CHAPTER 529: CHAPTER 230: AN EXPERIMENT, PART 2

This process happens quickly, feeling a bit like using a computer from earlier times when it might freeze, and you’d hit F4 to refresh the desktop occasionally.

However, as computer performance became more powerful, with better CPU capabilities, Qin Miao now rarely presses F4 or right-clicks to refresh his desktop while playing on the computer.

The main point of doing so is that it highlights a sense of having nothing else to do.

Soon, under the notification from the race officials, Reyes and the others withdraw, and the tire warming lap begins.

During the tire warming lap, Qin Miao just runs normally, you could even say at a somewhat slow pace.

To warm up the tires, it’s mainly about accelerating and then braking. However, as the tire warming lap is about to end, when Qin Miao is going to stop the car at his starting grid position, he applies a heavy brake, reaching over six hundred degrees on the brake pads.

After the heavy brake, Qin Miao slowly parks his car in the starting grid.

When parking, the front wheels are just a little short of, perhaps about a centimeter, touching the white parking line.

After parking, Qin Miao waits for the official start of the sprint qualifying.

About a minute later, the subsequent cars gradually stop at their starting grids.

And at this moment, Qin Miao already sees sparks flying from his brakes.

Due to the high temperature of the brakes, Qin Miao’s tires are still maintaining a temperature of around 94°, which is the optimal working temperature.

With the medical car positioned at the back of the grid, the green flag waves, and the five red lights light up one by one.

Qin Miao takes a deep breath, then exhales halfway and holds his breath, his eyes fixed on the five red lights above.

"Beep... beep... beep... beep... beep!!"

"Boom!"

At the moment the five red lights go out, Qin Miao sharply depresses the accelerator pedal halfway, and as his car’s speed gradually increases, the depth of the accelerator pedal also progressively deepens. Finally, when the car reaches 110 kilometers per hour, Qin Miao presses the accelerator paddle fully.

Only at this moment does Qin Miao confirm that his start was fine.

From the start to the middle of T1, there is a straight, during which Qin Miao takes a glance in his rearview mirror to check Hamilton’s exact position.

However, what Qin Miao did not expect was that Hamilton’s start wasn’t great, while Verstappen’s start was noticeably faster than Hamilton’s.

So, before entering T1, Verstappen is already on the outside line overtaking Hamilton, and before T1 surpasses Hamilton, sucking Qin Miao’s slipstream into T1.

To be honest, at that time, Qin Miao could have helped block Verstappen for Hamilton; he only needed to move slightly to the inside during Q1, and Verstappen’s acceleration at the T1 exit would be influenced by the slipstream of his car.

But Qin Miao didn’t do that; he just entered and exited the corner normally.

He chose to do so because he felt that compared to Hamilton, it is easier to defend against Verstappen.

After all, Qin Miao has had many strategic battles with Verstappen on the track. He can’t say he knows Verstappen’s attacking habits inside out, but he is indeed quite familiar.

He knows what attack strategies are used in which corners, and he knows Verstappen’s cornering habits.

Therefore, putting Verstappen ahead, Qin Miao’s defensive pressure is significantly less.

Despite some unexpected events occurring on the track after the start, overall, it was in line with Qin Miao’s interests.

Everyone was somewhat surprised by Hamilton’s performance at the start of today’s race.

In the first lap after the start, Qin Miao pushed a little, and Hamilton from behind kept pressuring Verstappen during the race, trying to overtake, but Verstappen defended fiercely, leaving no chance for the car behind.

In fact, in terms of high-speed corners, Red Bull is faster than Mercedes, so after defending Hamilton’s attack in the first timing sector, entering the combination corners of the second sector T10-T14, Verstappen pulls away from Hamilton.

After T14, Verstappen directly extends his lead over Hamilton by 0.5 seconds behind him, showcasing the terrifying speed of Red Bull in high-speed corners.

However, even so, Verstappen doesn’t reduce the distance to Qin Miao.

Even though Mercedes isn’t as fast as Red Bull in high-speed corners, Qin Miao is using soft tires. Moreover, the two fought so intensely in the first few corners of the first two timing sectors, that Qin Miao has already pulled more than a second ahead.

After completing the first lap, the live broadcaster shows the gap between drivers: Qin Miao is 1.2 seconds ahead of Verstappen, and Hamilton is 1.1 seconds behind Verstappen. None of the top three drivers are within DRS range of each other.

Actually, the most impressive performance among the 20 drivers is from Brother Alonso.

He started from eleventh with soft tires, and after the first lap, moved directly up to fifth, highlighting an unbelievable vigor, remaining strong with age.

Kimi, who also started with soft tires, moved up four positions to thirteenth.

On the second lap, Qin Miao continued to expand his gap to Verstappen, reaching 1.6 seconds.

However, after the gap reached 1.6 seconds, Qin Miao began to slow down his pace.

Roughly maintaining the 1.6-second gap with Verstappen to conserve tires.

If Verstappen got closer, Qin Miao would use his tire advantage to push a bit, and if the gap widened, he would slow down his pace a bit.

It feels somewhat like fishing.

After that, there wasn’t much change in positions among the drivers in the lead group.

Qin Miao conserves his tires leisurely at the front, and because Qin Miao creates turbulent air at the front, Verstappen can’t widen the gap with Hamilton behind him in a short period, so the two soon become entangled in a struggle.

Although the situation at this point deviates somewhat from what Qin Miao had envisioned at the start of the race, the result remains the same.

This tranquil picture persisted until lap 6.

Perez, who had dropped two positions after the start, made a mistake exiting T13; he was too hasty on the throttle, causing the rear wheels to lose grip entirely, with the car sliding out of the broadcast frame.

Fortunately, he didn’t crash, stopping on the grass about two meters from the barrier, then stumbled back onto the track.

But his set of tires is done for, as is this sprint qualifying for him.

However, that was about the only highlight of this sprint qualifying because other than this, there wasn’t much happening on the track.

Not to say there were no overtakes and defenses among the drivers on the track.

But everyone knows the priorities; this is just a sprint qualifying session, and except for the top three, no positions yield any points.

But if you retire in the race, tomorrow’s race points and the exposure for team sponsors are at risk.

Therefore, everyone’s offense and defense were very restrained, and not as decisive as overtakes in the race proper, with the overtaken driver not giving an inch.

As long as your speed is faster than the car in front, with DRS, and a strong overtaking desire, the driver in front usually won’t defend vigorously.

They will merely hold the inside line; if you overtake from the outside, they’ll acknowledge it.

After all, only the top three drivers receive points in this race, and during the main race phase, everyone can freely choose their starting tires, making sprint qualifying positions evidently less crucial than a smooth start in the main race.

So except for the top three drivers, no driver will take the risk of retiring or crashing to overtake.

After 17 laps, Qin Miao, Verstappen, and Hamilton cross the finish line one after another.

This sprint qualifying session ended somewhat abruptly.

Typically, at this point, drivers would attend a post-race interview, receive an award, and call it a day.

But because this sprint qualifying session was too short, not even an hour, the FIA held a post-race driver parade-like float event.