In today's race, the tire formula given by Pirelli is C4-C3, three tires with intermediate hardness.

At the same time, the air temperature in the paddock today is 31 degrees Celsius and the track temperature is 60 degrees Celsius.

In fact, strictly speaking, today's track temperature is a bit too high, and it is not a simple thing for drivers to control the temperature of their tires.

As soon as the camera turned, the picture had come to the track.

Like other drivers, Qin Miao started on medium tyres.

At the time of the practice session, the number of laps used by a normal driver on this track would have been only 9.

This kind of durability is really too little for a 53-lap race, and even Qin Miao can only use soft tires to last 13 laps in a light oil state, and if he runs a little bit, a set of tires can probably last 17 laps in Qin Miao's hands.

The team actually wants Qin Miao to continue to run the tire differentiation competition.

But if you start with hard tires, even if Qin Miao lets go of the whole process, Qin Miao's lap speed is not as fast as the neutral tires that run with it.

But Qin Miao's hard tires can run directly on the track for 50 laps without much speed dropping.

Therefore, if hard tires are used in the initial stage, it will be a bit too wasteful for Qin Miao.

So after a period of meetings with the strategy team, the tactic arranged for Qin Miao was to stop yellow and red, but Qin Miao, who used neutral tires, had to hold on to the track for at least 36 laps.

The longer she persists, the higher the durability of the tires that Qin Miao can use after changing to soft tires.

This is basically Qin Miao's comfort zone, and there is no psychological burden on the team arrangement.

Soon, the warm-up lap begins.

To be honest, when running the warm-up lap, Qin Miao looked at the butt of his teammate Hamilton Racing that appeared in front of him, and Qin Miao was still a little uncomfortable for a while.

After all, Hamilton has led him only a handful of times this season.

Now Qin Miao's only expectation is that Hamilton's performance in the main stage is not as unsatisfactory as his qualifying.

Soon, the warm-up lap was over and all the drivers were parked where they were supposed to be parking.

Qin Miao also regained her mind and stopped thinking about things that had nothing to do with the current game.

Soon, five red lights came on, five red lights went out, and the game began.

Leclerc had a good start to the game today, and he held on to his starting position after the start.

Verstappen's start to the game today was actually okay, but compared to Leclerc, Verstappen's start today was a bit like a starting error.

On the other side, Pérez's starting speed was not fast, but Hamilton and Qin Miao behind him started very well.

Prior to T1, both Leclerc and Verstappen held their positions, but Pérez was taken to third by Hamilton, who had a significantly quicker start.

Qin Miao's starting speed is actually faster than Perez's, and even Qin Miao's starting speed is a little faster than Hamilton's.

However, the length of the straight after the start was limited, and Qin Miao's angle into the corner was also blocked by his teammates Hamilton and Pérez, and in the end, Qin Miao did not get a better position after starting and was still in fifth.

After a few corners, the car was straightened out and Leclerc began to slowly pull away from Verstappen behind him, who was quickly pulling away from Hamilton.

Qin Miao could only barely keep up with Perez in front of him before DRS was turned on.

However, when Qin Miao followed Perez, the old comrade Alonso behind Qin Miao was very dishonest, and from time to time he had a certain threat to Qin Miao, but with the time gap between Alonso and Qin Miao, Alonso had no way to attack Qin Miao's position and put pressure on Qin Miao.

Of course, Qin Miao will also do these operations, and even he can play better than Alonso, but looking at the old comrades behind him who are eager to try, Qin Miao is somewhat muttering in his heart.

In case this old Deng DRS is turned on and sucks himself in a mouthful of wake, when the time comes, he will take advantage of his inattention to come to the late brake of the inside line, and he probably has no good way to defend.

So in desperation, Qin Miao also devoted part of his energy to staring at Alonso behind him in the next game.

However, the performance gap between the car itself is here after all, so when the time came to the third lap, after the race turned on DRS, Qin Miao took his attention back from Alonso's body.

Because at this time, the time gap between Qin Miao and Alonso has come to 2 seconds.

Alonso looked at Qin Miao, who was unmoved by his actions at all, and had not even walked the defensive line, and could only sigh helplessly in his heart, the blue is better than the blue, Qin Miao's defensive IQ and mentality are indeed not like a young man of his age.

On lap four, the time gap between Hamilton and Verstappen was already two seconds.

The time gap of 0.5 seconds was opened in one lap, and everyone in the Mercedes team was a little helpless.

Qin Miao's side followed Perez in front of him, but Qin Miao also encountered a headache now.

Although he is now in the DRS zone behind Perez, Perez also followed Hamilton, and followed 0.5 seconds behind Hamilton, and in a short period of time, Perez could not surpass Hamilton in front, and Qin Miao also had no way to attack Perez on the track because Perez had Hamilton's DRS.

And judging from the current situation on the track, the current situation will not change much in the short term.

Fortunately, this state of affairs did not last long.

Hamilton's defensive ability is also considered to be top in the paddock, and he never lost position or conceded inside during the time when Pérez attacked himself, and Hamilton defended Pérez until the fifth lap.

And because of the long hours behind Hamilton and the fact that the temperature was a bit high today, it was inevitable that the tyres of the Pérez car were overheating.

On the one hand, because Pérez is too close to Hamilton in front, the car's air intake is sucked in the hot gas exhausted from Hamilton's engine, and at the same time, on the straight, Pérez's tires are also because he needs to suck Hamilton's wake, and he can't suck in the cold air on the track, because there is a vacuum area behind Hamilton's car in front, which exhausts all the air.

In such a situation, though, the Pérez car will experience less drag, and the ability to accelerate and know that the tail speed will be faster than the Mercedes in front.

But at the same time, Pérez's Red Bull car is the athlete's final sprint holding his breath.

It won't last long.

Therefore, on lap 6, Red Bull informed Pérez: "Cut the button, the tires of the car are a little too hot, if you can, you can distance yourself from Hamilton a little bit, cool down the tires, and wait for the next chance to attack." ”

Despite some reluctance, and even some fear of the No. 66 Mercedes behind him, Pérez finally listened to the team.

If you don't listen, you can't listen, because at this time, Pérez's tire tread has begun to appear obvious granularity, and I also feel that it is a little difficult to enter and exit the corner, if I don't cool down the tires of the car, Perez is likely to run straight out of the tire in this race.

And Qin Miao has no worries about this, because when running the straight, Qin Miao will take the initiative to try to attack and put pressure on Pérez, so Qin Miao's car still has cold air.

Now Perez finally took the initiative to give up the DRS in front of him, which just gave Qin Miao the opportunity to attack and pick up the leak.

On the 8th lap two laps later, Qin Miao finally sucked up Pérez's wake when he came out of the corner behind the big straight, and completed the overtaking of Pérez by braking late on the inside line before the braking point of T1.

Without differentiated tires, Qin Miao's overtaking is indeed much more difficult than under normal conditions.

And in fact, Qin Miao had already come to the position 0.5 seconds behind Perez on the seventh lap, but this DRS area between T7 and T8 was too advantageous for Red Bull.

Those corners are dominated by low-to-medium corners, and in these corners, the Red Bull Racing's grip and cornering speed are significantly faster than those of Mercedes.

So in the end, Qin Miao still had to rely on the mechanical grip of the T15, which purely looked at the mechanical grip of the car, instead of relying on the aerodynamic effect of the car, and completed the overtaking of Perez with some difficulty.

After surpassing Pérez, Qin Miao's ranking came to third.

At this time, Qin Miao had a time gap of 4 seconds from his teammates.

But in any case, the current Qin Miao finally has enough time to run long distances, and there are still 4 seconds of clean air ahead.

In the subsequent races, Qin Miao began to shorten the time gap with Hamilton in front of him at a speed of 0.2 seconds per lap.

But compared with Leclerc and Verstappen, Qin Miao was gradually pulled away by the two.

On the 16th lap, at this time, Qin Miao came to the position 2 seconds behind Hamilton.

Now the time gap between Qin Miao and Hamilton is shortening at a rate of 0.3 seconds per lap.

Hamilton's medium tires began to fail, and Qin Miao's medium tires were failing more slowly than all the riders in the field.

However, at this time, Verstappen, who had been following Leclerc all the time, but had not found any opportunity to attack Leclerc, finally couldn't bear it anymore, and he chose to pit early.

In fact, at this time, the time gap between Hamilton and Verstappen was only eight seconds, and the pit lane at Paul Ricard was relatively long, and the total time required for a pit stop could be as high as 22 seconds without a tire changer's error.

So Verstappen fell to seventh after coming in and out, behind Norris, and there wasn't much clean air in front of him, because he was 1.7 seconds ahead of Norris, and Verstappen had to overtake Norris before he had 4 seconds of clean air to run.

So at this point, Leclerc started his lead.

But just as all the fans were turning their attention to the rest of the track, they began to wonder if Verstappen could cut Leclerc.

Lap 18.

The yellow flag suddenly lit up in the third time segment.

At this point in time, no other driver other than Leclerc made it to the third time segment.

Soon, the director cut the screen to Leclerc's car.

In front of the spectators was a wall of tyres, along with the entire front of the car with a Ferrari car inserted into the tyre wall.

Five seconds later, the safety car was dispatched.

And after the safety car came out, the riders who had not yet entered the pit stop made money.

That's how the free pit stop came.

On the other hand, Verstappen, who had just made two laps of the pit stop, was shocked when he saw the yellow flag displayed on his steering wheel, and then the cold sweat came down after seeing the safety car.

Because he knew that behind his real position at this time were Hamilton and Qin Miao, and they would definitely enter the pit lane to change tires at this time.

If they took advantage of this safety car and just got stuck in front of them after coming out, then they didn't have to think about it, they would have to face Qin Miao's damn defense again in this game, and they also needed to face the DRS train composed of two Meiben drivers.

And at this point in time, everyone must have changed the hard tires to run the whole race for the next day, and in the later stages of the race, they must be extremely painful.

I'm going to have to face the nasty taillights of Mercedes Racing again.

Unconsciously, Qin Miao's one-and-a-half-year career has caused many drivers of big teams to have a headache when they see the rear diffuser of the Mercedes car.

However, soon, the reminder from the Red Bull Racing team was transmitted to Verstappen through the team TR: "Max, according to our calculations, after this safety car, Hamilton is likely to appear in front of you, and Qin Miao is likely to appear behind you." ”

Although there may be an extra Hamilton in front of him, it still makes Verstappen feel a little uncomfortable.

But at least, it was not Qin Miao's dead pervert who appeared in front of him, which gave Verstappen a little psychological comfort.

Now it was Qin Miao's turn to feel a little uncomfortable, because at this time he was only 2 seconds away from Hamilton.

If you make a two-car pit stop, you will inevitably need to wait behind Hamilton for a while when Hamilton changes the tyre, and during this time, Pérez behind him can go in early to change the tyre......

Soon, all the drivers of the team chose to make a pit stop for tyres.

Hamilton pitted on hard tyres and there were 35 laps left before the end of the race, and the final restart should be 20 laps and 33 laps to go.

Most of the drivers can finish the race with hard tyres and stick to the track.

So there is no problem with changing to hard tires at this time.

But Qin Miao was a little helpless here.

Because at this time, he can only pit for hard tires, and the change of neutral tires means that Qin Miao still needs to make another pit stop, and the soft tires can't run the remaining 33 laps at all, and the hard tires are a bit too wasteful for Qin Miao.

But Qin Miao didn't have a choice. (End of chapter)