How Did I Become an F1 Driver?

Over the past two years, Hamilton has also studied Qin Miao’s racing style. Qin Miao has excellent driving habits, with every maneuver aimed at maximizing the car’s durability.

Some operations are complex and cumbersome, yet for Qin Miao, they seem instinctive.

Hamilton tried Qin Miao’s driving method, but the effort required and the benefits gained were disproportionate.

This approximately 5 percent boost in overall durability doesn’t have a decisive impact on Hamilton’s position in the drivers’ standings.

Thus, the Old Man decided to abandon this approach completely.

Ignoring the differences in vehicle performance, Hamilton observed that Qin Miao was notably more aggressive in his cornering compared to his own driving.

Many corners that Hamilton himself is uncertain about, Qin Miao navigates smoothly.

Especially in the second timing sector’s castle corner, famously known as the "I am stupid" corner.

Qin Miao takes this corner very aggressively, scraping the left front tire against the left guardrail when entering, and lightly brushing the right rear tire against the right guardrail when exiting, leaving scratch marks without tearing anything off.

Old Man concluded that Qin Miao is extremely aggressive when everyone else’s familiarity with their cars decreases due to less practice time, daring to push the limits.

In those extreme corners, he has carved out such a significant speed advantage.

Yet the Old Man remains puzzled; how can Qin Miao dare to drive like this? Isn’t he afraid of crashing?

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Of course, this is all in hindsight.

On the track now, Qin Miao feels relieved after securing pole position.

Before the qualifying session started, Qin Miao hadn’t expected to win pole today.

After all, Qin Miao himself isn’t fully aware of this car’s limits, feeling somewhat hesitant in corners where he could be more extreme.

But unexpectedly, others performed even worse.

FIA, in a way, helped him out.

Notably, this pole position is the first one Qin Miao has secured during this qualifying session in the 23rd season.

Finally, the Sunday race starting order is as follows:

1: Qin Miao 1:39.897

2: Hamilton

3: Leclerc

4: Verstappen

5: Perez

6: Sainz

7: Alonso

8: Norris

9: Tsunoda

10: Stroll

The fact that pole position and second place are occupied by Qin Miao and Hamilton isn’t surprising.

After all, the speed of the two Mercedes drivers is indeed impressive, and the Mercedes cars are well-suited to this track.

What’s really surprising is that Leclerc managed to take third place, while Red Bull didn’t even enter the top three.

When Qin Miao returned to the pit lane and parked the car to prepare for interviews, he was surprised to see a red Ferrari parked beside him.

After parking the car, Qin Miao jumped out and, instead of talking much with his teammate Hamilton, curiously asked Leclerc beside him, "How did you beat Red Bull? Did Verstappen and Perez make mistakes on the track?"

Leclerc rolled his eyes while taking off his helmet and said, "Can’t I rely on my own strength?"

It’s not just bragging; Leclerc truly relied on his faster adaptability to the car and familiarity with the track to secure this position.

Perhaps Leclerc secretly practiced these corners repeatedly to get closer to the track’s limits during qualifying and the race.

Yet, despite pushing his car to the limit, Leclerc still couldn’t outrun the Mercedes on the track.

The tail speed of the Mercedes is just too fast.

Inside, Leclerc has a voice telling him that if he and Qin Miao were driving cars with the same performance, he wouldn’t necessarily be slower.

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After a brief chat with Leclerc, Qin Miao didn’t bother with Leclerc anymore.

Whether it’s luck or the noticeable improvements Ferrari’s upgrades brought over the course of three weeks to the car’s performance deficiencies this season, it’s not something Qin Miao needs to be concerned with right now.

Weighing in, winning the trophy, and signing small tires.

These processes were tedious for Qin Miao last season, and it’s the first time he’s experiencing them this season, bringing about a unique sense of feeling.

After completing post-race interviews, Qin Miao didn’t go celebrating but returned to the team’s motorhome to check his qualifying telemetry data.

After all, there’s another qualifying race to be run tomorrow, and understanding the limits of his car early will make the sprint qualifying easier.

His speed could be faster too.

After all, tomorrow’s sprint qualifying somewhat determines tomorrow’s sprint race finishing positions.

During such a race, unless one has absolute or complete confidence, no one will risk car damage to attempt overtaking at that stage.

Nonetheless, Friday’s Mercedes was undoubtedly triumphal, with both Mercedes drivers securing the front row for Sunday’s start.

Saturday, the day sprint qualifying and the sprint race begin.

In the morning driver meeting, Toto personally told the two drivers, "Sprint race points are limited. Our main focus shouldn’t be on this race, so during the sprint qualifying phase, avoid causing car damage because such damage will incur penalties during Sunday’s race."

Both drivers agreed. From the team’s perspective, these 8 points have negligible impact on the team’s overall ranking and drivers’ positions in the standings.

Rather than fighting desperately for these eight points, it’s better to relax; securing points would be pleasing, and missing them would not be regrettable.

Since Saturday is a standalone mini grand prix, before the race began, all the grandstands within the paddock were filled.

The buildings along the street were also crowded with people.

Perhaps FIA’s reforms aimed to see such grand scenes.

One must admit, FIA’s approach effectively sold out most tickets for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

At least the regular tickets for Friday and Saturday aren’t left over like during typical Grand Prix weekends.

Upon arriving in the paddock, Qin Miao’s Grand Prix weekend routine remained unchanged.

Soon, it was time for the sprint qualifying.

With the familiarity from yesterday’s qualifying, Qin Miao now has a deeper understanding of his car’s setup tuning, but still faces the issue of limited practice session times.

When Qin Miao turned back, he realized that there’s room for improvement in the car setup from the practice session, such as improving the overall balance and raising the rear downforce, by increasing the rear wing angle by about two degrees for better overall balance.

The increase in rear wing angle wouldn’t excessively affect W14’s acceleration but would provide higher mechanical grip during acceleration.

Overall, the latter provides greater advantages to the car.

Aside from this, there are many setup details that can be improved. All in all, Qin Miao believes he has a 0.1 second improvement margin on single-lap speed.

Don’t think this 0.1 second is negligible; in fact, at the level of Qin Miao and his peers, lap times are calculated in increments of 0.1 seconds or 0.01 seconds. Their results are accumulated through these fine margins.

But before the race starts, seeing Hamilton’s car setup, Qin Miao felt balanced because Old Man’s setup was worse than his own.

Although their driving habits differ and they use different car setups, the performance of their cars is the same.

Their driving habits are similar, so most of the time, their setups are interchangeable.

Therefore, Qin Miao can understand Hamilton’s setup, and naturally, Hamilton can understand Qin Miao’s setup too.

Coincidentally, they shared setup configurations.

As a result, Old Man’s face was full of worries when he came to compete in the sprint qualifying on Saturday.

It seems that in this Grand Prix, he might not outperform Qin Miao again...