After Qin Miao parked his car, Reyes and the others, who had been waiting at Qin Miao's grid position for a long time, used two jacks to jack up Qin Miao's car.
At the same time, the old soft tires on Qin Miao's car were removed, replaced with the set of soft tires that Qin Miao ran the fastest lap in Q2, and wrapped with a thermal blanket.
The tactic Qin Miao chose today was to stop for red and white. In fact, the Sakhir track is not very friendly to tires. It is one of the tracks with the highest tire wear throughout the year.
But whether it was the winter test or the three practice sessions of the Bahrain Grand Prix, Qin Miao's tire consumption data were amazing. The data does not lie, so Mercedes' strategists prepared a set of such for Qin Miao. tactics.
At the same time, Qin Miao brought enough fuel to run 60 laps according to her own usage habits.
At this time, someone will ask, there are only 57 laps in the race. If you carry fuel for these 3 extra laps, won't it cause too much loss in speed and tires?
But Qin Miao's fuel usage is calculated based on Qin Miao's consumption while driving. If the fuel in Qin Miao's car is replaced with Hamilton's, then Qin Miao's tank of fuel is only enough for Hamilton to run 52 laps.
After all, the 8% reduction in fuel consumption is here. The data will not joke with you, as much as there is is.
It can be said that Qin Miao's car is currently the lightest among the 20 cars ready to start.
In addition, the tire compound for this race is the familiar C2C3C4.
After checking some settings on his steering wheel, Qin Miao got out of the car.
After all, there is still about half an hour before the start of the race. Although he lay in the car for more than an hour during the race, the car at that time was always in motion, and the lateral G force was often greater than gravity. The driver's The body is often thrown around by G forces in the monocoque. Basically, there will be no discomfort that occurs when the body is immobile for a long time, but it is different when waiting on the grid.
If you stay in this state for a long time, your buttocks will really become numb.
After getting off the car, Barber handed Qin Miao a bottle of water. In order not to disturb the technicians' work, Qin Miao ran to the side of the track with a water cup and waited.
It is worth mentioning that although the current epidemic situation is not optimistic, many spectators still entered the paddock during the main stage of the Bahrain Grand Prix.
While Qin Miao was leaning against the track guardrail, waiting for his car to be ready, many spectators holding national flags in the stands waved Qin Miao's big names and national flags, greeting Qin Miao and cheering.
Qin Miao naturally saw them, but at this time Qin Miao needed to prepare for the game and had no extra time to interact with his fans. He shook his legs and waved to them, which was regarded as saying hello. .
Twenty minutes later, Reyes, the team’s chief technician, gave Qin Miao a thumbs-up sign, indicating that all preparations and reviews of the car had been completed, and he could enter the car and wait for the start of the race.
Qin Miao stopped shaking his legs, stood up, stretched his limbs, took his thermos cup from Barber and took a sip of the health potion, and then came to his racing car.
It was still the familiar process. After putting on the equipment, Qin Miao entered the racing car.
"Radio test..."
"Radio test... the sound is very clear." Qin Miao replied, and then said: "Franky?"
"I'm here, what's wrong?"
"Let's listen to a song."
There was a pause on the other end of the radio, and Franky's voice came over about two minutes later: "Okay, no problem. Is it still the playlist you listened to in F2?"
"right……"
Soon, Jay Chou's singing sounded again. Qin Miao pulled down his goggles slightly, lowered his eyes, relaxed his hands on his chest, and listened quietly to the singing coming from his headphones.
About seven minutes later, the singing in Qin Miao's TR stopped, and a voice came from the headphones: "The race is about to begin, and the team technicians are preparing to withdraw."
These words were heard in the team's public TR, so in addition to Qin Miao, his crew members and Hamilton's crew members also heard it.
After receiving the instruction, the technicians untied the insulation blankets from Qin Miao's four tires, put down Qin Miao's car, and quickly came to both sides of the track.
As the time of the Rolex directly above the track came to the hour, Verstappen at the front took the lead to drive out from his position, and Qin Miao pressed the clutch after seeing Verstappen exiting. button and drove the car out of its position.
It is normal for a warm-up lap in F2 to last for five minutes, but the speed of F1 is too fast. Although the drivers are trying their best to warm up their racing tires, it is very difficult to run a warm-up lap from the starting grid to maintenance. Stapan completed the warm-up lap and parked the car in his starting grid, which only took about two and a half minutes.
During the warm-up lap process, it is worth mentioning that after Verstappen came to the start straight, Qin Miao and Hamilton both lowered their speeds.
From the picture, it can be clearly seen that Verstappen and Qin Miao quickly vacated the positions of at least ten cars.
When Verstappen reacted and wanted to slow down his speed, it was already too late. He was almost reaching his grid position.
I have no choice but to suffer this dumb loss.
At this time, some people will be confused. Qin Miao, who was in second place, obviously just pressed the car. Why is it said that Verstappen suffered a loss?
This has to be said about the hot-melt tires of F1 racing cars. This type of tire can only have sufficient grip when it is at the appropriate operating temperature.
The FIA also stipulates that F1 starts only after all cars have stopped in their own grid.
There is a gap of at least 30 seconds from the moment the driver in pole position stops at his grid position to the last driver stops at his grid position.
This 30 seconds is enough for the racing tires to fully cool down.
Qin Miao and Hamilton received instructions from the team to press the car in order to stop on the grid later than Verstappen, so that their tires would have stronger grip than Verstappen.
But what the two of them didn't expect was that just after completing this little trick and stopping on their grid, they heard from the TR that the car of Red Bull's No. 2 driver Perez had stopped between T12 and T13. Location news.
Although Perez finally restarted his car, he was penalized and had to start from the pit lane because he stopped on the track during the preparation stage.
The tire warm-up lap also had to be run again.
After all, it still took a while for Perez to restart his car, and during this time the tires of all the cars were almost cold.
Soon, Perez returned to the exit of the pit area, while Qin Miao and the others ran a tire warm-up lap again.
After returning, because Verstappen was already on guard, Qin Miao and Hamilton did not play the little trick just now.
It is to warm up your tires normally during the tire warm-up lap to ensure that your tires can be adjusted to the optimal operating temperature during the start straight.
When he parked his car in the starting grid, Qin Miao's front was slightly aligned with the outside line of T1, which meant that the front of the car was tilted to the left.
This is because the side where Qin Miao starts is the dirty side, and the grip is not as good as that of Hamilton and Verstappen, so after Qin Miao is ready to start, he is ready to quickly turn to the other side.
Adjusting the angle of his car in advance can also ensure that Qin Miao does not need to adjust his direction when starting, so he does not have to worry about losing traction.
After parking his car in the grid, he waited for almost half a minute before the drivers behind him parked their cars in the grid again one after another.
Soon, the starting light came on.
Qin Miao adjusted his racing gear to N, then stepped on 1/5 of the accelerator to keep his engine speed at about 11,000 rpm. He placed his right hand on the clutch button of his steering wheel and lowered the preload a little. .
Mercedes' clutch button has a special design and is divided into two pressing strokes, just like the trigger of a pistol.
The first stage is the pre-start state. You can press it normally, but you will feel a certain resistance after pressing it to a certain extent. This is the second stage. Then you only need to press it a little harder to start the car.
The force setting is very subtle, making it difficult to accidentally touch, but the response speed after pressing is very fast.
A steering wheel costs US$350,000. In addition to adapting the steering wheel to the driver's hand shape, the main funds are spent on these small ideas to make it more comfortable for the players to use it.
Soon, all five red lights came on.
Qin Miao tightened her grip on the steering wheel and stared at the five red lights above through the goggles in front of her.
The five red lights go out and the race begins.
Qin Miao pressed the clutch button on his steering wheel when the red light went out. The clutch and the engine gear instantly engaged, and strong traction was instantly transmitted to the rear wheels of Qin Miao's racing car through the clutch.
Then the rear wheels of the car spun at the edge of the extreme grip with the ground, pushing the car forward crazily.
Qin Miao's body withstood a thrust of 2.4 G in just this moment.
After completing these operations, Qin Miao instinctively gradually deepened the throttle depth, while looking at Verstappen on his left with his peripheral vision, and at the same time turned on the ERS overtaking mode button on his car.
"The five red lights go out! The 2021 F1 Grand Prix begins!"
"Hamilton's start was so beautiful. After the start, he directly completed wheel-to-wheel with his teammate Qin Miao!"
"But the next T1 is a right turn. Can Qin Miao stay on the inside and keep his position?"
Qin Miao, who was on the field, actually knew after starting that his start could only be considered average, not good, but not bad either.
Moreover, the wind today is from the east, not slow, and it happens to be blowing towards the main straight.
In this way, Qin Miao and Verstappen had to face more resistance when they started than the car behind them, so neither of them started too fast today.
After entering T1, due to the problem of track width and Qin Miao's firm defense of his inside line, Hamilton gave up the attack in order to have a faster exit speed in T2.
"Entering T1, Hamilton gave up the attack and Qin Miao temporarily kept his position."
"Although Qin Miao's start was not as good as Hamilton's, he relied on good defense and blocking to hold his position. So far, the starting and starting order of the top four drivers have not changed."
Ten seconds later, Verstappen had arrived at T4 and was about to enter the corner, while Qin Miao and Hamilton were following closely behind him.
At this moment, a burst of smoke and dust suddenly rose from the rear of the car array.
In the director's shot, a white figure suddenly jumped out of the car formation.
"Crash! There must be a serious crash!"
"I saw it. It's a white car. Is it Haas or Toro Rosso?"
While the commentators were exclaiming, the tournament board showed a yellow flag.
But currently only the yellow flag appears in the first stage, so the game continues.
All Qin Miao can do now is try his best to keep up with Verstappen ahead of him and keep the gap within one second without being opened by the opponent.
Hamilton, who was behind Qin Miao, felt a little uncomfortable at this time, because Leclerc, who was ranked fourth, had already approached him and was preparing to attack him.
But soon, Hamilton, who was defending Leclerc and attacked twice, breathed a sigh of relief.
Because of the car accident just now, the yellow flag was converted into a safety car.
Qin Miao just chased for half a circle and stopped.
When he slowed down and followed Verstappen in front, Qin Miao curiously asked in the TR: "What happened?"
Frankie quickly replied: "Mazepin just rushed off the track..."
After all, he was promoted to F1 in the same season as Ma Zeping, so Qin Miao asked with concern: "Who was he in a car accident with?"
"I don't know. The tournament is still investigating. I will reply to you as soon as there is a result."
After a while, Qin Miao, who was twisting left and right, heard the reply from French in the team's TR: "Mazeping made a mistake and ran off the track in T3."
Qin Miao was stunned for a while before realizing that what Franky meant was that Ma Zeping made a mistake and ran off the track.
Thinking of this, Qin Miao blurted out unconsciously: "6."
"What?"
"nothing."
After Qin Miao finished speaking, he realized that his TR was not turned off yet.
Unfortunately, the broadcasters didn't have much to show the viewers during the safety car period.
Basically, it’s the team’s TR and the car that is twisting left and right to warm up the tires.
Qin Miao's TR was quite interesting, so it was shown by the director.
Qin Miao originally spoke in English, so the three commentators from Five Star Sports quietly waited for Qin Miao's team TR to finish. They were also curious about what Qin Miao would say to his crew members.
Until Qin Miao said the last Chinese "6", the three commentators couldn't help but laugh.
After laughing, Zhou Haoran explained: "The general meaning is that Qin Miao asked the team why the yellow flag was shown. The team said that Ma Zeping was in a car accident. Then Qin Miao asked Ma Zeping if he had collided with someone? The team said that it was his own mistake. In the end, I don’t think I need to translate Qin Miao’s answer..."
(End of chapter)
