CHAPTER 565: CHAPTER 244: HAMILTON DEFENSE OVERVIEW

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Faced with Hamilton’s complaints, the team couldn’t possibly say to the illustrious seven-time Mercedes champion: "Shut the f**k up and just drive your car," right?

So, when Hamilton complained, the team could only try to pacify him.

However, Hamilton’s frustrations about not being able to overtake Alonso were fully transmitted to his race engineer and Toto.

At that moment, no one noticed anything off since from their perspective, they were also anxious about Hamilton’s inability to overtake.

But to be fair, Hamilton’s frequency of complaints was indeed a bit excessive. Blocked by Alonso for ten laps, Hamilton had already complained at least 14 times over the team’s TR.

Compared to Hamilton, Qin Miao, who might not voluntarily speak more than ten sentences to his race engineer in a race, seemed more refined.

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While the audience wasn’t paying attention, the original gap of more than ten seconds between Qin Miao and O’Kang rapidly decreased. Even Mick, who had previously been lapped by Qin Miao, managed to overtake him again.

When the audience refocused on Qin Miao, the gap between him and O’Kang was only 1.3 seconds.

The smart ones among the fans probably guessed the reason. Mercedes ordered Qin Miao, but it wasn’t to yield the championship to Hamilton. Instead, it was to help slow down O’Kang and Vettel for Hamilton’s benefit.

The championship was already within Qin Miao’s grasp, that was undeniable.

But the Mercedes team noticed Hamilton entangled with Alonso, unable to overtake quickly, while O’Kang and Vettel were rapidly increasing the gap with Sainz.

If this gap kept expanding, even if Hamilton finally overtook Alonso and Sainz, he would only end up in fourth place.

Considering Qin Miao was just having a leisurely long-distance run and his renowned defensive capability, the team wanted him to help suppress O’Kang and Vettel a bit.

The team didn’t demand Qin Miao to defend too fiercely, just enough to give Hamilton a chance at a podium once he overtook Alonso and Sainz.

But without the team reminding him, Qin Miao wasn’t going to risk losing his own championship just to help slow down for Hamilton, so the level of blocking wasn’t significant.

As for Hamilton, his overtake on Alonso wasn’t due to any attacking tactics or skills. It was due to Alonso’s mistake.

Of course, constant pressure from Hamilton throughout the laps contributed to Alonso’s error.

It happened on the sixty-fifth lap. Alonso, exiting T1, was so focused on Hamilton’s position in his rearview mirror that he missed the braking point and braked slightly harder, causing his right front tire to lock up, leading to an error and a widened exit from T1.

There was also some excessive tire wear factor at play.

After all, in those last few laps, Alonso knew he had no speed advantage, so he wasn’t even maintaining a normal racing line. He was defending at every corner.

This defensive line approach had a significant impact on tire consumption.

But managing to defend against Hamilton’s set of neutral tires that had only been driven for three laps with old hard tires for ten laps earned Alonso everyone’s respect for his defensive skills.

Many even started reviewing Qin Miao’s rookie debut defense against Verstappen from this season.

They wanted to see which of the two drivers, Alonso or Qin Miao, had the superior defensive abilities.

Regardless, Hamilton finally overcame the mountain right in front of him.

Once Hamilton overtook Alonso, the time gap between him and Vettel, who was ahead of Sainz, remained three seconds.