Chapter 356: Chapter 174: Heart for Heart
After getting the answer he wanted, Qin Miao nodded, shook hands with Hamilton, and hugged him. After nodding slightly to Angela, he turned and jogged towards his car.
Arriving beside Qimeng, Frankie was also there, neither of them left, both looking at Qin Miao with curiosity about what he had just discussed with Hamilton.
Qimeng was worried, while Frankie was a bit apprehensive.
Qin Miao, smiling, took off his jacket and handed it to Qimeng, then turned to Frankie and said, "Tell Toto, I will do my best to complete the task he assigned."
Having said that, Qin Miao didn’t care about the surprised expressions of the two after hearing his answer and immediately picked up his helmet and sweat-absorbent mask to equip himself fully.
Then he returned to his car once again.
Watching Qin Miao, Qimeng was still a bit worried, fearing that Qin Miao might be holding a grudge, which would be dangerous to drive with such emotions on the track. She wondered what Toto was thinking by giving such a team order at this time.
Frankie, on the other hand, breathed a sigh of relief. After all, bringing Qin Miao this message might offend him, and he was afraid Qin Miao would disobey, embarrassing everyone involved.
Not only Frankie and Qimeng, but the Mercedes management who knew about Toto’s order were all puzzled. Why did Toto come up with such a weird idea? Sure, Qin Miao was the number two driver of Mercedes, but everyone could see that Toto saw him as the Crown Prince of Mercedes. Why was he suddenly treating Qin Miao like a workhorse in this race?
Yet, Toto did not explain anything and stood with arms folded, calmly sitting in his place, waiting for the race to start.
About 5 minutes before the race restarted, the race control allowed all the lapped cars to un-lap themselves, while Qin Miao and his team continued waiting in the pit lane for instructions from the race control.
After the lapped cars had been out for over two minutes, the race control informed Qin Miao and his team to follow the safety car normally out of the pit lane.
Upon receiving the notification from the race control, Qin Miao’s team members removed all equipment and sent Qin Miao out.
Before Qin Miao was Verstappen, behind him were Leclerc, Sainz, Norris, and then Hamilton.
Following the safety car for a lap, those un-lapped cars returned to their positions, joining the back of the pack to warm up tires.
As Qin Miao had anticipated, the six cars in front all switched to soft tires after the red flag.
Only in the midfield did some continue using medium tires, but no one used hard tires anymore.
At the end of lap 47, the safety car turned off its lights and went into the pit.
Verstappen then began swaying significantly from side to side to heat up his tires, and Qin Miao followed suit.
At this moment, Qin Miao had already made up his mind to help block the two Ferraris behind him for Hamilton.
Regardless of the team orders and his personal feud with Ferrari, Hamilton’s words did strike a chord with Qin Miao.
Moreover, Qin Miao didn’t really think he had the capability to catch Verstappen in front. Although he was strong, there was still a definite gap between him and Verstappen.
Admitting defeat before the fight might seem embarrassing, but Qin Miao had a clear understanding of his current abilities. If he couldn’t outrun him, he couldn’t outrun him; there’s nothing shameful about that.
Since I can’t outrun them, I’ll just go back and practice after the race is over.
After the race starts, I’ll probably just battle with Verstappen for a short while and then be gradually left behind and enter a cruising state for the rest of the race.
Since there might not be much to do in the later race, I might as well help Hamilton.
You treat me with sincerity, and I will treat you with sincerity.
Soon, the pack passed T18. At this time, Qin Miao didn’t even pay much attention to Verstappen ahead but just gave him a slight glance.
Most of Qin Miao’s attention was on his rearview mirror.
Whether Verstappen increases the gap after the start doesn’t matter to Qin Miao, but Leclerc definitely cannot overtake me at the start.
However, while keeping an eye on Leclerc, Qin Miao also intentionally used his car to block the view of Leclerc and Sainz behind him from seeing Verstappen’s car ahead.
The track was not completely dry yet; although the racing line was sufficient for two F1 cars to go side by side, it was still relatively easy for Qin Miao to block the drivers behind.
After exiting the bend, Verstappen didn’t immediately start accelerating but instead decelerated slightly and only started accelerating after a couple of seconds.
Verstappen’s operation was to create a time difference, where after T18, the drivers behind him would be highly focused, but when they found out the car ahead hadn’t started yet, they would slightly relax at that moment.
However, Qin Miao was relaxed, so he wasn’t too tense and naturally followed Verstappen’s movements to accelerate as soon as Verstappen started.
Because it was a dynamic start, and Qin Miao’s tires were adequately warmed up before the race, so the tire temperature was ideal, and he pressed the throttle down to 80% travel immediately.
Then, when his car reached third gear, he floored the throttle completely.
Despite Qin Miao’s main focus being behind him, his instinct to start made him subconsciously match the rhythm of Verstappen ahead.
Furthermore, Qin Miao realized, how did he end up in Verstappen’s slipstream?!
Even though Qin Miao’s ERS was active, the rate at which he was closing in on Verstappen was faster than he expected.
This situation happened purely because Qin Miao’s seemingly careless start turned out well.
If you scrutinize the timeline of Qin Miao and Verstappen’s starts, you’ll find that Qin Miao actually accelerated just 0.07 seconds faster than Verstappen, which was practically an anticipated start, almost like a jump start.
As a result, by the central position of T1 and T2, Qin Miao was already within 0.2 seconds behind Verstappen, with at least a 12 km/h speed advantage over Verstappen.
Verstappen had originally executed a precise timing start; although he avoided rear wheel spin by not going to the extreme when accelerating, his speed wasn’t significantly affected after starting.
But Verstappen couldn’t comprehend how the Mercedes behind him managed to catch up to his back.
Although Qin Miao’s task at this point was to help his teammate by blocking cars, since he managed to catch up to Verstappen, he temporarily couldn’t focus on helping his teammate. After overtaking Verstappen, he could then redirect his attention to blocking.
When he closed the gap to 0.2 seconds, Qin Miao naturally went for the inside line.
As soon as Verstappen noticed how quickly Qin Miao was closing in, he switched to defense mode. When Qin Miao ducked inside, Verstappen moved to block Qin Miao’s line.
Qin Miao noticed Verstappen squeezing over, so he immediately turned right, trying to find a way out from the right side. At this time, the time gap between Qin Miao and Verstappen shrank to 0.1 seconds.
And since they hadn’t reached the braking zone yet, upon seeing Qin Miao change lanes again, Verstappen shifted to the outside line to block Qin Miao’s path.
Qin Miao then had to switch to the inside line again, and now the gap between the two cars was down to 0.05 seconds, with Qin Miao’s front wing practically overlapping Verstappen’s rear diffuser.
At this point, Verstappen naturally shifted again to compress Qin Miao’s line.
However, after switching lanes twice in succession, Qin Miao had already drawn alongside the rear of Verstappen. Verstappen couldn’t simply shove Qin Miao off the track on a straight.
So, ultimately, Verstappen only squeezed Qin Miao to the edge of the track, but still left some track space for Qin Miao.
Yet, at this point, the edge of the track was slightly wet, which caused Qin Miao’s speed to drop slightly; however, Qin Miao’s original speed compared to Verstappen wasn’t slow at all, so this small loss of speed wasn’t too critical.
Meanwhile, Verstappen continued to squeeze Qin Miao’s line, similar to how Qin Miao blocked Leclerc, sealing off his entry angle completely, preventing Qin Miao from taking the usual racing line, which meant Qin Miao’s speed would definitely be impacted significantly entering T2.
ps. today is only 4000...