How Did I Become an F1 Driver?

There’s definitely a reason why Verstappen’s car is so fast here, but Hamilton’s attempts to attack Sainz and Sainz’s defensive moves are also part of why such a big gap opened up in such a short time.

But in these 5 laps, Hamilton tried several times and just couldn’t find a solid chance to make a strong move on Sainz ahead of him.

Instead, their dogfight let Qin Miao fully recharge his ERS and close up to within about 0.6–0.8 seconds behind Hamilton.

If Hamilton hadn’t constantly been able to catch Sainz’s slipstream, Qin Miao would’ve taken him out long ago.

Unfortunately, Qin Miao got stuck in a DRS train again, and in this race his engine is already on the verge of needing a change, so its output just isn’t as strong as Hamilton’s power unit.

So before Hamilton made any unforced errors, Qin Miao couldn’t find any really good opening to attack for the moment.

Finally, on lap 7, after one of Hamilton’s outside-line attacks into T1 failed, Qin Miao seized the chance to dive into Hamilton’s inside line, almost brushing Sainz’s car on exit, forcefully squeezing into the inside of Hamilton’s car.

As a very experienced driver, and fully aware that his teammate’s attacking ability is in no way weaker than his own defensive skills, the Old Man, while attacking Sainz, naturally kept part of his attention on his teammate Qin Miao behind.

So when Qin Miao went for that hard dive up the inside, Hamilton did notice and wanted to defend, but this attack from Qin Miao came too suddenly, and Hamilton failed to shut the door in time.

But because he was paying attention to where Qin Miao was, the two of them didn’t end up in an incident from this sudden move.

"Qin Miao is up!"

"Late braking on the inside, Qin Miao’s trademark attack!"

"Hold Hamilton off, yes! Just like that! Don’t give Hamilton any chance!"

"Exit the corner! Get on the power! Beautiful from Qin Miao! Qin Miao is now up to third!"

Out on track, with the late braking and a full ERS dump from the start of the move, Qin Miao easily secured third place.

Hamilton wanted to take the position back, but these 7 laps of scrapping with Sainz had cost him too much time and ERS charge, and even pushed his car temperatures a bit too high, so this defense inevitably ended in failure.

After passing Hamilton, Qin Miao didn’t open team radio; he just shouted a "Nice!" inside his own helmet.

Getting too happy on the radio right now would’ve come off a bit like provoking Hamilton.

After a brief celebration, Qin Miao shifted his focus to Sainz up ahead.

After defending Hamilton for so long, even though Sainz’s battery isn’t completely drained, it definitely doesn’t have much left.

Perfect time to use this chance and take Sainz down as well.

That’s what they call "when the mantis stalks the cicada, the oriole catches the mantis."

Because when he passed Hamilton, Hamilton was attacking Sainz, Sainz was on the inside defensive line, and so when Qin Miao attacked Hamilton on the inside and exited the corner, he wasn’t dropped by Sainz.

Over the next few corners, Qin Miao didn’t need to use any ERS from his car; he didn’t even care if Sainz pulled out a slight gap on him.

Very soon, the two of them arrived one behind the other at the DRS detection point between T10 and T11.

Sainz, of course, was the first to pass this DRS detection point.

Seeing this, Qin Miao moved early to the outside, making it look like he was setting up for a wider entry angle.

Sainz, who had been glued to his mirrors, understood that Qin Miao was planning to trade a larger entry angle for higher corner entry and exit speed.

Considering there was still a Hamilton lurking right behind Qin Miao, this line choice did make some sense.

After all, with about 0.8 seconds between Hamilton and Qin Miao at this point, Qin Miao didn’t need to worry about Hamilton doing what Qin Miao had just done to him—late-braking up the inside for a dive.

So Sainz also planned to go to the outside and take a wider entry line.

His chances of successfully defending against Qin Miao’s attack this time were already low; if he stuck to the inside defensive line, Sainz figured he might get out-dragged by Qin Miao somewhere between the DRS activation point from T11 to T12.

But just as Sainz moved to the outside and hit the brakes for turn-in, Qin Miao also braked—but while braking he was still poking his nose out from behind Sainz’s car, diving up the inside.

Braking while pulling out of the slipstream is actually a very risky move.

Because then your tire grip can’t be used entirely for braking; some of that grip has to be diverted to steering, and braking while turning makes it very easy to lock the fronts and even lose control.

After all, an F1 car doesn’t have ABS; press the pedal just a bit too hard and the front wheels lock up straight away—no discussion.

So this whole sequence demands an insanely high level of brake control from the driver, to a downright terrifying degree.

Press too hard and the tires instantly lock up; press too soft and you don’t slow down enough, maybe even overshoot the corner entirely.

And as the car’s speed drops, the force you feed into the brake pedal has to gradually ease off as well.

Yet under such harsh conditions, Qin Miao still managed to keep the car under control, pulling out while braking and slowing down.

The whole move was smooth as flowing water, with no sign at all of the car wanting to get away from him; under Sainz’s stunned gaze, he slotted cleanly into Sainz’s inside line, and once they were side by side, he turned in, clipped the curb, and powered through the corner.

Next comes a very long straight.

Originally, even without passing Sainz in the corner, Qin Miao already had a high chance of using DRS and Sainz’s slipstream on the following DRS straight to get by; now that he’d passed Sainz in the corner, Qin Miao was immediately set free—once in the DRS zone, he opened DRS and simply vanished up the road.

Sainz could only let out a helpless sigh.

By the time Qin Miao braked and exited T12, the gap between him and Sainz had already opened up to a full second.

"Qin Miao! In just one lap he’s passed the two cars in front of him—that’s Qin Miao for you, absolutely devastating on both defense and attack." Watching these two overtakes, Fei clapped his hands and laughed. "Now it’s all down to whether Verstappen can withstand the pressure from Qin Miao."

Zhou Haoran said, "Right now, Qin Miao could actually afford to drive a bit more relaxed. In the next few races, as long as he finishes in the top three, the 2022 drivers’ title will end up in his hands. So you could even say Qin Miao doesn’t really need to fight Verstappen for this race win. To put it bluntly, with what he’s got now, the best thing would be for him not to get into any big scrap with Verstappen on track."

Zhou Haoran didn’t spell it out completely, but veteran fans who’ve watched F1 for a long time know what he means: if the on-track battle between Qin Miao and Verstappen gets too intense and leads to Qin Miao retiring due to a collision or some other "incident," while Verstappen goes on to win this race, that would really not be worth it.

After all, F1 is a commercial circus, and there’s definitely more shady stuff going on inside and outside the paddock than fans might imagine.

Nobody can say for sure whether certain "man-made" incidents might happen out on track.

On track, Qin Miao, of course, had no idea that the Five-Star Sports commentators were racking their brains to offer him advice; but from Qin Miao’s own point of view, if he had the pace to catch Verstappen, there was no way he’d give up the chance to fight for this race win.

And in fact, Qin Miao’s lap times were indeed strong—he was even about 0.2 seconds per lap faster than Verstappen.

But because of the early-race hold-up from Sainz, the gap between Qin Miao and Verstappen had already been stretched to 5.1 seconds.

In an F1 race, a gap that big is enough to make anyone feel despair.