The crowd chatted again, and waited in the car home for about ten minutes before Hamilton was late.

However, F1 drivers are busy, and it is the norm for people like Hamilton to be absent from team meetings, while Qin Miao's team meetings are the exception.

Of course, it is also possible that Qin Miao has participated in few team meetings in his career, and there is no chance of being late.

Although being late was inevitable and the team staff could understand, Hamilton was a little embarrassed to bow down and apologize to the team staff.

Once you sit down, today's team meeting begins.

The meeting was about today's tyre strategy and the team's new tactics in the rain, while Toto also highlighted what needs to be prepared in a rainy situation that is very different from a dry situation.

Although the meeting was very important, it didn't last long, it ended in twenty minutes, and Qin Miao and Hamilton mainly acted as an audience, and the main participants of this meeting were actually the technicians and engineers of the team.

They need to set up and prepare the car after the meeting and before the start of the race.

After the meeting, Qin Miao left Autohome with the tasks assigned to him by the team.

The red and yellow stop originally arranged for Qin Miao will not be used at this time, but the team considers that today's rain is not too big, and according to the weather forecast, the rain on the track will become smaller after about 20 laps of the car, and the water accumulation is also almost arranged because of the long driving of the car, so Qin Miao can be arranged with a green and white stop tactic at that time.

Of course, in the case of rain, the plan basically can't catch up with the changes, so when the time comes, Qin Miao still has to improvise what tire strategy to use.

Came to the team's P room with a familiar car, and the team staff at this time had no bottom in their hearts, because no one knew what the effect of using Qin Miao's current car tuning on this track was, and whether the car tuning was still suitable for Qin Miao's driving habits after changing the tires.

After coming to his racing car, Qin Miao began to prepare before entering the racing car, briefly stretched and moved his limbs, and then Qin Miao put on the equipment, supported the flip-flops and lay down in the car.

Qin Miao lay down in the monocoque, and during the time when the seat belt was installed, Qin Miao's chief technician, Reyes, handed Qin Miao's steering wheel over.

Qin Miao took over the steering wheel after installing her seat belt, Reyes explained: "Just now your steering wheel was taken to the logistics department to upgrade the internal system, the stability of the system has been tested by the engineering department for a period of time, and no problems have been found, now it is just for you to take it to the field to test the stability." ”

While taking the steering wheel handed over by Reyes, Qin Miao asked curiously, "Has Hamilton's system been upgraded like mine?" ”

"Uh...... No, his steering wheel was just a little more revised. After Reyes finished speaking, he was afraid that Qin Miao would be emotional, so he hurriedly added: "Of course, our steering wheel has also been optimized in shape, and the possibility of mistouching the keys has been reduced as much as possible." ”

Qin Miao was not disgusted with the system upgrade of his steering wheel, after all, he also knew that updating the system must have fixed some more fatal system bugs, optimized the response order and response time of some programs, and it was beneficial on the whole.

But Qin Miao suddenly didn't like the identity of driver No. 2 very much now.

Although the stability of the steering wheel system must have been tested thousands of times in the factory, this is the first time it has been used on the field, and no one knows if there will be any problems when the system that is as stable as an old dog in the laboratory is put on the real field.

Qin Miao, who became a guinea pig for testing the stability of the steering wheel system, felt a little uncomfortable in her heart.

It's really not a good feeling to have to do the dirty work and the risky work with the No. 2 driver, even though I'm driving a Mercedes at this time.

However, Qin Miao didn't show it, driving is for money, and this is also a career she loves, maybe Qin Miao is a little lazy in daily life, but Qin Miao is still more rational in her working state.

Break the quick release at the back of the steering wheel to reveal the steel balls and buckles underneath, align them and snap them directly into your own car.

Then he waited for the steering wheel system to turn on, adjusted the button test program inside the steering wheel, looked at the interface in front of him, pressed all the buttons on the steering wheel, and made sure that no buttons were out of order, and then Qin Miao switched the steering wheel to normal mode.

Finally, he confirmed his racing car settings, and then Qin Miao said in the TR: "I'm ready, I can go out at any time." ”

Reyes made sure that Qin Miao's equipment was inspected, and the technicians of Qin Miao's crew also made sure that Qin Miao's car was ready, and Reyes released Qin Miao.

It is worth mentioning that because of the rain, the angle of the front wing of Qin Miao's racing car was adjusted again, which filled the downforce of the front section of Qin Miao's racing car.

drove all the way to his own grid, and after Qin Miao filled it in, he was set up by the team's technicians with jacks, and the 4 tires were wrapped in thermal blankets.

After waiting on the track for about ten minutes, Qin Miao also took the time to buff his car, and it didn't take long after finishing it to start the race.

The team crew withdrew from the track a minute before the warm-up lap was about to start.

It is worth mentioning that when the team staff left with the thermal blankets and equipment of the cars, the track at the rear wheel of the car in the grid was dry, which was completely different from the surrounding ground.

If you touch it with your hands at this time, you will feel a burst of heat.

Almost every car is parked and there are traces of this, which is actually a deliberate effort by the team to heat up the entire area so that when the car stops there and starts, it will have a stronger grip on the tires.

Today is just because of the rainy day, so it looks a little obvious, but in fact, there will be this operation in normal games without rain.

The crews lined up on either side of the track with their equipment, and as the Rolex timer arrived at 3 p.m. local time in Imola, two green lights came on and the warm-up lap began.

Following Hamilton drove his car out of the grid, Qin Miao's heart rate began to increase involuntarily.

Seriously, when he was in Bahrain, Qin Miao also started from the second position, although he was nervous at that time, it was not so much nervous as excited, and now Qin Miao is really nervous, worried that he will not play well, or that there will be an accident on the track.

And the main reason why Qin Miao is nervous doesn't need to be guessed, it is because of the rain today.

Following Hamilton all the way to the starting straight, Qin Miao had warmed up his tires as much as possible before starting, but after all, there was rain on the track, and Qin Miao's tires barely reached the working temperature.

Then Qin Miao's car slowly stopped on the starting grid.

After Qin Miao parked, not all the cars in the car array had been parked in their own starting positions, and during this time of waiting for other vehicles to enter their predetermined positions, Frankie reminded Qin Miao in TR: "There is rain today, although we are using semi-rainy tires, but the temperature of the semi-rainy tires is dropping a little faster than we expected, start a little more carefully, try to avoid accidents." ”

Qin Miao also has an interface on the car to be able to see the working temperature of his 4 tires, but he needs to adjust it to see it, but at this time, Qin Miao was a little nervous in his heart, and his expression was also tense, so although he heard Frankie's words, he was also a little worried that the tire temperature would not meet expectations, but he didn't spare his mind to take a look, but stared at the five red lights above.

Twenty seconds later, the medical vehicle in the rear came to a halt and the green flag waved.

The five red lights, which had been pitch black, began to light up one by one.

When the first red light was on, Qin Miao, like all the drivers, pressed his accelerator to maintain the engine speed, and his fingers had been pressed on the clutch button and deducted to the pre-activated position.

There was rain on the track this time, so Qin Miao only stepped on 1/5 of the throttle depth this time, and the engine speed was only maintained at 7400RPM, and no matter how high it was, the starting grip would not be enough.

Soon, all the five red lights lit up, and at this moment, Qin Miao's heart rate soared to 160, and his eyes were staring at the five red lights above him.

"Five red lights go out!"

Qin Miao violently pressed the clutch button on the steering wheel, and instantly the power of the engine was transmitted to Qin Miao's two rear wheels through the clutch.

Qin Miao got off to a smooth start, and so did his teammates.

Hamilton and Qin Miao's start is actually okay, but as the saying goes, they are afraid of comparison.

Compared with Qin Miao and Hamilton in front, the two Red Bulls behind the two Mercedes are obviously much faster.

After the start, Qin Miao found that he and Hamilton were not pulled apart or closer, so he knew that his start was okay, and the rear wheel did not appear to be idling or anything.

However, after the start, Qin Miao, who gradually deepened the depth of the throttle, saw through the rearview mirror the two Red Bulls behind him that were rapidly approaching him and Hamilton.

Even Verstappen's speed on his own side was incredibly fast, and he had already finished wheel-to-wheel with team-mate Sergio Pérez in just 200 metres at the start of the fourth, and was about to start attacking himself and Hamilton.

At this time, there was basically no extra time for Qin Miao to weigh the pros and cons, and after finding that the two Red Bulls were approaching quickly, Qin Miao directly leaned slightly towards Hamilton's position, compressing the space between himself and Hamilton that was originally enough for one car to pass through to not enough for one car to pass.

And Hamilton found that his and Qin Miao's start was not too ideal during this time, and after Red Bull's start was very good, he directly defended his position on the inside, and when he saw Qin Miao leaning over, he didn't dodge, but leaned towards Qin Miao's side, and seemed to give up his left position, but if Pérez behind Hamilton wanted to overtake from the left, the two wheels on Pérez's left would definitely press on the grass.

When the time comes, the car will definitely get out of control.

Although there was no communication before the game, a small cooperation between Qin Miao and Hamilton directly blocked the advantage brought by Pérez's excellent start.

At this time, someone is going to say, doesn't Verstappen on the other side still have room to overtake from the right?

But you must know that Qin Miao is side by side with Hamilton at this time, and it seems that there is indeed a position on the outside line for Verstappen to insert.

But as long as Verstappen does insert this seemingly accessible gap, Verstappen will definitely suffer when it comes to the T2 and T3 combination corners.

Because as long as Qin Miao braked late when entering the corner, Verstappen could only honestly go to the escape passage and press on the grass, or be directly bounced up by the yellow deceleration belt in the center of the bend.

And Verstappen also knows this, so after seeing Qin Miao and Hamilton put on this formation, he knows that T2, the best overtaking corner, has no chance to improve his ranking, although it is a pity, but the race is still very long, Verstappen can also stabilize his mentality, not in a hurry at this time.

Verstappen has his sights set on his team-mate Sergio Pérez.

He needs to get a relatively good position before the official attack starts to get past Qin Miao as soon as possible to start the attack against Hamilton.

……

After the T2T3T4 Qin Miao didn't make any moths, nor did he deliberately put Hamilton over, that is, the two cars went side by side all the way to T4 after the corner, because Qin Miao's angle out of the corner was not as good as Hamilton's, so after the corner, Hamilton directly and quickly opened the distance between him and Qin Miao.

Then Qin Miao was stupid.

When he was side by side with Hamilton just now, it was okay, although there were raindrops on the goggles of Qin Miao's helmet, these raindrops basically did not affect Qin Miao.

Moreover, Qin Miao's goggles have a hydrophobic layer, and water stains will not remain on Qin Miao's goggles

But now after coming to the back of Hamilton's car, the mist raised by the car when driving at high speed directly made Qin Miao's vision in front of him white, and only the scenery on both sides of the track and the tail lights at the tail of Hamilton's car can provide Qin Miao with a certain reference.

After realizing that he couldn't see the road ahead clearly, Qin Miao completely subconsciously released the accelerator with his right foot.

Because when anyone is driving at high speed, the first thing they suddenly can't see clearly in front of them must be to release the accelerator and brake to ensure their own safety.

But the professionalism of being a racing driver made Qin Miao step on the accelerator of the car again.

Fortunately, it was the gap between gear shifts at this time, and Qin Miao's slightly loose throttle didn't have much impact on its speed, and Verstappen behind Qin Miao couldn't attack Qin Miao in the next corner.

In the rainy weather, the only place in Imola is suitable for attacking: T2.

However, after stepping on the accelerator, Qin Miao looked at Hamilton in front of him, and the red rear tail lights flashing in the white mist were really numb.

After this rain, many of Qin Miao's good braking points could not be used, and they could only use the scenery around the track as a reference point to judge the braking timing, and because of the lack of grip, Qin Miao's braking point had to be moved backwards, and at the same time, he had to find a reference object to judge his current position.

Although Qin Miao had a brief moment of panic and loss of rhythm, Qin Miao quickly stabilized his mentality.

After all, his proficiency in this track is really quite high, even if the scenery in front of him is completely blocked by the rain curtain set off by the tail of Hamilton's racing car, Qin Miao can still rely on his familiarity with this track to drive normally.

Then the car drove all the way to T11, which made Qin Miao feel comforted that after all, it was still raining, and the track was full of water, except for Hamilton, Verstappen, who was following him, couldn't see the road in front of him, and Qin Miao couldn't even see where Verstappen was from the mist raised by his rear wheel.

However, before Qin Miao could relax a little, a yellow flag appeared on the track.

When the director cut the camera over, the audience saw that a Williams had broken his front wing and right front wheel suspension on the straight between T15 and T16 and stopped on the grass by the track.

Naturally, the mistakes were made by our great director Latifi.

Because Latifi did not have a safety zone exit at the location of the accident, and it was very close to the track, the race turned the yellow flag into a safety car after a short yellow flag.

During the safety car, the race also showed what had happened in less than half a lap.

In fact, before the accident, Latifi had already spun off the track once in T13, and when he came back, he was right ahead of Ma Zeping.

The key is that Ma Zeping was driving normally at this time, and Latifi didn't look at the cars behind him and forcibly merged, causing Ma Zeping to react and there was no extra position to avoid.

Latifi's right rear wheel then collided with Mazepin's left front wheel, and Latifi's balance was disrupted, and he lost control and crashed into the parapet on the spot.

The main cause of the accident was Latifi, which is nothing to dispute.

And for the drivers, it is not without good news, because with the safety car leading, the water on the track will be drained a lot.

Qin Miao originally thought that the race would be over after cleaning up the debris and the car that Latifi had crashed out of the track, and was already ready to look at Hamilton's pressing timing, when suddenly the TR on the team's side heard a voice again: "Qin Miao, the safety car will continue, Mick Schumacher also crashed just now, and now the track is full of debris." ”

Qin Miao: Huh?

The director soon gave Mick a shot, and after seeing Mick's shot, Fei Ge exclaimed, "Huh? Mick! This is under the leadership of a safety car, how could he crash? ”

And after seeing Mick's performance in this game, Brother Bing sighed and stabbed Mick: "They are also newcomers who have just joined F1, and Haas are a bit of a maverick compared to Qin Miao and Tsunoda." ”

"This can't be blamed on them, Haas's car this year is already difficult to drive, there is still rain today, plus Qin Miao is putting pressure on them on the field, it is normal to make mistakes."

And while the three commentators were chatting, the on-site director also switched the camera to the shot of why Mick made a mistake just now.

I saw that after passing the exit of the safety zone, Mick was led by the safety car, grinding the tires to a large extent, and then oversteering when grinding the tires, the grip of the rear wheels was lost, Mick subconsciously fought back and prepared to save the car, but after the counter-beating, Mick did not correct his steering wheel in time, resulting in the whole car directly towards the parapet wall behind the exit of the pit area.

Fortunately, when Mick hit the wall, the front nose wing hit the parapet wall, and only Mick's front nose was damaged, and the car could continue to run.

After seeing this scene, Zhou Haoran even shouted: "I seem to have seen Grosjean on the field!" ”

But after the collision, this race basically has nothing to do with Mick, Haas's car this season is in a state of swinging with children, in their position, their own hope of scoring points is very slim, and now they have to go back to change the front nose wing, although Mick can still run in this game, but basically has been sentenced to death in advance.

Because of Mick's collision, there was a lot of debris on the track, so the safety car took a few more laps.

The safety car was carried all the way to lap six, and after Mick hit it, it took 21.3 seconds to change the front wing.

Unlike Latifi's collision, which was human-factored, this time Mick was purely dish-ready.

The good news is that after these six laps, the track has dried out a bit, but the bad news is that the sky is still not beautiful and the light rain has been falling.

The safety car turned off its overhead light in the T17 position, alerting the riders behind it that the race would soon restart.

After receiving this news, Qin Miao and Hamilton also began to grind the tires to warm up the tires.

And after Qin Miao ran such a lap on the field, he also had a basic psychological preparation for the rain battle, so he was not as panicked as when he started.

Hamilton still pressed the car a little bit and only started to pick up sharply just after T19.

And Qin Miao kept staring at the rear of Hamilton's car after the safety car withdrew, and as Hamilton speeded up, Qin Miao quickly followed.

After Qin Miao successfully started, he turned his attention to the rearview mirror, Qin Miao knew that although he and his teammate Hamilton were in a competitive relationship, the biggest threat to him at this time was Verstappen behind him.

And Verstappen also lived up to the name of genius, his speed was obviously faster than Qin Miao at the second start, and when Qin Miao looked through his left rearview mirror, Verstappen's car flashed past and went to Qin Miao's right.

After seeing this scene, Qin Miao subconsciously played to the right, wanting to defend Verstappen.

But Qin Miao's position had just shifted, and Verstappen's car appeared to the right of Qin Miao's car again.

When Qin Miao found that there was no car in the right rearview mirror, and reacted and looked back at the left rearview mirror, Qin Miao saw that in the white mist raised by the racing tires, Verstappen's front wing had already come to his rear wheel position.

Qin Miao could no longer block Verstappen's line by changing lanes at this time.

(End of chapter)