Saturday, the day of the third practice and the start of qualifying.

Saturday was still sunny, and today's day was similar to Friday's.

Breakfast in the paddock before 8 a.m., team meetings start at 9:20, meetings with engineers start at 10 a.m., rest starts at 11 a.m. and start preparing for the third practice at 11:30 a.m.

The third practice of Qin Miao was mainly to test his qualifying speed, but the final results of the third practice were a little unsatisfactory for Qin Miao.

I don't know if it's because of the new baseboard, the stability of the car in the extreme state is a bit poor, so Qin Miao's speed is not fast enough when he is doing the qualifying race simulator.

After the third practice, the news was submitted to the team's engineers and the engineers at the factory, but the specific solution had to be found out when the qualifying session began.

Soon, the clock was 3 p.m. local time, which was the start of qualifying.

In the Q1 stage, Qin Miao was mainly testing the team's adjustment of the racing floor.

The final result was good, and Qin Miao regained her speed in Q1 of the qualifying round.

In the end, Q1 Qin Miao advanced to Q2 with seventh place.

The audience has gradually become accustomed to Qin Miao's qualifying style of not doing his best until the last lap of Q3.

Although some people have complained that Qin Miao's running style is not safe, it is easy to overturn and so on.

But at least so far, Qin Miao has not suffered any major losses because of his running style.

Soon, Q2 Qin Miao also successfully advanced to the fifth place.

In fact, with the strength of Mei Ben's car and Qin Miao's strength, it is not normal for him to not advance smoothly.

In Q2, it was worth mentioning that the fastest lap times of the two Red Bull drivers, Verstappen and Pérez, were brushed on soft tyres.

And Qin Miao and Hamilton used neutral tires.

In other words, in the main stage of tomorrow's race, Red Bull is ready to start at the beginning of Mercedes.

In Q3, Qin Miao had two new sets of soft tires in the Q3 stage, while three new sets of hard, medium and soft tires were still retained in the main race stage.

Although Qin Miao was going to start with neutral tires, the strong tire protection ability still gave Qin Miao an extra set of neutral tires, and only one set of neutral tires was used in the practice stage.

Qin Miao is indeed a little too fond of planning ahead in terms of tires.

On the first lap of Q3, Gasly was the first to run.

Then there were two Red Bull and two Alpine, and then two Mercedes.

Although the Hangaroring track is relatively short, and it is not very convenient to overtake cars on the track, it is now Q3 after all, there are not many cars on the track, and Qin Miao also came out with other drivers, so Qin Miao did not encounter any slow cars in the first flight lap stage of Q3.

After running the first flight lap of Q3, Qin Miao's result temporarily moved to fourth, behind Pérez, with a gap of 0.1 seconds between the two.

For Qin Miao's position, his fans were very calm, and they didn't think there was anything strange.

Fan Qin Miao is good at this, the qualifying session is not until the last moment, you never know what Qin Miao's real lap speed is.

Naturally, there will always be a sense of expectation for Qin Miao's lap speed.

After running the first flight lap and returning to the garage, Qin Miao asked Frankie to help him bring up the flight circle of Verstappen just now, and at the same time compared his own flight circle on the screen on the other side.

However, due to the rush of time, the two pictures that Frankie brought up were two videos, and they just pressed the play button together, there was a little difference in the timeline, but it didn't affect the driver of Qin Miao's level.

He just wanted to see how Verstappen ran this lap and whether there was any difference between his own running style.

After watching Verstappen's video, Qin Miao looked at his teammates again.

Verstappen's video just now was a screenshot of the broadcast, and the old man's video was directly deducted from the car and the memory card was shown to Qin Miao.

Comparing the driving styles of the two top drivers, Qin Miao's interval between two flight laps was all used up.

There were about two minutes and forty seconds left before Q3 stopped watching, and Qin Miao was let out by Frankie.

However, the last flight lap of Q3 had just begun, and all the riders, including Qin Miao, found that the track environment had deteriorated, and the grip had decreased significantly.

It should be caused by the temperature of the track dropping.

So you can see from the live broadcast footage that after the start of the last lap of Hamilton and Verstappen, both of them were painted yellow in the first time period.

Although Verstappen was painted green, the pace of the second time period was still not as fast as Hamilton's normal second time period.

Hamilton was even simpler, with three yellow laps after the last lap of Q3, and Verstappen, despite the last two laps painted green, was still 0.4 seconds slower than Hamilton, so he could only finish second after crossing the line.

Qin Miao was more miserable, although Qin Miao brushed three sections of green in the last time session, which was 0.2 seconds faster than his first lap.

However, after he finished, his position did not change, as Pérez was also 0.2 seconds faster than his first flight lap after this lap.

In the regret of the three commentators, Qin Miao's qualifying match ended in fourth place.

That's why the top 10 drivers in the race started in the following order:

Pole position: Hamilton: 1:15.419

P2: Verstappen +0.412

P3: Pérez +1.002

P4: Qin Miao +1.012

P5: Gasly +1.064

P6: Norris +1.070

P7: Leclerc +1.077

P8: AuCom +1.234

P9: Alonso +1.296

P10: Vettel +1.331

Seriously, this is the first time Qin Miao has suffered this kind of loss, and it can be regarded as a hard memory.

"It doesn't matter, it's not a big problem, we believe in Qin Miao, in terms of Qin Miao's ability to protect the tire and the long-distance ability of the race, as long as it doesn't rain in the main race stage, Qin Miao will definitely have a lot to do in this game!" Phineas swore in the final stage before qualifying.

As soon as Fei Ge's words fell, Qin Miao, who was taking the car to the maintenance area, shuddered, and always felt that something bad had happened.

Brother Bing also nodded in agreement: "Qin Miao's offensive ability is indeed the top in the paddock, although the Hengaroring circuit is one of the most difficult tracks to overtake this season, second only to Monaco, but the picture of Qin Miao's overtaking in Monaco is still echoing in my mind at the moment, I think the audience and friends can look forward to Qin Miao's overtaking picture in the main race stage tomorrow." ”

Zhou Haoran picked up a data sheet and said: "It may be a bit unreasonable to say it, but this is the second time that Qin Miao has not entered the top three in the qualifying race since entering F1." ”

After Zhou Haoran's reminder, Brother Bing and Brother Fei suddenly woke up, especially Qin Miao, like Yuyi Tsunoda and Mick Schumacher, are just first-year freshmen, but such a freshman can already have this kind of performance on the field.

Because they gradually got used to Qin Miao's existence, they had unconsciously separated Qin Miao from the word rookie driver.

But mainly because Qin Miao's performance on the field was too eye-catching, and it was no wonder that they were there.

……

After qualifying, Qin Miao parked the car in the maintenance area at the entrance of the pit area.

After getting out of the car and turning around and pressing the steering wheel back again, Leclerc walked over and stopped Qin Miao's shoulder.

"Why are you here? Oh, I know you didn't make it to the top three. ”

Qin Miao had already reinstalled his steering wheel on the car at this time, and he didn't need to worry about the follow-up, so he was weighed by him along with Leclerc's strength.

While taking off her gloves and helmet, Qin Miao explained helplessly: "In the last lap of Q3, I felt that the track was getting colder, and the grip had decreased slightly, and the speed couldn't get up, so the speed was not as fast as when I flew the first lap."

Speaking of which, are you having the same problem? ”

Leclerc shrugged: "Of course, but the characteristics of the track in Hengaroring are not in line with our Ferrari, I can't be fast at all, and I can enter Q3 purely because I am lucky, so I have been mentally prepared for a certain amount for a long time, but seriously, I am very happy to see you here." ”

Qin Miao rolled her eyes, Leclerc saw where she learned the bad problem of funeral.

"Go, go, don't let me find a chance to run ahead of you on the track, when the time comes, I can have you a little better, my name is written upside down."

Leclerc cut off: "Your W12 is so fast, can you slow down and deliberately block me?" ”

Qin Miao thought about it, the W12 is much faster than this year's Ferrari SF21, basically after four laps, the SF21 can't see the W12 taillights.

"It's also ......"

The two chatted and worked together to complete the post-race weigh-in and driver interviews.

Although this is only the second time that Qin Miao has gone through this process, someone has taken it after all.

During the post-game interview, many reporters waved at Qin Miao after seeing Qin Miao, wanting to interview Qin Miao.

The Chinese driver is a rarity for the FIA's interview seats, and after knowing that Qin Miao did not enter the top three in qualifying, the reporter in charge of the interview here prepared a lot of questions for Qin Miao.

However, even if they were specially prepared, the questions they asked were nothing new, nothing more than why this game fell into this position, whether it was possible to regain their position in the main stage, and so on.

Qin Miao chose an old man who looked more kind and accepted his interview.

After completing the routine tasks, Qin Miao's work this week is considered complete.

Even when she left the paddock after completing the interview, Qin Miao felt that it was not bad to finish fourth.

Instead of attending the hour-long post-match press conference, you can just slip away after the interview.

Therefore, Qin Miao got off work today more than half an hour earlier than before.

I returned to the hotel at half past four in the afternoon.

Qin Miao, who was in the hotel, didn't turn on the computer, emptied her head for a while, and then went to bed at ten o'clock.

Nothing to say all night, Sunday, the day the race begins.

A good day starts with the sight of a rainy sky.

When Qin Miao got up and finished washing, she habitually opened the curtains of her hotel room to see the weather, and the scenery outside the window gave Qin Miao a big fight.

At this time, there was a cloudy cloud outside the window, and fine raindrops fell from the sky, although the raindrops drove away a little summer heat, but especially for Qin Miao, the rainy day was going to die.

Looking at the rain outside the window, Qin Miao grabbed her hair a little irritably, and then went out with some helplessness.

On the way to the paddock, all Qin Miao could do was to keep praying that the rain would stop soon, or that the rain would become lighter.

Maybe Qin Miao's prayers played a role, and when Qin Miao arrived in the paddock, the rain really stopped.

However, the dark clouds did not dissipate, and they still surrounded the track, and it could rain again at any time.

When Qin Miao finished breakfast and came to the team's house, he found a colleague from the meteorological department and inquired only to know that there was no possibility of the weather being sunny in a short period of time, and there was a high probability that there would be rain during the race.

Although it was raining, the pre-race riders' parade was not cancelled, but the cars in which the riders were seated were changed from convertibles to canopies.

At the end of the cruise, the riders have eaten some high-calorie food to replenish their energy, and after another 10 minutes of rest, it is time to start preparing for the race.

At two o'clock in the afternoon, Qin Miao put on her equipment and came to the track.

Although it was not raining, it was still overcast and a little wet on the track.

However, considering that the track could rain at any time, the teams moved out the rain shelters of the cars and put them on the cars.

Qin Miao's race car is no exception.

After completing the final task of listening to the national anthem of the event venue before the race, Qin Miao returned to his racing car.

I chatted with Reyes about the situation of his car, the amount of fuel they had prepared for their car, and the settings, and after making sure that it was correct, it was almost time for the race to start.

Qin Miao also took advantage of the situation to put on her equipment and sit in the car.

At first, it was nothing, but as the time got closer to the start of the race, it began to rain.

Fortunately, there were still more than ten minutes before the start of the race, and seeing that it was drizzling in the sky again, the various teams that had been preparing for a long time changed their drivers to semi-rain tires.

Qin Miao watched as the neutral tires of his racing car were replaced with semi-rain tires.

A long sigh, but on the bright side, at least Red Bull's original tyre tactics were useless, and all drivers on all teams were back to the same level of tyre readiness.

Once the new tyres were put in and the team staff were withdrawn, the warm-up laps began.

After running briefly, Qin Miao found that the first and second time periods were only raining lightly, but the rain in the third time period was relatively heavy, which was considered moderate rain.

Seeing such a situation, Qin Miao doesn't want to overtake now, and is on the podium, and it is imperative to keep his current position after starting.

When the warm-up laps returned, the drivers were back in their respective positions, and the ground, which had been a little dry due to the block, was completely soaked.

Qin Miao also slowly parked his car in the starting grid that belonged to him.

(End of chapter)