Chapter 1425 - 536: Twists and Turns
[Ben Sulayem, if you can handle it, do it, if you can’t, get lost!]
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No matter how outraged the domestic public sentiment is at the moment, the fact that the FIA has issued a red flag is already established and cannot be changed.
So Qin Miao can only accept this result reluctantly, taking a folding chair from the team supplies that all WWE viewers are familiar with and placing it next to his car. Qin Miao sat down, drinking water while waiting for the red flag to be over.
During this process, there was a photographer constantly taking pictures of Qin Miao from a distance.
Naturally, Qin Miao got quite a bit of screen time.
Seeing Qin Miao sitting leisurely beside the track, Bing and his crew felt somewhat relieved.
"At least, judging by Qin Miao’s current state, this red flag hasn’t affected his mindset much."
"Uh... Bing, saying that is not exactly accurate." Zhou Haoran, who had been following Qin Miao’s team radio, said: "When the red flag appeared, Qin Miao was directly cursing in the team radio. Now he might just be sulking, or he’s just calmed down."
Bing: ...
The main reason the FIA dispatched the red flag was to prevent the safety car from leading the entire race; cleaning up the accident wasn’t that troublesome. Matthew cleared the debris on the track in just 5 minutes.
The race officials notified ten minutes prior to the red flag restart, so Qin Miao only sat by the track for 5 minutes before needing to put on his gear and return to the car.
For Qin Miao, the bad news is that compared to Verstappen, the significant tire advantage accumulated early in the race has disappeared. The good news is that Verstappen is currently using a set of soft tires that have run three laps, one of which was in qualifying.
The durability of the C4 tires at the Albert Park Circuit is not as strong as it was two weeks ago at the Saudi Arabian Coastal Bay Circuit. Soft tires start to degrade after 8 laps at Albert Park, reaching the cliff in heavy fuel state by lap 10.
Few people want to use such durable tires in the race.
And Verstappen’s team doesn’t have Qin Miao’s strong tire management skills and consistent tire-saving habits.
Therefore, they decided not to use soft tires during the race, having used up all their soft tires during practice and qualifying.
Most drivers have used their tires during this period.
The result is that apart from Qin Miao, only a few drivers have brand new soft tires available.
Qin Miao, however, has saved two sets of new soft tires.
This means that after using this set of soft tires, Qin Miao still has one set of brand new soft tires available.
This is another of Qin Miao’s few advantages.
Verstappen knows the importance of this start, so during the time behind the safety car, he has been warming up his tires, even to the point of overheating.
Qin Miao, during the time behind Verstappen, has also been continuously increasing the surface temperature of his tires.
Qin Miao has been absorbing the hot air stream from Verstappen’s car exhaust.
The goal is also to warm up his car tires.
Soon the drivers returned to T13.
Here, Qin Miao followed behind Verstappen looking normal, even without weaving to warm the tires, but throughout the warm-up lap, besides weaving, Qin Miao accelerated and braked repeatedly to increase the brake disc temperature of his car.
As a result, due to heat radiation, the tire temperature decrease rate for Qin Miao’s car was certainly slower compared to Verstappen’s car.
Finally, when coming to a stop, Qin Miao used this sudden acceleration-braking method to raise the tire temperature, hitting the brake hard, opening a long distance from Verstappen.
Seeing Qin Miao’s actions made Verstappen really want to curse, but at this moment, he is very close to the grid position and can’t actually stop the car on the track.
So Verstappen can only try to slow down and park the car in the starting grid position.
As a result, after Verstappen parked, even Hamilton had parked in the third starting position, Qin Miao’s car slowly stopped at the second position.
This time, Qin Miao’s parking position was not so extreme because he didn’t look for a reference object; he simply parked his car normally.
Pan knew Albert Park Circuit’s characteristics, so after stopping at the first position, Pan’s car front tilted slightly toward the inside line.
This is to cut in front of Qin Miao’s car without any tire traction loss after the start, reducing the threat from Qin Miao.
Just after Qin Miao parked, smoke started coming out of the tire position due to the brake temperature being too high.
Seeing this scene, both Verstappen and Hamilton immediately had some unrealistic ideas in their minds.
Don’t be fooled by the high brake temperature, which can warm the car’s tires, but high brake temperature indicates reduced brake efficiency of the car.
So at T1, even if Qin Miao cuts into the inside line, the brake point’s choice will certainly be earlier.