CHAPTER 61: CHAPTER 55: PLAYING DIRTY

But this unexpected line change from the opponent did disrupt Qin Miao’s rhythm; he missed the braking point for T6, causing him to go slightly wide into T6, thereby opening up a gap of almost 0.8 seconds.

"You’re fucking insane!" Even though Qin Miao knew exactly what he wanted, he calmly made the most appropriate choice, but he couldn’t help cursing.

However, there are still two long straight stretches to come. Since the opponent isn’t planning to let him overtake in the corners, Qin Miao plans to use pure speed on the starting straight to overtake the woman ahead.

That’s right, the previous tricky defense move by the opponent had already lowered her impression in Qin Miao’s mind to rock bottom, any initial goodwill from her looks was now gone.

"What the hell, why is Qin Yun defending like this?" Yu Jialiang, sitting in the passenger seat, was also feeling a bit indignant at this point.

Before coming to choose his car, he received training and knew that the tricky defense move known as "painting the dragon" was considered unethical, but while the opponent’s actions were acceptable for this race, it just reflected poorly on her character.

When Qin Yun, the leading driver, merged onto the inner lane, she realized she’d blocked the rear car with a tricky defense move.

She knew her actions weren’t right, but she didn’t think much at the moment, and the adrenaline affected her judgment, making her actions more emotional.

She now feels a bit of regret, but her desire to win wouldn’t let her give back the position, so this tricky defense just got brushed aside.

In the upcoming turns T7, T8, T9, and T10, Qin Miao was making up the time lost at T6, just catching up again before T11.

In T11, T12, and T13 afterward, Qin Miao made no mistakes, following closely behind the opponent, and once on the back straight, he could rely on a faster corner exit speed and the slipstream to overtake them on the straight.

Provided the opponent doesn’t defend with another tricky maneuver like in T6.

Qin Miao maintained a good mentality, not letting the opponent’s tricky maneuver affect his state; he kept a high level through the corners T11, T12, and T13, maintaining a 0.3-second gap when exiting the corners.

Actually, Qin Miao could have gotten closer since his cornering speed was faster, but this AMG GT isn’t an F1 car and doesn’t have DRS and ERS to use.

Getting too close behind the lead car while exiting a corner may not be good for overtaking, as overtaking in these races relies on relative speed, and getting too close doesn’t allow you to use the slipstream effectively to gain more speed.

For example, if you exit a corner 0.1 seconds behind your opponent at 150 km/h and gain a speed of 152 km/h afterward, you’ll have only a 2 km/h speed advantage over your opponent.

At this point, if you stay close behind your opponent, you won’t be able to use their slipstream for more acceleration, so you’d have to move out to the outer lane.

But moving out to the outer lane loses the slipstream advantage, facing the same air resistance as your opponent, giving you both the same acceleration, leaving just a 2 km/h speed advantage for you.

And you’ll need to use that 2 km/h relative speed to overtake before the straight ends, which is very difficult.

But if you keep a 0.3 to 0.5-second gap while exiting the corner with a 2 km/h relative speed advantage.

Then you can use that 2 km/h speed to maintain in their slipstream, accelerating within that 0.3 to 0.5-second distance, where the slipstream provides an excellent acceleration environment.

Once you close the gap to 0.2 to 0.1 seconds while accelerating, you can then move out to overtake, giving you at least a 5 km/h speed advantage, making overtaking much easier.

On the back straight, Qin Miao used both the slipstream and the 0.3-second gap along with a faster exit speed to build an over 10 km/h speed advantage.

Midway through the back straight, he began to move out to the outer lane.

The opponent still defended toward the outside, so Qin Miao smoothly switched to the inside.

To be fair, the opponent was somewhat unsportsmanlike, but she was so easily fooled, just a slight line change tricked her.

However, because the cars were so close together, when Qin Miao moved to the inside, the front of his car lightly grazed the opponent’s rear.

Yu Jialiang, sitting in the car, even heard the sound of the cars scraping against each other, and coupled with the sight of their car’s front scraping the opponent’s rear, his hair stood on end.

Fortunately, things did not go as he feared; the cars did not collide and lose control.

Qin Miao’s line change only caused a light scrape between the cars’ fronts and rears, the impact was mild, not affecting the cars’ driving states or stability.

Despite this, the scrape gave Qin Yun a big scare, causing her to instinctively hit the brakes, immediately widening the gap between the two cars.

Originally able to easily overtake the opponent, Qin Miao not only overtook instantly but also gained over a three-second lead thanks to her braking.

Racing is that cruel; braking inappropriately on the straight can be fatal, and that one brake could waste all of Qin Yun’s efforts in this race.

Seeing the AMG falling way behind him, a mysterious smile appeared on Qin Miao’s face; however, hidden by the helmet and visor, no one noticed him smiling.

Indeed, that slight scrape was intentional on Qin Miao’s part.

Actually, under normal circumstances, Qin Miao couldn’t perform such high-difficulty maneuvers, but after using the Skill Card, Qin Miao became incredibly familiar with this AMG GT.

Although the handling isn’t as smooth as an F4, Qin Miao’s control over this car has reached an extraordinary level.

Lightly grazing the car ahead is still difficult for Qin Miao driving this AMG GT, but it’s not impossible as it was before using the Skill Card.

I’m Qin Miao, usually nice to others, but I’m not one to suffer silently.

If you annoy me, I’ll annoy you back. I don’t care if you’re a woman or how good you look.

As for Yu Jialiang, sitting in the passenger seat next to Qin Miao, he started regretting again.

During the qualifying round, he regretted getting in Qin Miao’s car because he wasn’t mentally prepared. He had no idea Qin Miao’s driving skills were so good.

But during the main race, he regretted it because Qin Miao was driving too intensely. Qin Miao drafting behind Qin Yun earlier looked like an addict using drugs, refusing to overtake until maximizing the draft from Qin Yun’s car.

Qin Miao’s late maneuver even caused Qin Yun to make a mistake.

The impact of this scene was too strong. Normally, Yu Jialiang doesn’t get car sick, but suddenly he had a queasy feeling in his stomach and a nauseous urge in his throat.

After easily overtaking Qin Yun on the back straight and gaining a 3-second lead, Qin Miao returned to fuel-saving cruise mode.

After all, he didn’t have enough fuel to finish the race, and because of the short fight with Qin Yun, Qin Miao felt the fuel deficit was back to two laps.

The fuel saved in the previous seven laps was consumed in half a lap.

And Qin Yun, after one misstep, fell to second. Not only that, but now she needs time to accelerate.

Just during her acceleration, Fu Hai, who was third, caught up to Qin Yun and started drafting her.

Fu Hai didn’t intend to attack Qin Yun because his goal today was to build a good rapport, not to damage the relationship.

At worst, he wanted to leave some impression on Qin Yun’s mind.

So, after some thought, he decided to attack Qin Yun for a lap because that’s enough time for two or three attacks. After the race, they could discuss these engagements, potentially opening a breakthrough in their interaction.

Unfortunately, after Qin Miao messed with Qin Yun’s mentality, instead of slipping, she became more spirited.

Of course, any guilt she felt from defending hard against Qin Miao vanished instantly.

Qin Yun began an all-out chase for Qin Miao, her racing lines becoming aggressive.

Meanwhile, Fu Hai, drafting behind Qin Yun, found it frustratingly difficult to keep up with her pace, let alone engage in attacks.

By now, the race had reached the 10th lap. Qin Miao crossed the finish line, with 9 laps left to go.

Even though Qin Yun behind began a furious chase, the two-second gap wasn’t something that could be closed in just a lap or two.

Not to mention Qin Miao is stronger than Qin Yun. Even with over a hundred pounds of extra weight and in fuel saving mode, Qin Yun’s closing speed was only shrinking the gap by 0.3 seconds per lap.

When Qin Yun was finally within a second of Qin Miao, the race had reached the 17th lap.

With only two laps remaining,

the fact that it took 7 laps to close that 1.5-second gap was purely because Qin Yun was driving too aggressively, missing braking points and going wide, losing some time.

The consistently fast-lapping Qin Miao was again pushed out of the Man and Car Unity state by Qin Yun, with a fierce car closing in from behind, pressure was inevitable.

He glanced at his car’s dashboard and saw the fuel warning light was on with about one-tenth of a bar remaining. Qin Miao knew that after emptying, there would still be a small amount of fuel, but he wasn’t sure how far that could take him.

Qin Miao only knew that if he continued in this fuel-saving rhythm, he could definitely cross the finish line before the fuel was entirely depleted.

But now Qin Yun was already within one second of Qin Miao.

With her driving style, she might catch Qin Miao’s draft on the back straight of this lap and start attacking on the start straight of the 18th lap.

So now Qin Miao needed to make a choice, whether to continue with his pace and aim to finish safely, or to accelerate and defend against Qin Yun. Aiming to maintain his first place, but with the risk of running out of fuel in one lap, potentially ending up with nothing.

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