Chapter 1411 - 531: A Not-So-Smooth Opening

Chapter 1411: Chapter 531: A Not-So-Smooth Opening

At this time, Qin Miao couldn’t help but wonder, if he had gone to Ferrari and encountered the same situation, how would Ferrari’s strategy group respond?

Although Ferrari’s strategy group is a bit foolish, after proposing an idea, one would expect them to think about how to maximize the benefits according to his wishes rather than weighing the pros and cons at the moment.

However, Qin Miao doesn’t know which of these two approaches is better or worse.

Ultimately, Qin Miao came out of the team’s pit box with 13 minutes left on the Q1 countdown.

Because at this time, the drivers who first came out to run flying laps had already completed theirs, and the track conditions had significantly improved due to the continuous passage of cars.

Indeed, some drivers refreshed their qualifying scores during this period.

So the team releasing Qin Miao now isn’t much of a problem.

But the annoying thing is, accidents always happen on the track.

After Qin Miao exited the pits and ran two warm-up laps, preparing to fly a lap, Perez, who started his flying lap behind Qin Miao, made a mistake after the first timed sector.

At Turn 3, he rushed off the track, plunged directly into the buffer zone, started a rally race, and got stuck in the gravel trap, unable to get out.

And the position where Perez’s car stopped was right outside the buffer zone, and it got stuck, naturally resulting in a red flag.

After all, the Australian Grand Prix is managed by the FOM, unlike Japan or the old Monaco.

In situations requiring a crane, they definitely issue a red flag.

Once Perez’s car was moved, no further incidents occurred after Q1.

The only thing that made Qin Miao feel frustrated was that the flying lap where he felt the best was ruined.

But Qin Miao still managed to get a decent lap time in Q1.

Mainly because, toward the end of Q1, all drivers were running flying laps continuously with the same set of tires, and no one came off the track.

Until the end of qualifying Q1.

Ultimately, Qin Miao advanced to Q2 in third place.

And the drivers eliminated in Q1 were: Piastri, Zhou Guanyu, Russell, Bottas, Perez.

Today’s race saw Zhou Guanyu and Bottas both eliminated in Q1, which indeed surprised many.

But in the eyes of professionals, Alfa Romeo being eliminated at this stage is not surprising.

Although the Albert Park circuit seems to have many turns, everyone who runs this track knows it’s actually a high-speed circuit. Even the curves are mostly heavy braking turns, and it’s also a circuit requiring frequent acceleration and deceleration.

The characteristics of these turns are sheer torture for Alfa Romeo, which uses a self-developed gearbox.

After all, Alfa Romeo, to save money, developed a poor gearbox that can’t efficiently transfer the Ferrari engine’s power to the tires.

One could say that the high power speed advantage of the Ferrari engine is destroyed by that poor gearbox, but the trait of the Ferrari engine’s lack of durability is fully inherited by the Alfa Romeo team.

It can be seen that Alfa Romeo has bound its hands to save money and has given up its biggest advantage, which is the Ferrari engine’s power.

Humor Sauber.

Now the only hope for Zhou Guanyu’s fans in the country is that Audi, after taking over Sauber, will be able to make improvements in this area.

Of course, to be honest, whether Audi will eventually keep Zhou Guanyu is also a question.

Although in Bi’s words, Audi is just a bunch of blatant clowns, you can’t deny that this bunch of clowns really invests money.

The pace of Q2 is similar to the latter part of Q1, with all drivers switching to soft tires, continuously running laps on the track.

At this point, although the track temperature is gradually rising, the humid air and the track that has just transitioned from wetness still significantly reduce tire wear for all cars.

In such an environment, even without changing tires, continuously running on the track helps improve lap times.

Eventually, Qin Miao completed the entire Q2 on a set of brand-new soft tires, reaching eighth by the end.

And the drivers eliminated in Q2 were: O’Kang, Tsunoda, Norris, Magelsen, De Vries.

Both drivers from the Lynk & Co Team were eliminated.

And this season, three qualifying races have been held so far, and Tsunoda has defeated his teammate De Vries in all three.

Across the ocean, fans who were just surprised by Qin Miao advancing to Q2 in third place were relieved to see him advance to Q3 in eighth.

[Scared the hell out of me, I thought Qin Miao was possessed by something dirty]

[Misunderstanding resolved]

[Ah, that’s more like it]

...

Among the fans’ jokes online, Q3 began.

When it comes to Q3, there’s no messing around.

Because, at this point, the weaklings have already been filtered out,

The speed of the opponents has definitely increased.

Now, the starting position for tomorrow’s race could be decided by a detail or two in a corner.

So at this moment, all drivers hoping to compete for pole position are fully focused on their final preparations.

After Qin Miao got on the track, he ran two warm-up laps, raised the tire temperature, and then started his first flying lap.

This flying lap felt similar to the way he practiced in the third session, using the same approach as the third session.