It is worth mentioning that because the driving simulator does not actually drive an F1 car, Qin Miao does not need a long adaptation time to master the driving of the car on the simulator.
Therefore, in subsequent tests, Qin Miao was sometimes faster than Hamilton.
However, everyone at Mercedes-Benz also knows that although the simulator and the F1 car can achieve data exchange and the driving feeling is similar, after all, there is no equal sign between the two.
Qin Miao can do very well on the simulator, but after actually getting into an F1 car, no one knows whether Qin Miao can really maintain his ability under the pressure of G-force of more than 2G. Precise racing control.
Even if it can be maintained in a short period of time, what about the long-distance driving of more than 300 kilometers in the race?
Therefore, the staff members have a very peaceful attitude towards Qin Miao's data.
It is worth mentioning that Qin Miao was very busy during this time, but the old man was busier than Qin Miao, and Bottas was also very busy.
The main reason is that Mercedes' sponsors are not optimistic about Qin Miao's performance on the field. They believe that Qin Miao will give up his position to Bottas after three races, so this year's sponsor advertisements are mainly Hamilton and Bottas are filming.
Qin Miao magically had a period of time where he could focus on training.
Time is spent in such busy work.
Although the old man is busier than Qin Miao, Qin Miao's work content is actually similar to that of the old man.
Because Qin Miao lives close to the team factory, if there is any problem, Toto will call Qin Miao and he will have to go back to the team to work.
But more often than not, the design department blows out some new aerodynamic kits with holes. After importing the data of this part into the car in the simulator, Qin Miao needs to come over and test the effect of adding the new upgrade.
Soon, the time came to March, when winter testing and the first grand prix of the year were held this month.
On March 10, Qin Miao followed Toto to Bahrain to prepare for this year's winter test.
Although living close to the team makes it easier for the boss to pull him over to work overtime, it is not without benefits.
The most obvious thing is that Qin Miao can take a car to participate in the competition at any time. Although Qin Miao finds a way to go to Bahrain by himself, the team will reimburse him for air tickets, etc., but there is one less step to issue an invoice and then find the team's financial reimbursement, right?
After arriving in Bahrain, Qin Miao was naturally arranged to stay in the hotel.
After becoming an F1 driver, Qin Miao no longer needs to find a hotel by himself, and the hotel should not be too expensive.
Qin Miao's food and lodging are in charge of special personnel at Meiben, and the standards are not low.
After the accommodation problem was solved, the team prepared a Mercedes-Benz commercial vehicle for Qin Miao for commuting.
These cars belong to local dealers and are completely free for teams and drivers to use. Not only do they not have to pay, the other party even rushes to deliver them.
March 12, morning.
Qin Miao drove to the paddock early and parked the car in the parking space specially prepared by the organizer for the drivers. Qin Miao took Qiu Meng and walked into the paddock carrying his backpack.
Qin Miao discovered that from the moment he got off the car, several cameras were focused on him.
You must know that this is not the start of the Grand Prix, it is just winter testing.
This is the first time that Qin Miao has openly appeared in the paddock with his girlfriend Qiu Meng. If nothing else happens, someone will expose her relationship with Qiu Meng at noon.
Qin Miao didn't care too much about this. He had never hidden the fact that he had a girlfriend, and it was normal for drivers in the paddock to have girlfriends.
Not paying attention to these unabashed shots, Qin Miao walked into the paddock with Qiu Meng.
Because Mercedes won the constructors' championship last year as in previous years, this year the Mercedes team is the team closest to the entrance to the pit area, followed by Red Bull Racing, and then McLaren, continuing according to the team ranking.
After walking through the passage in the paddock, Qin Miao first entered the car home of the Mercedes-Benz team.
The car homes are those large rectangular boxes opposite the P room where team staff can enter and exit.
The assembly method of this car home is to use more than a dozen trucks to transport the building materials to the paddock, and then assemble it by the staff within a day.
Yes, although this thing is pulled over, it is not pulled over directly, but assembled after being pulled over.
There is a storage area for daily necessities in the team home, ranging from various parts of the racing car to garbage bags, stationery, water, food, and clothing. It can be self-sufficient in the paddock.
During the Grand Prix, all team members eat and drink here. Self-sufficiency is not just talk, it is self-sufficiency in the literal sense.
Moreover, the food and diet of all team members are shipped from Brackley, England.
This is the love shown by Mark Webber, the captain in 2007, to the younger drivers.
In addition, there is a work area in the car home, where simple racing maintenance and repairs and circuit arrangement can be carried out.
Then there is the tire storage area, where the tires of the two F1 cars during the Grand Prix will be placed, and placed separately on the left and right to prevent confusion when taking them.
After all, the car settings are different from driver to driver. If the wrong tires are installed during the race, serious problems will occur on the field.
The entire car home has two floors, with mechanics downstairs and engineers upstairs.
The upstairs can be used as a conference room on the one hand, and on the other hand, it can be used to monitor the data of the car during the competition. After all, the more than 300 sensors on the F1 car are not visible to the P room and the podium.
Therefore, the P room and the command console will only look at some very important data, and other less important data will be handed over to the engineers here and engineers as far away as the Mercedes-Benz factory for remote monitoring.
If something goes wrong, it will be communicated to Toto and the others through the team's internal TR.
Qin Miao's current destination is the engineering department upstairs.
Qin Miao came earlier today, so when Qin Miao opened the door and came in, there were still many people who were not there.
Seeing Qin Miao push through the door and come in, many people stretched out their hands to say hello to Qin Miao. During this period of Chinese New Year, Qin Miao not only relaxed but also didn't forget to ask Toto for the list of team members.
During this time, he flipped through it from time to time, memorizing the names and looks of two people a day. Now Qin Miao almost recognized these staff members.
So Qin Miao could also call their names. After greeting them, Qin Miao took advantage of the situation and sat down in his own seat.
Mercedes holds a meeting here before every grand prix. The main participants in the meeting are engineers and drivers.
The entire meeting is recorded, making it easier for drivers or engineers to extract the meeting content when they go back to review.
After waiting here for about half an hour, other staff members arrived one after another, but the old man was the last one to arrive.
However, other people in the team didn't say anything. They were probably used to Laohan being late for team meetings.
After everyone arrived, Mercedes' first meeting of the new season began.
Technical Director Mike Elliott was the first to speak:
"First of all, welcome everyone to the new season. I hope you can continue to work hard in the new season and win the double championship of team and driver again."
"That's enough for the irrelevant stuff. Now let's talk about the main goals of our team during the winter testing."
"The first and most important thing is to verify whether the data simulated by the simulator is consistent with reality and test the aerodynamic data."
"The first day of testing will focus on aerodynamics, and the data from the rear end and front end will be fed back in the morning."
"At the same time, there is the engine. We have specially strengthened the durability of the engine during the winter break, but whether it is really useful on the track has yet to be tested. This test project will be tested by Hamilton's team."
"The second step is the tire loss test. This year's Pirelli tire formula has not been modified. Qin Miao and your team tested the degradation limit of the W12 using this tire formula, as well as the degradation of grip. I need enough data."
"There are also new cars that have upgraded front brake ducts. The simulator shows that the inverted brake ventilation inlet can suck in more cold air, but we don't know how efficient it is in reality. For this task, you two teams are testing other projects. It’s time to test it easily..."
The meeting basically started with Elliott holding a notebook, listing the data that the team needs today, and then asking the drivers to go to the track to run these data.
Of course, during this period, the driver can also find his own training.
After he spent more than 6 minutes allocating all these tasks, it was time for the heads of various departments and drivers to express their ideas and concerns.
Qin Miao was the first to express his opinion:
"I feel that I am not suitable for the job of testing tire wear. I feel that my tire degradation rate has no reference."
After all, Qin Miao has two passive skills, and the 38% average tire loss reduction is no joke.
Others couldn't hold up after running 50 laps on hard tires. Qin Miao still had an average level of grip after running 50 laps on a set of hard tires, and he used the hard tires for 70 laps.
On a track where other teams had to stop twice, Qin Miao, Huang and Bai finished the race in one stop without slowing down at all.
The other riders stopped in yellow and white, while Qin Miao stopped in red and yellow.
Pirelli specially tuned it to be.
But Elliot said:
"Rejected, you are assigned this task because of your outstanding tire protection ability in F2, so we want you to try the limits of W12 tires."
Facing Elliot's statement, Qin Miao could only nod helplessly.
What else could he say? Tell him that he has a system. Can he save so much tires because he has a system skill bonus?
Moreover, after Elliot finished speaking, someone else had already stood up and raised their own questions, so Qin Miao had no choice but to give up in the end.
But the degradation data of your own tires really doesn’t serve as a reference...
A meeting lasted for almost thirty minutes, and most of the people who raised their own questions got an answer or solution that satisfied them.
After the meeting, Qin Miao and Hamilton had about an hour to make final preparations before the game. The four-hour countdown for the East Test will begin in 1 hour and 20 minutes.
Both men rose from their positions.
After moving his body and picking up the tablet prepared for him by the team, Qin Miao turned and entered the room with his name and national flag printed on the door.
This is Qin Miao's lounge. It's not far away. It's right behind Qin Miao's chair. You can go in by turning around and opening the door.
After entering, Qin Miao closed the door and adjusted the mode of his lounge glass from frosted to translucent, because no spectators would come in the paddock during the winter break, and Qin Miao was not worried about his privacy.
Qin Miao's room is not big, only about ten square meters.
Someone is going to say at this time, my toilet is more than ten square meters, but your Mercedes driver's lounge worth tens of millions only only has ten square meters? This is somewhat unjustifiable, right?
But you must know that Qin Miao's lounge is built in a car home that is strictly restricted in size by FOM. It is considered to be able to have a 10-square-meter lounge in a place that is more expensive than a house in the BJ school district. Luxurious.
The room is not big, but there are many things.
A sofa where Qin Miao can lie down completely, a TV where SKY TV broadcasts can be watched at this time, a wardrobe where clothes can be placed, and a toilet.
Basically, everything Qin Miao needs during preparation can be found here.
Also because of the special nature of the driver's lounge, Qin Miao's next door was the old man's lounge, and there was a layer of board between them that was not very soundproof.
In addition, the old man liked to sing during the waiting period, so Qin Miao sat in his lounge and prepared to read the minutes of the meeting just now and plan himself carefully for the test steps on the field later. Next door The old man's singing came...
Qin Miao shook her head helplessly, and then put on noise-canceling headphones.
This noise-canceling headset was also given by the sponsor.
The driver's gift package that Qin Miao received originally contained three pairs of these noise-cancelling headphones.
There are countless other team uniforms, shoes, watches, etc. customized according to his body shape.
However, before Qin Miao could see it for long, there was a knock on the door of his living room.
However, because Qin Miao was wearing noise-canceling headphones, he couldn't hear the knocking at the door at all.
These noise-canceling headphones can block the terrifying noise of the F1 racing engine, so it is normal for Qin Miao not to hear the knock on the door.
However, the person who knocked on the door obviously had a good relationship with Qin Miao. Seeing that there was no response to the knock on Qin Miao's door, the other party opened the door directly.
Although he couldn't hear the sound, Qin Miao's eyesight was still good. From the corner of his eye, he saw someone coming to the door and turned his head to look.
I saw a man wearing black trousers and a white Mercedes work vest standing at the door.
When Qin Miao raised his head completely and was about to see who the other party was, Qiu Meng's little face appeared in Qin Miao's eyes. (End of chapter)
