CHAPTER 536: CHAPTER 232: VERSTAPPEN RETIRES FROM THE RACE

After a simple lap behind the safety car and another warm-up lap, Qin Miao slowly stopped at his starting position. This was already his second pole position start in today’s race stage.

Once stopped, Qin Miao began to wait again.

This time, there would be no green flag for the restart. Once the last car at the back stopped in its position, the five red lights started to light up one by one.

"The five red lights go out, the race restarts!"

"Let’s see how Qin Miao’s start goes this time."

"Leclerc had a great start, much faster than Qin Miao, and immediately after the start, he began preparing to suppress Qin Miao on the inside line."

"Can Qin Miao hold his position at Turn 1?"

"Beautiful, Qin Miao held his position, and there was no change in the standings for the top three drivers after the start."

...

On the track, after the start, Qin Miao realized he didn’t start as well as Leclerc, but the Ferrari car was still slightly inferior, so after a brief lag at the start, he quickly regained his position.

Behind him, Hamilton, considering that his lap times were faster than both Leclerc and Qin Miao’s, and with the tense scene still fresh in his mind, made a smooth start, not trying any late braking to grab a position at T1.

After all, with DRS, he was confident he could overtake the two ahead, and without Verstappen, there was no need to rush.

In the following first sector, there was no change in the standings among the top three drivers.

Leclerc’s car couldn’t catch up with Qin Miao, while Hamilton chose to remain quietly aggressive.

Seeing this, Qin Miao prepared to maintain a gap of just over a second between himself and Leclerc.

Against Verstappen, Qin Miao dared not keep such a small gap, but against Ferrari, Qin Miao was confident. He could allow Ferrari to have DRS while not letting them overtake him, and in the corners, they would have to deal with his dirty air.

Currently, Qin Miao had two choices. One was to fully utilize his speed from the start, pushing as hard as possible without any dirty air ahead, ignoring whatever happens to Leclerc behind him.

This choice might result in Leclerc being overtaken by Hamilton within five laps, with the remainder of the time spent hunting down Qin Miao.

Alternatively, Leclerc might find it easier to defend against Hamilton without Qin Miao’s dirty air ahead.

The second choice, which Qin Miao was currently opting for, was to control the pace, using dirty air to control all the drivers behind him.

Then, relying on his incredible tire management and defensive abilities to hold off Leclerc and Hamilton.

As long as Leclerc defended against Hamilton for a long enough time, Hamilton’s tires would suffer severe wear and degradation from constant attacking, making it much easier for Qin Miao to defend against Hamilton.

With these two options laid out, which one to choose was already obvious.

The first option was uncontrollable, while the second option offered Qin Miao some maneuverability. Rather than relying on luck, Qin Miao preferred to trust his abilities, so he chose the second one.

By the fourth lap, there were no changes in the positions of the leading drivers.

On the fifth lap, after the leading drivers passed T4, the race officials announced the penalty result for the incident between Hamilton and Verstappen.

Hamilton was penalized with a ten-second penalty, and he didn’t even have to drive through the pit lane.

Of course, the race officials likely considered this was on the first lap of the race, and the incident between Hamilton and Verstappen could only be considered a normal racing accident. However, since Verstappen had retired, they needed to answer to Red Bull, so they gave Hamilton a ten-second penalty.

Of course, Toto also played a role behind the scenes, but what exactly Toto discussed with the race officials remained unknown.

However, this was just Qin Miao’s deduction after hearing Frankie’s announcement regarding Hamilton’s penalty and Toto’s disappearance for some time.

Qin Miao was not entirely sure about this.

Afterwards, Qin Miao continued to control his pace.

On the sixth lap, DRS was activated.

Leclerc also clearly saw through Qin Miao’s strategy and deliberately took a wider line exiting T4 hoping to challenge Qin Miao’s position with the upcoming DRS.

After all, who doesn’t have a bit of pride? As close as we are, I, Leclerc, wouldn’t just let you, Qin Miao, use me to attack your teammate without any resistance.

Unfortunately, Qin Miao’s 100-point defensive attribute erected a wall of sighs in front of anyone trying to attack him. Despite Leclerc pouring all his ERS, running in rich fuel mode, and having DRS assistance, his speed was incredibly fast.

But a gap of around a second cannot be closed with just one DRS zone.

Through the first DRS zone on the track, Leclerc could only barely close up to 0.4 seconds behind Qin Miao.

And in the following T6, T7, and T8 complex turns, Qin Miao extended the gap back to 0.7 seconds by leveraging his car’s advantage in low-speed corners and slightly more tire wear.

Although in the upcoming full throttle zone, Leclerc could catch Qin Miao’s slipstream.

But the Mercedes’ acceleration and speed on the straights are much faster than the Ferrari, so even after following closely, Leclerc couldn’t even pop out from behind Qin Miao to apply pressure.