How Did I Become an F1 Driver?

Of course, the most crucial point is that Leclerc knows he can’t hold off Qin Miao even if he tries, as Mercedes’ car, after improvements, is incredibly fast on the straights.

The Rodriguez circuit is also considered a comfortable track for Mercedes under current conditions.

Right now, many teams’ R&D departments are struggling, because the two most competitive teams on the track, Red Bull and Mercedes, have completely different car design languages, and crucially, both teams’ cars are very fast.

The smaller teams definitely don’t match the big teams like Mercedes and Red Bull in terms of independent car development. At this point, they will certainly take the opportunity towards the end of the season to borrow easily adoptable designs from Mercedes or Red Bull to enhance their competitiveness for the next season.

But damn, there are too many options to copy this season. Red Bull is very strong, and the improved Mercedes is also not to be overlooked. Everyone is unsure about whose designs to emulate at this moment.

Ferrari: What about me? What about me?

Ferrari’s design indeed has its merits, but ever since the TD039 technical directive was issued, Ferrari has been on a downward spiral, so their design language hasn’t even been considered for imitation.

It was directly excluded from the range of options by the design teams of the mid and lower-tier teams.

Back to the main subject, after overtaking Leclerc, Qin Miao’s gap to the front runner, Sainz, was down to 4 seconds.

Though it seems a lot, Sainz was using soft tires, and he was beginning to experience a drop in grip at this point.

So, Qin Miao started closing in on Sainz by 0.6 seconds per lap.

On lap 24, Perez pitted.

During this tire change, Red Bull team picked a big task for Perez.

Perez’s tire change crew, who hadn’t made a mistake in tire changes the entire season, unfortunately encountered an error at his home track, and the 5-second pit stop even led many Mexican fans with unique backgrounds to harbor murderous intentions.

But the 17-second gap between Perez and Sainz behind him calmed these people down.

Even with a slight pit stop error today, it wouldn’t affect Perez from reaching the podium at the end of this race, as the gap between Sainz and Perez was a bit too large.

And Perez, upon exiting the pit lane, fell directly behind Leclerc.

Having already overtaken Leclerc, Qin Miao couldn’t provide any trouble for Perez on the track.

On lap 26, Verstappen pitted and changed to medium tires in 2.5 seconds.

It seems Red Bull is planning for both their drivers to run a one-stop strategy with red and yellow tires for this race.

And it was also on this lap that Qin Miao just overtook Sainz in front, advancing to third place, though this was just an illusion, as Qin Miao’s actual position was fourth.

However, Hamilton, who was running on medium tires and constantly pressuring Verstappen, didn’t pit along with Verstappen.

Because the speed of the medium tires in today’s race was quite decent, with little degradation, since Verstappen pitted, Hamilton could focus on running his own pace on the track.

As for Qin Miao, when Verstappen pitted, he obtained a position 2 seconds behind Qin Miao. Honestly, Qin Miao considered trying to catch up to give Pan some pressure.

But Pan’s new medium tires were still quite fast, and Qin Miao couldn’t quite keep up with Verstappen’s pace.

When Verstappen just exited the pit lane, Qin Miao shortened the gap by 0.5 seconds during the first timing sector, but once Verstappen’s tires warmed up, Qin Miao was gradually pulled away again.

Seeing this, Qin Miao didn’t persist stubbornly and slightly slowed down to conserve his tires, while waiting to see if a safety car would be summoned at a crucial moment.

On lap 30, Hamilton pitted and switched to hard tires. Hamilton’s tire choice indicated he planned to finish with a one-stop strategy.

Actually, Hamilton intended to extend his stint time, then, like Qin Miao, switch to soft tires in the race’s latter stages.

But the team believed that Verstappen’s and Perez’s medium tires would certainly experience significant degradation in the race’s latter stages, so they called Hamilton into the pits.

As for Qin Miao...

Qin Miao’s medium tire speed stability was just too high, consistently within the range acceptable to the team, so the team also felt there was no need to call Qin Miao into the pits to change tires.

Subsequently, the front-row drivers on the track also pitted one after another.

Apart from Ferrari’s pit stop mistakes, other teams’ pit stops didn’t have significant errors.

And Ferrari’s pit stop mistake didn’t affect the positions of their two drivers.

After all, Ferrari’s two drivers stood out today for being caught between positions, with gaps of over 10 seconds both in front and behind them.

After changing to new tires, the drivers returned to their rightful positions.

At this point, apart from Hamilton constantly pressuring Verstappen from within 1.5 seconds behind him, time gaps between other drivers were over 3 seconds.

All were cruising on the track.

On lap 45, Qin Miao pitted with 26 laps left in the race.

After this pit stop, Qin Miao naturally switched to the soft tires he had been anticipating.