How Did I Become an F1 Driver?-Chapter 894 - 354: Season Opener in Bahrain

In fact, rather than watching the drivers dominate the track, the audience prefers to see interactions and playful banter between Qin Miao and Zhou Guanyu in their daily lives. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

After all, there are so many scenes of drivers racing on the track, and once the season starts, you can see such races two or three times a month.

The daily lives of the drivers, on the other hand, can only be glimpsed from videos posted by the teams or the drivers themselves on social media.

And even those videos might be deliberately filmed and edited.

This kind of live interaction highlights a sense of authenticity.

It also makes the drivers seem more relatable and lively.

After the playful banter, Qin Miao easily headed to the team's base, and after greeting his colleagues, the work for the Bahrain Grand Prix weekend officially began.

Since he had already changed into the team uniform back at the hotel, Qin Miao didn't need to change clothes. He picked up the helmet designed for him by Qimeng for the new season and went downstairs.

The first event for Qin Miao in the morning was an interview with the FIA, where he also needed to showcase his helmet design for the season to the audience.

This year, the helmet Qimeng designed for Qin Miao no longer features red as the main color. Instead, it is primarily white with blue porcelain shards as accents.

Qin Miao's helmet and Zhou Guanyu's helmet have some similarities because both helmets include porcelain elements. However, Zhou Guanyu's helmet features Shanghai's cityscape as the background, with porcelain patterns on top and an orange banner in the middle to separate them.

But Qin Miao's is different; his helmet is overall white, then fades from a plain white color at the front towards a more mottled look at the back. Porcelain shards gradually appear until the back is interspersed with blue and white porcelain.

Qin Miao's helmet is a cohesive design, also giving an impression of speed.

Then there are the sponsor names and Qin Miao's driver number, all presented in a shard-like style. Honestly, Qin Miao is quite fond of this design.

Although both helmets contain porcelain elements, Qin Miao's is an integrated design where all elements form a complete whole.

Zhou Guanyu's helmet, however, is composed of multiple different parts. The superiority of the two helmets is a matter of personal preference.

After completing the pre-race interview and discussing the helmet design concept for this season, Qin Miao returned to the team to start his routine work for each Grand Prix weekend.

This begins with the driver meeting held during every Grand Prix weekend and the new season kickoff team photo with the car.

The person leading the driver meeting today was no longer last year's Jean Todt. The old man has stepped down, and the new person in this position is the Emirati, Mohammed bin Sulayem.

Mohammed bin Sulayem was once a rally driver and won the FIA Middle East Rally Championship 14 times.

One could say he isn't a novice in the racing world, but for F1, there's still a lot for Sulayem to learn.

He naturally started with a self-introduction, and compared to Todt, Sulayem's meeting process was somewhat cumbersome.

It rather resembled those "Let me say a few words" speeches by the principal during flag-raising ceremonies when Qin Miao was in middle school.

But despite everything, before Qin Miao got too sleepy, Sulayem managed to clearly state the track limits and new rules for the race, which were the drivers' main concerns.

Overall, there weren't many changes compared to last year's Bahrain Grand Prix, and the track limits hadn't been altered much.

After the driver meeting concluded, the drivers naturally moved to the paddock, where staff from various teams had already pushed their cars onto the track, ready for photos.

After the pre-race preparation process ended, the normal Friday practice session began.

In both practice sessions on Friday, Qin Miao didn't show much strength, not even completing a flying lap.

Meanwhile, Hamilton consistently improved his fastest lap time during the practice session.

This situation occurred partly because, after a season of racing, the team had a good grasp of Qin Miao's habits and characteristics.

They discovered Qin Miao's adaptability to cars is extraordinary. Give him a brand-new car, or one that's been adjusted in some way.

Normally, a driver would need to run four or five laps on the track to understand the car's characteristics in medium-speed, high-speed, and slow-speed corners, on straights and braking points, to find the right or suitable way to handle it.

But Qin Miao doesn't require such a complicated process. Once he sits in the car, he already knows it thoroughly.

Hamilton, on the other hand, while also not weak in adaptability, couldn't compare to Qin Miao.

Hence, during the practice session, Qin Miao shouldered more testing tasks, while Hamilton could start seeking suitable setups earlier.

Don't think Qin Miao got the short end of the stick because he took on more testing tasks. The data obtained and the car setups are more oriented towards Qin Miao's driving habits.