How Did I Become an F1 Driver?-Chapter 499 - 221: Paul Ricard (6K, Bonus Update 9/19)_2

Chapter 499: Chapter 221: Paul Ricard (6K, Bonus Update 9/19)_2

Then...

The girl ended up throwing up because of Qin Miao.

This was the first person Qin Miao made throw up today.

Fortunately, she had some initiative. When she felt she was about to lose it, she grabbed the trash bag from the car.

Seeing this, Qin Miao didn’t push the limits in the subsequent turns and safely brought the car back to the pit area.

Even though this girl was made sick by Qin Miao, when Qin Miao took off his helmet and she saw he was the one who took her on the track, her eyes lit up.

Despite feeling a bit uncomfortable when she asked for dozens of photos and signatures, Qin Miao ultimately completed all his tasks and gracefully retired.

The recorded material will be handed over to the Mercedes media department, which has little to do with Qin Miao.

Soon, Qin Miao returned to the team’s home base, changed into his racing suit, and prepared for practice three.

But to be honest, among the tracks Qin Miao dislikes, Paul Ricard can rank in the top three, with Monaco naturally being first.

The main reason Paul Ricard is so disliked is due to the few reference points on the track, and the blue and red sections can even be misleading.

However, being an F1 driver, Qin Miao has a resistance to this.

And after reaching a familiarity level of 1000, Qin Miao can even mentally mirror the outline of the track.

So, despite the misleading colors, Qin Miao basically didn’t run off track during the practice sessions.

During practice three, Qin Miao completed all the testing tasks for the team.

At the end of practice three, Qin Miao ranked third.

After checking the warm-up events, the race proceeded to the qualification stage.

However, there was an accident at the start of the qualification stage.

Not even a minute into Q1, Yuki Tsunoda hit the wall, causing the first red flag of Q1.

Fortunately, neither Mercedes driver went out, so there were no tire losses.

About half a minute before practice one ended, Mick Schumacher ran off track, triggering a yellow flag, which then turned into a red flag.

Luckily, Qin Miao and Hamilton had already completed an effective Q1 time, with Stroll being the only unlucky one as he couldn’t finish his last flying lap.

Qin Miao ranked seventh with his first flying lap, successfully advancing.

Due to lack of time, Q1 will not restart.

Q2, this race was different for Qin Miao, as he didn’t use soft tires in Q2 but swapped to a new set of medium tires like the others.

It’s not that Qin Miao’s tire management is failing, but the team’s strategy group wanted him to try a change and run on medium tires to see the effect.

Moreover, Pirelli provided C4-C2 tire compounds on Paul Ricard, which are the middle three types.

In testing, the soft tires were indeed fast on this track, but they wore out incredibly quickly.

Even with Qin Miao’s tire management skills, he couldn’t sustain a red-yellow one-stop strategy on Paul Ricard. A red-white one-stop is feasible but wouldn’t be very fast.

If done, Qin Miao would inevitably face a cautious situation during the race.

Just like in the last race in Baku, where he had to slow down to protect his tires later on.

If not for Verstappen’s mistake, Qin Miao would have only brought back a second-place finish in that race.

According to the team’s simulations, if Qin Miao starts on yellow tires and then switches to white tires, his lap time might be overall two seconds slower than a red-yellow one-stop.

But given Qin Miao’s tire management skills and his offensive and defensive capabilities in the last two races, he might show more on the track.

Even if faced with a similar situation to the last race in Baku, Qin Miao wouldn’t need to worry about running out of tires and having to slow down to preserve them.

Throughout the entire race, Qin Miao would have enough tires to attack and fight on the track.

Of course, these are just the team’s calculations, outlining a strategy for Qin Miao.

Actually, Qin Miao has other strategies to choose from, but his understanding of tactics isn’t comprehensive and, as a driver, he doesn’t have the best perspective or receive much information on the track. Qin Miao usually listens to the team’s strategies.

So, for Q2’s first flying lap, Qin Miao used medium tires.

And it’s not just Qin Miao; almost all drivers switched to medium tires for the first flying lap in Q2.

Qin Miao’s first flying lap was quite good; he ended up just behind Hamilton, only 0.11 seconds slower than his teammate.

With this result, Qin Miao stayed off the track to protect his tires. His lap was nearly half a second faster than the cutoff to Q3, ensuring a safe entry to Q3.

Given Qin Miao’s laziness, he certainly wouldn’t run again.

Qin Miao ultimately ranked fifth after the Q2 clock stopped, advancing to Q3.

Q3.

Due to the special circumstances during this Grand Prix’s practice sessions, Qin Miao used fewer tires, allowing him to use two sets of new tires in Q3 and still have a fresh set of soft tires available for the race.