This is not because Hamilton deliberately slowed down his pace to let Qin Miao catch up. Although Hamilton has enough time to catch up with Verstappen and surpass him, this is a race, and even Hamilton in his heyday will not do it. He arrogantly believes that he can take first place in the F1 arena and at the same time lead Qin Miao to hit second place.
Although Qin Miao did this kind of thing very covertly when he was in F2, it was only F2 after all.
Qin Miao can keep up with Hamilton's pace purely because he is strong enough. In addition, the team just said that Qin Miao's tire failure curve is slower than expected, so Qin Miao can slightly increase his speed. At the same time, Qin Miao can After Miao knew that Hamilton had pitted, the ERS had been charged for half a day, and it happened to be fully used at this time.
Although it seems that Qin Miao actually has no need to catch up. Anyway, the ones in front can't catch up, and the ones behind can't catch up. He just needs to mess up in the last few laps.
But Qin Miao still has some pursuits. What if he sets the fastest lap?
Of course, Qin Miao did not set the fastest lap of the race in the end, and he only followed Hamilton for three laps. After the ERS power reserve was used up, he was left behind by Hamilton.
However, these three laps also allowed Qin Miao to take 0.2 seconds less per lap than under normal driving conditions.
On lap 55, there were 11 laps to go before the end of the race. Just after passing the start straight, Hamilton caught up to one second behind Verstappen.
With tires that are much newer than Verstappen, it is not surprising that he can catch up in such a short time.
To be honest, when this picture appeared in front of Verstappen and the Red Bull strategy team staff, the Red Bull strategy team members all had pale faces, and then they felt a little relieved. Although the final championship position was not in their hands, the second place This is the final result they can achieve without changing their tactics.
The only thing that made them feel uncomfortable was the feeling of losing after winning first place. Mercedes' pit stop had a greater impact on Red Bull's morale.
If the three commentators, Bing Ge, Fei Ge and Ran Ge, were in normal conditions, they would like to see Verstappen make achievements in this game.
The best thing is to snatch this championship from Hamilton as the Red Bull Racing staff thought.
After all, Hamilton and Mercedes have dominated the paddock for too long, and everyone hopes to see the emergence of a dragon-slaying hero.
To put it simply, I want to see the strong being pulled down.
But this year, the attitudes of the three commentators are different. In the past, when they looked at Mercedes, they saw an extremely powerful team with strong technical capabilities that had dominated the paddock for six years.
But now?
Mercedes is the team that values Chinese driver Qin Miao the most in the entire paddock.
After being brought into Qin Miao's perspective, Mei Ben is the Bole who explores his own potential and talent.
Even domestic car fans who had not had a very good impression of Mercedes-Benz before now feel that the Mercedes-Benz logo has become more eye-catching.
So now after seeing Hamilton catching up with Verstappen, he said: "Mercedes' pit stop strategy is really beautiful, and it directly predicted Red Bull's prediction."
"One step first, every step first."
"Mercedes' strategy team really taught Red Bull a good lesson."
“Indeed, Red Bull Strategy Group still has a lot to learn.”
The next scene is one that everyone can guess, Hamilton began to attack Verstappen.
Although he knew that his tire condition was worse than Hamilton's, Verstappen was still unwilling to give up the race championship that he already had in his hands.
began to violently resist Hamilton's attack.
To put it simply, he started his own death struggle.
Naturally, Hamilton will not be polite to you Verstappen. After arriving in Verstappen's DRS area, he started a mutual fight.
If the fight between Qin Miao and Verstappen is a relatively restrained test between the two drivers, although the range of movements is not small, they leave room for the other party within the scope allowed by the rules. As long as the other party is willing to give in, they will not There are situations where you are squeezed out of the track and lose a lot of time.
So the fight between Hamilton and Verstappen is a real hand-to-hand fight, the kind that will lead to a life-and-death fight.
Picking your eyes and pulling your hair can no longer describe the relationship between the two. When the two sides are on the field, they want to pull each other's intestines out of their stomachs and step on them.
The fight between the two immediately attracted the attention of the director and the audience.
But what most people didn't notice was that Qin Miao had gradually been pulled away by the two of them without making a sound, to being at the same speed as the two of them. Even after another lap, the fight between the two entered. After the situation became intense, Qin Miao began to quickly approach the two of them.
This was mainly because after the fight started, the speed of the two was much slower than when they were driving normally.
On lap 58, although Verstappen tried his best to defend, Hamilton's tire advantage was too great.
Being able to defend Hamilton for three laps with a tire disadvantage is the limit of what Verstappen can do.
So in the end, because Verstappen stepped on the accelerator too quickly when exiting a corner, his exit speed was affected. Hamilton successfully took back his championship from Verstappen.
But before the audience could savor the exciting battle between the two top drivers in these three laps, another Mercedes came up behind Verstappen's Red Bull without any sound.
"Qin Miao! It's Qin Miao! He's catching up too!" Fei Ge had sharp eyes. After the fight between the two ended, he glanced at Qin Miao's position.
Originally, all he wanted to do was lament the gap between Qin Miao and the two drivers, but after seeing Qin Miao's results, he discovered that Qin Miao was less than one second behind Verstappen.
【Fuck! 】
【Qin Miao! 】
[It got so fierce, I actually saw Qin Miao start to attack Verstappen]
[Is this also included in Mercedes’ calculations? 】
[When did he catch up? 】
【? ? ? 】
…
Just as the commentators and the audience were confused, after Verstappen was overtaken by Hamilton in the car, before he could get frustrated, he suddenly found that there was another Mercedes behind him.
After seeing this Mercedes, Verstappen was in a trance for a moment. He had an inexplicable illusion, as if the car behind him was not the No. 66 Mercedes W12 driven by Qin Miao, but the No. 44 .
But Qin Miao's red helmet looked so dazzling to Verstappen.
This is the fucking wall of sighs.
If Qin Miao had not blocked him in the front for those few laps, Hamilton would never have caught up with Verstappen so quickly at this time, and there would still be suspense in the remainder of the race.
But what puzzled Verstappen was why the wall of sighs that he had worked so hard to climb suddenly turned around and pressed directly towards him.
However, Qin Miao will not give Verstappen more time to think about the reason.
As soon as his skills improved, Qin Miao began to put pressure on Verstappen.
On lap 59, T7 and T8 had just exited the corner. In such a corner that was not suitable for overtaking, Qin Miao began to tap the inside line and constantly put pressure on Verstappen.
As soon as Qin Miao applied a little pressure, Verstappen's pressure increased by 1%.
Qin Miao remembered that Verstappen's pressure level did not rise so fast in the past. If nothing else, Hamilton's overtaking put a certain amount of psychological pressure on Verstappen, so he seemed a little uneasy at this time. stable.
It didn't take much time. Qin Miao completed the overtaking of Verstappen on the straightaway on the 61st lap after two laps, relying on DRS.
In fact, when exiting the corner, Qin Miao still took the tire protection route, but after exiting the corner, Qin Miao had DRS and ERS that had not been used at all.
Verstappen had just ended his fight with Hamilton. The tires themselves were overheated and worn seriously, and the ERS battery had already been used up during the fight. At this time, Verstappen could Not much to do.
That is, just like Qin Miao defended him, he started to draw dragons in a small area on the strong side of the lane.
After Qin Miao discovered Verstappen's movements, he stopped sucking his wake. Qin Miao's own relative speed was faster than Verstappen's, so he could just pull off in a straight line.
After Verstappen discovered Qin Miao's intention, he didn't make too many moves. The relative speed gap between the two sides was a bit large. In the face of absolute speed, skills could provide almost no help.
In the end, Qin Miao didn't even use up half of the ERS battery, and overtook Verstappen before T1's braking point.
Looking at the familiar taillights in front of his car, Verstappen knew that he would not be able to sleep well after this race. What he was dreaming about was probably Qin Miao's Mercedes in front of him. car taillights.
In fact, we can't blame Verstappen for any problems with his driving in this race. It was mainly because Red Bull's strategy team chose to be safe.
If Verstappen also pitted after Hamilton and put on a set of medium tires that had only been run for two or three laps, then he would be in second place at worst after overtaking Qin Miao.
And after using this set to overtake Qin Miao and defend Hamilton for three laps, the grip of the medium tires has reached the limit. All Verstappen can do is watch Qin Miao gradually open up the distance between him and himself. distance.
Suddenly, Verstappen asked in TR: "How long has Qin used this set of medium tires? Why is his grip still so strong now?"
Verstappen's question stunned his track engineer. Then he looked up at the monitor provided by the FIA that showed the racing status and speed of all drivers. The numbers on the back of Qin Miao's set of yellow medium tires made him frown. Jump: 53 laps.
If he were chatting on the Internet, after seeing Qin Miao's number of tire laps, he would definitely send out a lot of question marks to express his doubts, shock, confusion, and confusion.
No, you, Qin Miao, have strong tire protection capabilities. I can accept that you can run more than fifty laps on medium tires, but why do your tires still have grip after running for so long? And the grip is better than Verstappen's?
Why?
This is unscientific!
Did Qin Miao use hard tires instead of medium tires at all, but the outer rings were painted yellow?
Soon, Verstappen and the team's TR were released, and everyone discovered that Qin Miao had not pitted since Tsunoda retired.
The three commentators also started chatting about this matter.
"No, why did Qin Miao's set of medium tires last so long?"
"I remember that he only entered the pit once when Tsunoda retired from the race, and then he didn't enter the pit again in the whole race, right?"
“When did Pirelli tires become so durable?”
[Here comes the Pirelli special]
[Does Pirelli really have to give Qin Miao a thumbs up? What a good promotional material this is]
【True Pirelli】
【Strict investigation! 】
[Outrageous, running medium tires as hard tires, the key is to be able to overtake after running for so long]
[You young people are just making a fuss. If you have seen Qin Miao’s race in F2, you will know that Qin Miao’s tire protection ability has always been outrageous]
…
Outside the field, they were amazed by the durability of Qin Miao's tires.
Qin Miao also had a headache at this time, because Verstappen had been launching tentative attacks on him.
Although Qin Miao took advantage of the fact that Verstappen's tires were too worn and the temperature was too high, the timing of ers running out of battery exceeded him.
But Verstappen is, after all, a talented driver who can compete with Hamilton in a Mars Rover in a Red Bull.
After the tire temperature dropped and the ERS was charged for two laps, Verstappen would naturally fight for his second position.
But the good news is that the condition of Verstappen's tires is much worse than that of Qin Miao.
Even with the blessing of the Honda engine, the most Verstappen can do is to follow Qin Miao and take a swipe in the DRS zone from time to time.
However, due to tire wear problems, Verstappen's grip is not enough, so he often has to brake early to prevent his tires from locking up or not braking in time.
Faced with Verstappen's approach, Qin Miao couldn't judge for a while whether he really wanted to attack or put pressure on himself.
So the pressure is even greater.
But the final result was good. After two laps, Verstappen's tires gave out completely and entered the cliff point.
The lap speed began to drop rapidly. Basically every lap was 1 second slower than Qin Miao, and the rate of exhaustion was still increasing rapidly.
Of course, there are less than three laps to go before the end of the race, and Leclerc in fourth is still 22 seconds away from Verstappen. Even if the tires enter the cliff point, Verstappen does not have to worry about losing his position.
However, the second place with the diamond in hand turned into third. I believe Verstappen and Red Bull will not be in a good mood.
The two Mercedes and Mercedes drivers separated the car behind them by more than four seconds on the last lap. There is no need to guess the final result of this race at this time.
Before the two drivers crossed the line one after another, the live footage did not show the Mercedes team staff who were hanging on the guardrail and ready to cheer wildly for the two drivers. Instead, it showed Toto in the P room of the Mercedes team. . (End of chapter)
