CHAPTER 179: CHAPTER 118: QUALIFYING SESSION

After taking the T4 curb, the road is smooth enough here, allowing for maximum use of the track width to gain adequate exit speed.

The subsequent turns 5-7 are fairly simple; once you take the right line, the way to tackle them is to ease off the throttle rather than braking.

However, since Qin Miao is using hard tires, the grip isn’t as strong as with soft tires, so he lightly tapped the brakes at T7.

Simultaneously, as he passed T7, he entered the third timing sector, and when Qin Miao exited this section, he truly felt the weight on his steering wheel exceed ten kilograms.

Entering T8, he tried to exploit the outer curb of T8 as much as possible; at this spot, all four wheels can go outside the white line, but he must avoid the gravel.

It’s not that crossing into the gravel would result in a race penalty or disqualification of lap time, but that doing so increases the risk of losing control.

After exiting T8, he went full throttle uphill to approach T9.

The exit of T9 is the third DRS detection zone, with the pit lane entry on the right.

This corner follows the standard outside-inside-outside approach; if using soft tires, he might not even need to brake and could rely solely on inertia and the car’s own speed to glide through.

But Qin Miao is different; he’s using hard tires, so even though he used every bit of track and the left tires nearly touched the green paint beside it, he applied a bit of braking while turning to avoid going off track at the T9 exit.

Then it was downhill to the final T10.

Qin Miao took the corner just like when he started his flying lap, using the outside-inside-outside approach, his tires brushing over the curbs.

After exiting the corner, he activated DRS, speeding through the finish line.

As Qin Miao’s red car sped past, Roxin, watching the data feed at the Ferrari command center, focused his gaze on the lap time representing Qin Miao: 1:15:010, temporarily in first place.

Although aware that this result happened because many drivers hadn’t begun their efforts yet, Qin Miao achieving such a time in qualifying certainly made Roxin and the team proud and excited.

After completing this lap, Qin Miao didn’t continue; although his set of hard tires was far from reaching the tire cliff and starting to degrade, the maximum speed attainable with this set was reached. No matter how he meticulously fine-tuned the details, he could only potentially gain about 0.1 seconds more.

Plus, Qin Miao’s fuel tank was empty, requiring him to return for refueling and assess what areas he could improve, and then switch to the old set of soft tires for one last flying lap.

Say no more, for Qin Miao, using hard tires to race first among a field of F2 drivers on red tires, anyone witnessing it would simply exclaim: "Awesome."

While Qin Miao returned to the pit, other drivers were still running on the track; currently, he was the only one whose car had returned to the pit.

Even after parking the car in the pit, Qin Miao hopped out of his car and ran over to the borrowed Ferrari command center where Roxin and Frankie were to check his telemetry data and compare it to the practice session tests.

Honestly, previous F2 races have rarely seen a driver like Qin Miao, who somewhat recklessly abandons the race before it’s finished.

Thus, Qin Miao earned quite a bit of television airtime along his way.

Qin Miao stayed in the pit until there were three minutes left before the end of qualifying; during this wait, the track conditions reached optimal levels.

Having already swapped to that old set of soft tires, Qin Miao re-entered the track, ready to complete his final flying lap of qualifying.

At this point, Zhou Guanyu had taken away Qin Miao’s fastest lap, with Zhou’s time at 1:14:748, just 0.262 seconds faster than Qin Miao’s.

It’s worth mentioning that Qin Miao’s initial performance still ranks third.

The grip of soft tires is simply better than hard tires; using hard tires requires easing the throttle or braking to turn.

With soft tires, there’s no need to let off the throttle or brake.

Moreover, with soft tires, driving lines can be more aggressive, entering turns without worrying about tire lock-up, and applying throttle earlier without concern for rear wheel spinning or slipping.

After completing the lap, Qin Miao’s time improved to 1:14:601, once again reaching the top and pushing Zhou Guanyu down.

After finishing this lap, although there’s still time for another flying lap, Qin Miao’s tires had already been used for three flying laps.

Originally, soft tires aren’t that durable; Qin Miao first used this set for a seven-lap long-distance test, then ran two flying laps in practice with them, and now used them for an all-out flying lap.

Despite Qin Miao’s skill boosting performance, the speed of this set of soft tires still exceeds hard tires, but the grip had begun to decline, and continuing wouldn’t allow him to break the lap time he achieved.

Therefore, Qin Miao, dodging the cars on track performing flying laps, drove back to the paddock.

Anyway, he’d already completed everything he needed to do; from here on, it was up to fate.

And just as Qin Miao drove back to the paddock, Zhou Guanyu, with one minute left in the practice session, posted a time of 1:14:416, reclaiming pole position from Qin Miao.

Even though Qin Miao, on his in-lap, heard the news, he couldn’t react in time because he had already driven into the white line zone of the pit lane, where exiting would incur a penalty.

Moreover, Qin Miao, knowing Zhou Guanyu was the one to snatch pole position, had no desire to continue contesting with Zhou; it’s quite nice for Zhou Guanyu to take pole.