CHAPTER 558: CHAPTER 243: NECK AND NECK (6K, BONUS 1/16)

Indeed, as the commentators mentioned, Qin Miao’s performance this season is astonishing.

This race is also full of excitement.

Hamilton dropped from heaven to hell due to incorrect team instructions, even plummeting several layers deeper, while Qin Miao was involved in the crash at the start, causing his ranking not to be particularly impressive.

In this race, we witness not only a car accident but also a car starting from the grid, and even see the two Mercedes drivers starting from the back of the pack to seek the championship throne, alongside Verstappen struggling for survival on the track.

All the elements, highlights, and famous scenes are maxed out.

From the perspective of Mercedes and its two drivers, their task for this race is simple: just finish ahead of Verstappen, and after surpassing Verstappen, push forward as much as possible to gain more points.

After all, apart from their own teammate, Verstappen is their biggest competitor across the entire paddock.

After all, only the total points of these three are close enough to challenge each other for the driver’s championship at the end of the season.

Crossing the line in the seventh lap, Hamilton set the fastest lap time of 1 minute 24.374 seconds.

In the eighth lap, Latifi was already 8.1 seconds behind Vettel, and due to Latifi’s suppression, none of the rear drivers could quickly pull away from each other, so all of them had the advantage of DRS at this moment.

This made it even more difficult for Qin Miao and Hamilton to overtake.

In the ninth lap, Qin Miao finally closed the gap to 0.5 seconds behind Kimi in front, gaining the ability to attack.

Honestly, facing his senior, Qin Miao also felt it was tricky.

And it’s worth mentioning that both Mercedes cars faced the same situation.

Qin Miao had to overtake Alfa Romeo’s Kimi ahead, while Hamilton behind had to overtake Alfa Romeo’s Giovinazzi.

The situation Qin Miao faced at the moment was that he couldn’t find a good overtaking opportunity.

Kimi is experienced after all, and many times when Qin Miao applied pressure, it felt like punching into cotton; no matter how he darted out, braked late, or feinted in the straight, Kimi remained unmoved.

As long as Qin Miao didn’t make a substantial attack, Kimi seemed to ignore Qin Miao’s moves, running his own race rhythm normally.

Whenever Qin Miao launched an attack, Kimi always managed to defend the most comfortable overtaking lines from Qin Miao.

Now Qin Miao has realized how frustrating his defensive driving can be for the car behind.

From the ninth lap, Qin Miao kept trying until the eleventh lap when he realized that Kimi’s defensive capabilities were quite extraordinary.

Moreover, Russell in front kept providing DRS to Kimi, so if Qin Miao wanted to overtake Kimi, he had to charge his battery to at least 70% and rely on sheer speed to overtake.

Unlike Qin Miao’s struggles to overtake, behind, Giovinazzi was pushed out of DRS range by Gasly, and in the tenth lap, Hamilton overtook him using DRS.

In the thirteenth lap, Qin Miao charged his car’s battery to 76%, and before the long straight before the start, he reduced the gap to Kimi in front to 0.6 seconds.

This wave was Qin Miao’s long-prepared offensive.

Yet, Kimi defended it.

When Kimi noticed Qin Miao rapidly approaching with ERS, he immediately guarded the inside line.

Indeed, Qin Miao passed three-quarters of Kimi’s car body on the outside before the braking point of T1.

But just when Qin Miao was ready to enter the corner, Kimi moved slightly wider, blocking Qin Miao’s best crossover line.

At this moment, Qin Miao truly felt frustrated, that he clearly had a chance to overtake the opponent, but the opponent used little tricks to block his overtaking route.

Either you speed up and force the opponent to change lanes and let you pass, or the two cars will crash together, or you obediently ease the throttle and wait for the next attack opportunity.

There’s a Chinese saying that goes, "The barefooted are not afraid of those wearing shoes."

In the battle between Qin Miao and Kimi, Qin Miao became the one wearing shoes.

So Qin Miao’s attack failed again.

Honestly, Qin Miao became a bit anxious; even later in T5, to shorten the distance with Kimi, he made a small mistake with a rear-wheel slip.

This was because Qin Miao forgot that his rear diffuser was damaged, making the mechanical grip not as strong as in normal conditions.

Though it was quickly recovered with Qin Miao’s masterful counter-steer, only causing a slight drop in exit speed, resulting in some tire wear.

From these signs, it’s clear from Qin Miao’s current maneuvers how impatient he feels inside.

This scene was also noticed by Frankie and the Mercedes strategy team. After some thought, Frankie said to Qin Miao in the TR: "Qin Miao, our car’s rear diffuser is damaged now, making it impossible to gain more advantages at the corner exit. We have two options now: the first is to continue with the original plan and attack Kimi normally.

The second is fifty, which do you choose?"

The fifty that Frankie mentioned was in Chinese, meaning when there are fifty laps left in the race, Qin Miao would pit for hard tires, which translated to pitting in six laps to change tires.

But since the team TR is public, they used a phrase hard for other teams to quickly decipher to cover their strategy.