How Did I Become an F1 Driver?

However, after Qin Miao was flung down to the ground, he inevitably landed in the last position.

After all, it’s just the start, and everyone is still closely packed. With Perez and Qin Miao delaying like this, they directly fell to the back.

Even though Qin Miao started immediately after landing, he found that his car was accelerating very slowly with the broken undertray.

After a brief feeling, Qin Miao’s expression was not very good.

Visually, his car seemed only damaged at the undertray, while other parts still showcased the precision and robustness of German engineering.

However, upon further inspection, Qin Miao discovered issues with the fuel line inside the car’s engine.

The fuel pump was cracked, significantly lowering fuel delivery efficiency.

Fuel was even leaking out.

But since the fuel pump was far from the engine, the leaked fuel hadn’t ignited from the engine’s high heat.

...

While Qin Miao was quickly checking the status of his car on the track, Frankie’s TR also came through.

"Qin Miao, are you okay? Are you hurt?"

Hearing Frankie’s words, Qin Miao checked his body consciously.

Apart from the slight numbness caused by adrenaline, Qin Miao didn’t feel any discomfort.

"I’m fine, help me check the time loss from this accident."

"Received, we will report this accident to the FIA, don’t worry too much."

"Okay."

Leaving aside the car damage, at least from the TR communication, it wasn’t hard to judge that Qin Miao’s mood was stable and he was uninjured.

For the team, car damage is secondary as long as Qin Miao is unhurt.

After saying this, Qin Miao continued driving on the track, but the engine RPM simply wouldn’t go up.

At least his four tires were intact, and he wasn’t overtaken by Perez, who had already blown a tire but was still on the track.

Both continued driving slowly on the track.

At this time, the race issued a Virtual Safety Car.

After the collision between Qin Miao and Perez, Qin Miao lost the entire undertray, and although there weren’t many fragments, there were still considerable debris on the track for Matthew to clear.

In contrast to Qin Miao’s calmness, Perez seemed angrier.

This tire burst completely ruined Perez’s race today.

At least for the last race of the 2022 season, Perez lost his chance to fight for the podium, and his ranking on the driver’s points table was now at the mercy of fate.

With good luck, Hamilton didn’t win, Perez’s car isn’t overly damaged, just a tire burst. He can continue running in the later stage of the race to score points, securing his fourth position for the year.

With bad luck, Hamilton might win strongly, Perez crashed out, and his contract for next season could be in jeopardy.

Perez’s driving at the time had its reasons; although he was running on the outside line, slightly breaking FIA rules, he did nothing that was substantially detrimental to Qin Miao.

This collision was also caused by Qin Miao changing lanes to the outside, even if I was 99% at fault, doesn’t Qin Miao have at least 1% of the fault?

So in his team’s TR now, he was cursing openly.

Perez was undoubtedly the one who lost the most.

Because for Qin Miao, even if he retired immediately from today’s race, no one would speak ill of his performance this year.

After all, he’s the world champion.

But at this moment, Perez is competing with Hamilton for fourth of the year. If he retires now or doesn’t perform well, it directly affects his next driver contract and how the team evaluates his abilities.

On his way back to the team paddock, Qin Miao unsurprisingly received the team’s notification.

"Pull over, Qin Miao, we need to find a spot near the Matthew entrance to park."

Even though he already knew the specific malfunction, hearing the team notification still made Qin Miao feel a sense of helplessness.

But Qin Miao still had to put on a show, as the malfunction wasn’t visible from the outside, and he couldn’t possibly know what went wrong while sitting in the car.

So Qin Miao decelerated while finding the Matthew entrance between T4 and T5, slowly brought the car to a halt: "What happened? What’s wrong?"

"The fuel line pressure dropped, engine RPM insufficient, the team suspects a fuel leak with potential fire risk, shut the engine off after parking and exit the car."

"Alright."

To be fair, the team was truly experienced, even without inspecting the car; just by analyzing telemetry data, they could approximately guess the issue’s location.

But this should come as no surprise, given their ample time in F1, the champion team certainly has its own system for evaluating vehicle conditions.

Simultaneously, over at Five-Star Sports, the commentators wore expressions of incredulity and surprise.

Throughout the entire 2022 season, Qin Miao had never encountered an accident on the track.

Nor had he retired during a race.

The commentators at Five-Star Sports all thought Qin Miao would complete the season smoothly, but no one expected such an event to occur on track.

"Oh no, Qin Miao retired?!" Bing and others were already anxious watching Qin Miao’s accident this season, and seeing him gradually slow down and stop at the track’s edge was somewhat disheartening.

Even though they had little expectation of Qin Miao’s performance today, you can’t retire in the first lap of the race!

"It’s likely that the crash just now caused an issue with the car," Zhou Haoran said, "and probably an engine problem since we can see Qin Miao’s tires and suspension weren’t visibly damaged."

If the commentors at Five-Star Sports were only mildly surprised, the Mercedes team was downright subdued after notifying Qin Miao to retire by the roadside.

On track, Perez only suffered a blown tire, slowed down, but once he returned to the paddock and fitted new tires, he could continue the race.

However, Qin Miao’s fuel lines in the car were faulty, making his retirement almost inevitable.

Even with Hamilton winning this Grand Prix, unless Perez and Verstappen retire, Mercedes couldn’t clinch today’s race championship.

This left the atmosphere within the Mercedes team extremely heavy.

Toto exhaled deeply with his arms crossed.

Now, Toto’s expression was quite grim, but he didn’t lose his temper, and no one knew what was on his mind.

Meanwhile, after parking at the Matthew entrance, Qin Miao naturally turned off the engine and got out of his car.

At this moment, Qin Miao was unexpectedly composed and waved off Matthew who rushed to him, indicating he was alright.

Then, somewhat curiously, Qin Miao moved to the side of his car and squatted to examine the undertray.

The entire undertray was mostly gone from the collision with Perez, leaving only a few carbon fiber scraps hanging on its edges. From Qin Miao’s angle, he could even see a chunk of wood beneath the car as hard as titanium alloy.

Sighing deeply,

With years of racing experience, Qin Miao had developed an understanding of how the effectiveness of aerodynamic kits could impact a car’s performance.

By looking at the damage to his undertray, Qin Miao knew even without the fuel line and pump issues, his race pace would significantly drop in the following stages, losing at least 0.5 seconds per lap.

Moreover, the loss of the undertray affects not only the downforce but also the overall balance of the car.

The issues might manifest as oversteering entering turns and understeering while exiting them.

If he found during the race that no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t reach the points zone, he might outright abandon the race.

Qin Miao would rather retire than have his career record show a race in which he failed to score a single point.