.
Verstappen might end up backfiring and just handing over the first place to someone else, who might not even feel any pressure.
But Qin Miao is different. Verstappen admits that Qin Miao is indeed one of the rare geniuses in F1’s history, and given time, equating to Michael Schumacher or Lewis Hamilton is not impossible. With Qin Miao’s extraordinary talent, surpassing these two legends is not difficult either.