Mercedes does hope that Qin Miao will help Hamilton stop Verstappen, but this is not Qin Miao's main task, and the team cannot give Qin Miao team instructions to sacrifice Qin Miao's interests to achieve Hamilton's success.
After this order is issued, not only Qin Miao will be dissatisfied, but Mercedes fans and fans will also be dissatisfied with the team's senior management, and even the senior management of the group may come down to hold him accountable.
Therefore, the team currently allows the drivers to run at their own pace.
This is true for both Qin Miao and Hamilton.
After Verstappen followed Hamilton's pace and came out of the pits, he was still in front of Hamilton. After all, Verstappen's accumulated advantage in the early stage was too great.
Hamilton couldn't shorten the gap much with just one lap, and the tire changer made a mistake when Hamilton's team changed his tires, which took a total of 3.2 seconds.
Now it will be even more difficult to close the gap between Verstappen and Hamilton.
But it will be interesting to watch next, because the data provided by the director showed that after Verstappen came out of the pit area and made a lap, the director gave the speed gap between Qin Miao and Verstappen.
The above shows that Verstappen is 0.4 seconds faster than Qin Miao in each lap, and this gap will become larger and larger as time goes by. After all, Qin Miao's tires ran 21 more laps than Verstappen's tires. Qin Miao's tires will naturally wear out faster.
The racing department estimates that Verstappen will catch up with Qin Miao in about 10 laps.
By then, anyone who knows a little bit about Qin Miao's driving style can guess what will happen after Verstappen catches up with Qin Miao.
The pit stops of Hamilton and Verstappen opened the pit stop window for this game, and other drivers also pitted after that.
But one good thing about Zandvoort is that most teams have different tactics.
Some are prepared to stop twice, and some are prepared to stop once.
So although the pit stop window has been opened, there is no situation where the drivers pit together in a short period of time.
However, Qin Miao was not affected by this and continued to run the game at his own pace.
When the race came to lap 30, Qin Miao's speed was still very fast. Verstappen behind him was much slower than Qin Miao's closing rate as expected by the competition.
At this time, it was already the time given by the competition that the two people were about to start attacking and defending, but the time gap between the two was still 4 seconds.
After all, there was not much reference data given by the race meeting at the beginning, it was just the lap after Verstappen finished the exit lap. This lap may be the lap where Verstappen released his full strength, so the speed is particularly special. quick.
At this time, Red Bull's strategy team provided two options to the track engineers of Horner and Verstappen.
"According to our estimation, Max will enter the DRS area behind Qin Miao within five laps. However, due to the characteristics of the Zandvoort track, the price Max must pay to overtake Qin Miao will be very high, so our suggestion is Let Max stop and change to white tires before he comes behind Qin Miao. Now there is a time gap of more than 26 seconds between Max and Leclerc behind him. After another pit stop and change to white tires, there will only be Hamilton and Qin Miao in front. , and Hamilton's medium tires cannot last until the end of the race, so we can let Verstappen pit early to try to undercut the two Mercedes drivers.
We also have a brand new set of white tires, but Hamilton no longer has new white tires, only a set of medium tires that have been used for three laps. "
Horner frowned after hearing the words of Red Bull's strategy director and asked: "What if Qin Miao pits with Verstappen? He also has a brand new set of white tires."
Red Bull's strategy director paused for a moment, and then said: "But it's better than doing nothing, and Max is faster than Qin Miao. We have to believe in Max's lap speed, and if we don't make any changes, Max will come Qin Miao will definitely be blocked by Qin Miao behind him, and that’s when Hamilton attacks.”
Horner sighed and rubbed his brow.
That's why one versus two is uncomfortable. No matter what tactics you develop, you will be restrained by another driver from the Mercedes team.
If one is not good, let alone retaining the championship, the second may be lost.
"How many laps has Qin Miao's yellow tire run? When did it start to fail?" Horner rubbed his brow for a while and then asked.
"Thirty-one laps, Qin Miao used brand new yellow tires during the race. According to Qin Miao's past yellow tire usage habits, if Qin Miao protects his tires to the maximum, his set of yellow tires can last for 60 laps. about."
Hearing this, not only Horner, but also most of the Red Bull crew who were connected to the team's internal TR staff took a breath.
If Qin Miao really insists on guarding Verstappen, how many laps can he guard Verstappen in this game?
And if Hamilton makes a pit stop while Qin Miao is defending Verstappen... I don't dare to think about it... I don't dare to think about it at all.
Horner began to pull his hair.
"Let Max try to see if he can overtake Qin Miao first. Give him five laps. If there is no good result after five laps, let Max pit as you said and put on white tires and run a long distance with full power. "Although the decision now is very difficult, Horner finally made the decision.
"receive."
…
Compared to Red Bull who was scratching his head after winning the pole position, Toto on the other side looked much more relaxed.
Toto was leaning on the seat with his arms folded, his expression very relaxed, and he was leisurely waiting for the situation on the court to change.
On lap 35, Verstappen finally caught up with Qin Miao in the DRS area.
At this time, there was still a 4-second gap between Verstappen and Hamilton.
Although the team did not tell Verstappen how long he had to attack, Verstappen knew that if he could not surpass Qin Miao within a short period of time, he would be called in by the team to change tires in advance.
"Let's see, Verstappen has finally caught up with Qin Miao." Fei Ge explained after seeing it: "Qin Miao's performance in this game is extremely critical. Can Qin Miao lead the team at Verstappen's home court?" Winning a championship all depends on how many laps Qin Miao can defend against Verstappen this time."
Qin Miao naturally noticed Verstappen behind him.
However, after discovering that Verstappen was behind him, Qin Miao's speed slowed down.
Especially after passing the turning corner of T1 in the first timing period, Verstappen was even more surprised to find that he had unknowingly reached a position 0.1 seconds behind Qin Miao.
Upon discovering this unusual change, Verstappen immediately became alert.
Although he didn't know that there must be a monster when things go wrong, he knew that with Qin Miao's terrifying defensive ability, it was impossible for Qin Miao to make such a low-level mistake with the insignificant pressure of just being close to him.
After seeing the gap between Qin Miao and Verstappen, the audience immediately burst into loud cheers.
But Verstappen soon realized that Qin Miao was just annoying people. Although he was very close to Qin Miao at this time, there were so many corners in the first period. Now he was just like Heng at that time. Just like Grolin's Hamilton, there is no room for overtaking, no matter how good the tires are.
Therefore, after running through the T1-T6 corners in the first timing period, Qin Miao's speed was kept at a very slow speed, but as long as Verstappen dared to tap inside and outside the outer lane, Qin Miao would squeeze Verstappen a little. On the line, Verstappen has to ease off the accelerator.
What? Don't let go of the accelerator, just do it!
Then Verstappen should wait to rush out of the track, because Qin Miao's squeeze directly blocked Verstappen's best exit route.
In these corners of the first timing section, the original gap of more than 4 seconds between Verstappen and Hamilton directly became 3.6 seconds.
Qin Miao blocked Verstappen for almost one second in one timing segment.
In the first period of time, Verstappen also tried to cross the line at T3, and then took the outside line of T5 to try to overtake. However, Qin Miao did not make any extreme defensive moves, just after Verstappen's outburst. There was a slight squeeze on him on the curve, and Verstappen had no choice but to let off the accelerator in order not to run off the track.
At this moment, Verstappen, everyone at Red Bull Racing, and all the spectators supporting Verstappen at the Zandvoort circuit felt their scalps go numb.
Because they saw the shadow of Alonso at the Hungaroring in Qin Miao at this moment, and Qin Miao even put more pressure on Verstappen than Alonso put on Hamilton.
This is different from Bahrain's defense of Verstappen at the beginning of the season. Overtaking in Bahrain is much less difficult than Zandvoort, but on such a track, Qin Miao also defended Verstappen for more than 10 laps.
What if the venue is moved to Zandvoort where it is easier to defend the rear car? And the person who appeared in front of Verstappen was no longer the rookie Qin Miao who had just entered F1, but the talented driver Qin Miao who had won 4 race championships in his first season.
The difficulty of overtaking can be imagined.
At this time, Horner had no extra thoughts to pay attention to the fight between Verstappen and Qin Miao, because he discovered a big problem, that is, since Qin Miao and Verstappen started fighting, Hamilton has Quickly shortening the time gap with Verstappen.
Some people may not think this is a big deal, but if you take a longer view, if Qin Miao blocks Verstappen for three or four more laps, there may be more than one Hamilton behind him to shorten the gap with Verstappen. Red Bull's Gasly and Ferrari's two drivers will also shorten the gap with Verstappen.
If Verstappen had chosen to stop for tire changes at that time, Verstappen would have appeared behind the two Ferrari drivers after coming out.
Although Ferrari has been a mess this season and has made very few upgrades in the middle of the season. It is not directly competitive with Red Bull, but there is a Red Bull behind it. Whether it is Leclerc or Sainz, they will definitely not easily replace Vesta. Let Pan go.
After thinking of this, Horner directly asked Red Bull's strategy team to start calculating. According to the current trend, when will Verstappen pit so that he will not get stuck behind Ferrari.
What? Fourth place is Toro Rosso's Gasly. Don't you need to consider that he will also stop Verstappen?
Didn’t you also say that the fourth place is Little Toro Rosso.
And what team's car is Verstappen driving? Red Bull!
No matter how fast the second team is, it is still the second team. If Gasly does not want to be pressured by Marco, he will have to take the initiative to give up his position when Verstappen appears behind him.
If Ferrari notices that Verstappen appears behind him, he blocks it out of idleness, just to stop Verstappen from having fun.
But the speeds of the two cars, Red Bull and Toro Rosso, are not at the same level at all. The key is that they are the first and second teams of a team. Gasly stopping Verstappen is completely thankless.
So regardless of circumstances or reasons, Gasly letting Verstappen go is his best choice. Even if the timing of letting the car go is good, Gasly can also take advantage of the DRS when Verstappen leaves.
On the field, after passing the first timing period, it came to the second timing period.
There was no suitable overtaking point in the entire second period, but despite this, Qin Miao also gave Verstappen a lot of loopholes.
When entering the corner, he deliberately braked a little early, resulting in a very slow entry speed. There was a large space left on the outside line, and Verstappen could tap out from the outside line.
When exiting the corner, the gas was applied late and the speed was obviously very slow. There was a chance that Verstappen would tap the outside of the next corner.
Although Verstappen saw it, even though he found that he was entering and exiting the corner much faster than Qin Miao, Verstappen did not try to attack Qin Miao.
Because Qin Miao's flaws were somewhat obvious.
Braking too early into the corner? But Qin Miao did not give up his inside line.
Is it too late to put on the gas when exiting the corner? But the next corner came one after another, and Qin Miao was too late to apply oil when exiting the corner. Not only did his tires not wear out after he exited the corner, but he even applied oil late when exiting the corner, which protected him to a certain extent. own tires.
So even though Qin Miao looked like he was full of flaws in front of Verstappen, Verstappen didn't dare to overtake Qin Miao's car.
After fighting in so many games, he finally understood that whenever Qin Miao gave him a loophole, there must be a trap waiting for him behind him. If he got into it, Qin Miao would immediately put him at a certain distance. , it is very likely that the next best overtaking opportunity will be missed.
Therefore, Verstappen chose to stand still and was secretly proud of himself when he saw that he had saved 60% of the ERS power.
Just wait, I won't overtake you. When we get to the DRS area, I'll let you see the power of Honda's racing engine!
But Verstappen didn't expect that he would be tricked by Qin Miao.
In the second timing section of T10, when entering the corner, Qin Miao did not take the normal exit line, but a wider exit line.
Everyone knows that Qin Miao took this route to gain speed after exiting the corner and to have a longer straight road to accelerate the car.
But there was always someone behind Qin Miao, so after Qin Miao took such a route, Verstappen had an opportunity to insert Qin Miao's inside line.
Moreover, Qin Miao passed in front of Verstappen at the DRS testing point before T10.
So no matter how Qin Miao enters and exits T10, Verstappen will have DRS in the DRS area after T10. (End of chapter)
