How Did I Become an F1 Driver?

If that really happened, then the loss for the Mercedes team might be more than just one engine; the MGU-K and MGU-H, those components close to the engine, could also be at risk of collateral damage.

So, for safety’s sake, Qin Miao voluntarily drove the car back to the pits.

"Why is Qin Miao pitting at this time?" Zhou Haoran, who had been watching Qin Miao’s movements on track, asked in confusion when he saw Qin Miao dive into the pit lane.

At the same time, the live director also cut the camera to Qin Miao coming into the pit lane.

Right now the Mercedes crew hadn’t brought out any tires or set up for a pit stop; instead, the crew on Qin Miao’s car were holding the recovery tools, ready to retire the car as soon as Qin Miao stopped.

Seeing that this pit stop wasn’t for a tire change but a straight retirement, the three Five-Star Sports commentators were briefly in disbelief.

"Huh?"

"Is Qin Miao...retiring?"

"Why? The car doesn’t look like it has any obvious issues or damage from the outside."

"He was running just fine—why retire out of nowhere?"

At this moment, the live director also played the team radio of Qin Miao’s conversation with the team from just now, though only a clipped segment.

𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

But at least, from that TR, the viewers knew Qin Miao felt there was an issue with his engine, while the team’s telemetry hadn’t picked up anything unusual; even so, Qin Miao insisted on bringing the car back.

[Comedy Mercedes]

[Last season Sanshui and Old Man never had a single retirement. At the end of the season I was still praising Mercedes’ bulletproof reliability. Can’t praise them, huh—this season their true colors show right away.]

[Sigh, Qin Miao had a real shot at the win today. Such a great chance, just gone like that.]

[Mercedes, you really deserve to get flamed!

[A dark day in Chinese motorsport history, both Zhou Guanyu and Qin Miao retired /cry]

[You upstairs, did you forget there’s one Lynk & Co in the paddock?]

...

After Qin Miao stopped his car, Reyes and the others lifted it up and then dragged it back to the garage.

Once the car was pushed back into the team garage, Frankie walked over to Qin Miao’s car with a puzzled look and asked, while Qin Miao was removing the steering wheel, "What exactly happened? Our telemetry didn’t show any anomalies."

Qin Miao himself was pretty helpless. He flipped up his helmet visor, spread his hands at Frankie, and said, "Honestly I’m not sure either, but what I’m certain about is the engine has a problem. Either it’s a mechanical failure or something else; anyway, it’s definitely gone wrong."

Even though he was still a bit doubtful, the way Qin Miao spoke now was so firm and sure that Frankie had no choice but to think in worst-case terms.

After all, in this race Qin Miao had a real chance at winning the Grand Prix. Even if he were joking, he wouldn’t joke about throwing away a race win.

To put it crudely, if Qin Miao wins a Grand Prix, the team pays him close to 1 million US Dollar in winner’s bonus. What normal person would use that million to crack a joke?

Scratching his head, Frankie said, "After the race we’ll do a focused check on the engine. If we find anything, we’ll let you know right away."

Hands on hips, Qin Miao shook his head helplessly.

Right now he was still pretty pissed. Last season, all year long, the team’s cars never had such a serious failure on track. At most it was some steering wheel software bug, or minor issues that might affect driving to some extent but wouldn’t force a straight retirement.

But in the fourth race of this season, the team suddenly turned up the intensity on him—this was something Qin Miao really hadn’t expected.

Sitting in the car sulking for a bit, Qin Miao finally climbed out, took off his helmet, and saw Toto in the garage looking at him questioningly. Qin Miao walked over and said helplessly, "I’m sure the engine has failed."

"No, it’s not that I don’t trust your judgment. I’m just very curious about which part of the car failed exactly," Toto said, arms folded.

Qin Miao thought back, then said, "The clearest feeling was a drop in power, and besides that, in the last two laps there was obvious lack of acceleration. I’m convinced those issues weren’t caused by thermal degradation."

Toto mulled it over and finally nodded to Qin Miao. "Alright. I’m sure the guys will find out where the problem is. And strictly speaking, this isn’t entirely a bad thing. The earlier we discover it, the earlier we can treat it—cough—the earlier we discover it, the earlier we can stop similar incidents from happening."

Qin Miao nodded.

Toto patted him on the arm. "Don’t dwell on this. The season is still long. You know yourself: the result of a single race matters, but it’s not irreplaceable."

Qin Miao nodded again. "If there’s nothing else, I’ll go do the post-race interviews."

Toto thought for a moment, then said, "Tell you what: once you finish the interviews, you don’t need to attend the team debrief. We’ll send a summary of the meeting to your email, you can just read it sometime next week.

After the interviews, go back to the UK or Monaco and take two days off. We’ll see each other in Miami on Thursday."

Qin Miao was a bit surprised. This was basically the team boss giving him a direct vacation. No employee would turn down time off, but he still hesitated and asked, "Is that...really okay?"

Toto waved his hand. "There’s nothing not okay about it. And if your retirement really was caused by the car’s reliability issues, the ones who should be saying sorry are us.

Alright, don’t overthink it. Go wrap up your work for today and get ready to properly relax for two days.

We’ll notify you as soon as we have the inspection results on the car. Take it easy and enjoy the break."

Qin Miao nodded and went out for the interviews.

As for the aftermath of this race?

Online, aside from complaints from Qin Miao and home fans, his retirement wasn’t actually a huge deal.

The bigger deal was that last season both Mercedes drivers never retired once in a race.

You can call F1 the pinnacle of motorsport, but put bluntly, this is a car built almost entirely by hand.

A car like that can suffer all kinds of failures on track.

Fans who’ve watched F1 for over two or three years are already used to drivers retiring out of nowhere due to sudden car failures.

And the post-race interview didn’t have much new in it either. They basically just asked why Qin Miao was so sure the car had a problem and what he thought the specific reason was.

Once that was done, Qin Miao clocked out.

Of course, clocking out along with him was Zhou Guanyu.

After all, Zhou Guanyu had also retired pretty early.

But unlike Qin Miao, after clocking out Zhou Guanyu still had to stay in the paddock; once the race was over, he needed to go to the team for the post-race debrief.

Whereas after his interviews, Qin Miao went to the team’s motorhome, got changed, and left the paddock straight away; when he left, the race on track hadn’t even finished yet.

But instead of heading back to Monaco or the UK like Toto suggested, Qin Miao flew home to China.

Compared to those places, he wanted more to go home and see his wife and daughter.

When he got home, little Muqiu still couldn’t stand yet and needed to be held all the time.

But after more than a week apart, little Muqiu no longer looked all wrinkled. Her skin had returned to what a baby’s should be—rosy, chubby, and extremely cute.

Especially when she saw Qin Miao; the little one wasn’t shy at all and burst into a smile the moment she saw him.

She even clumsily stretched out her arms to him, asking to be picked up.

With a daughter this adorable, what father could resist?

Qin Miao beamed as he scooped his little girl into his arms.

Before he walked in and saw his daughter, what he missed most was his wife, and for the little one it was more a constant concern in the back of his mind.

But when he saw the baby gazing at him, eyes wide, asking to be held, Qin Miao couldn’t help but feel his heart soften a lot.