Chapter 1261 - 474: Fainting Ferrari and Alfa Romeo
The reason for this is something Qin Miao doesn’t know, the team here hasn’t given a definite answer, but luckily there’s no other unexpected issues.
Yet due to this sudden issue, Qin Miao started his practice significantly later than the team’s estimation, nearly half an hour late.
It’s important to know that before the qualifying rounds begin, all teams only have one practice session to familiarize with the track.
However, once Qin Miao was on the track, his speed and state weren’t affected by this incident.
Maybe this is the calm composure of a world champion.
But the time left for Qin Miao to practice in this competition was already limited, so this unexpected incident resulted in limited data obtained during the first practice.
It just barely allowed Qin Miao to find a relatively suitable setup for the current Interlagos track before the qualifying rounds began.
Also due to this first practice, almost 40 minutes of practice time was lost.
In the afternoon qualifying, Qin Miao decided not to challenge the fans’ nerves like he usually does.
He just ran the race as normal.
After all, the remaining time from the first practice was indeed not enough for Qin Miao to deeply understand how to push the car to its limits under the current aerodynamic conditions on the Interlagos track.
But sometimes unexpected incidents tend to arrive earlier than tomorrow, after the first practice ended, it started raining on the track.
Though the rain wasn’t heavy, it lasted particularly long, stopping only when the qualifying rounds were about to begin.
During these 4 hours of break, the rain didn’t stop.
Thus, when the qualifying rounds began, there was still deep standing water on the track.
So, all drivers switched to intermediate tires and kept racing on the track.
The goal was naturally to seize the moment when track conditions were better to achieve better scores.
However, as the time for Q1 progressed, the racing line on the track gradually emerged from the drivers’ laps.
Gasly was the first driver to enter the pit and switch to soft tires.
After he exited the pit, the eyes of almost all drivers and team strategy engineers in the paddock were focused on Gasly.
During the first flying lap, Gasly didn’t achieve good results due to low track and tire temperatures, but by the second lap, Gasly pushed and ran purple in three sectors.
When Gasly was running his first flying lap, most teams called their drivers back to the pits, as track conditions indeed allowed switching to dry tires, Gasly’s flying lap was the best proof.
Even though many teams were aware of this prior to it happening, they didn’t call their drivers to the pit early for tire changes, mainly to avoid the risk of making wrong bets.
However, the Interlagos track is not long.
Therefore, traffic issues are inevitable during the Q1 phase of the qualifying round.
The batch of drivers who first changed tires faced the least traffic issues as they were running their flying laps while other teams’ drivers entered the pits for tire changes.
Qin Miao and Hamilton naturally were among the first batch to benefit from the tire change.
Mercedes’ strategic team was quite keen in this aspect.
However, some teams persistently face difficulties in pit strategies, stubbornly unable to resolve them.
Stop looking around, I’m talking about you, Alfa Romeo!
To be honest, listening to Zhou Guanyu complain while chatting, Qin Miao even had the feeling that pulling in an experienced commentator... or not even that, an experienced fan of racing, and giving them a set of team strategy tools and prediction data, they’d probably do better than Alfa Romeo’s bunch.
Back to the point.
Due to the low track temperature and air temperature, drivers need at least two laps to elevate their tires to the suitable operating window. In the following laps, as the tires get hotter, the scores naturally improve.
Therefore, the later the drivers pit, the bigger disadvantage they face.
And Alfa Romeo is notorious for being insensitive in pit strategies, or to put it bluntly: dumb.
The two Alfa Romeo drivers were basically the last to pit for tire changes, and after coming out, not only did they face traffic issues, but the team also left them little time for their tires to warm up.
Hence, the two Alfa drivers only got the chance to run one flying lap.
Naturally, there weren’t any impressive results.
The drivers eliminated in Q1 were: Russell, Zhou Guanyu, Bottas, Tsunoda, Mick.
In the last match, Alfa Romeo’s two drivers were frequently pacing into Q3, but this match saw them both out in Q1, which is really quite poignant.
In Q2, light rain started to drizz again on the track, but it wasn’t heavy and with the continuous racing, raindrops on the racing line would soon be evaporated by the high-temperature tires of the cars passing by.
Due to this special condition, track conditions could improve or worsen at any time.
Thus, even though all Q2 drivers were using dry tires, they continuously tried to brush single-lap times on the track; nobody dared to leave, even the usually lazy Qin Miao stayed on the track.