Chapter 1487 - 542: Monaco Begins

Chapter 1487: Chapter 542: Monaco Begins

So, as soon as O’Kang realized Sainz had the intention to make a move on him, he went straight for the middle of the track.

Furthermore, O’Kang went for the middle line right before Sainz could dive onto O’Kang’s inside line.

So when Sainz finally made his move and discovered O’Kang was already on the middle line, he found himself with nowhere to escape.

Although Sainz tried his best to turn right to avoid O’Kang in the middle of the track, it was already a bit too late, and the Ferrari’s left front wing endplate ended up hitting O’Kang’s right rear wheel.

O’Kang’s car was fine, given that it was a tire that got hit, but Sainz’s car had its left front wing endplate broken.

Only a fragment remained, hanging on to the car, fluttering in the wind.

Under normal circumstances, a car with this extent of damage would be forced by the race officials to return to the pit for a front wing replacement, indicated by a mechanical flag.

But if Sainz were to pit at this moment, it would be a devastating blow, because this is Monaco, you know how it is — as soon as you pit at the wrong time for a tire change, your race is practically ruined.

However, Sainz chose not to pit, since the damage to the front wing endplate on this Monaco circuit didn’t influence the car as much as one might think — there might not even be a 0.1-second lap time loss.

Ferrari suggested that Sainz should try using the curbs and brushing along the walls to see if he could scrape off that fragment, which would avoid the time loss from pitting.

And Sainz actually managed to do it; on the straight between T1 and T2, he lightly brushed his left front wing against the barriers and did indeed scrape off the fragment.

However, due to inertia, the fragment ultimately ended up outside of T3.

In the following lap, by coincidence, both Alonso and Hamilton picked up this fragment into the underside of their own cars.

Although this sharp carbon fiber fragment sparked a large shower of sparks when it entered the undersides of both drivers’ cars.

But Qin Miao, who was following 1.7 seconds behind Hamilton, didn’t feel any decline in speed from either Hamilton or Alonso’s cars.

Likely, it only scraped against the wooden plank under their cars, not causing any substantive damage.

Despite knowing this is incorrect, Qin Miao nonetheless felt a bit regretful seeing this.

The race continued in uneventful calm.

What couldn’t keep Alonso, Hamilton, and Qin Miao calm was that:

The Mercedes cars had impressive long-run speed; both Hamilton and Qin Miao could easily keep up with Alonso’s pace, but just couldn’t overtake him.

Alonso, on the other hand, felt a bit frustrated, because by lap 20, his time gap with Verstappen had already widened to 8.4 seconds.

Moreover, this time gap was continuing to expand, and both Qin Miao and Hamilton were trapped behind Alonso due to their positions.

Honestly speaking, even if the two of them had overtaken Alonso, on this Monte Carlo track, they couldn’t escape the fate of being gradually pulled away by Verstappen, as Verstappen’s Red Bull was simply too fast at Monte Carlo.

By lap 30, a scene like a world-renowned painting appeared.

Verstappen lapped his own teammate Perez on the track.

And Perez cunningly picked up Verstappen’s slipstream in the tunnel while being lapped and overtook Stroll, who was yielding, before the braking point at T10.

As for why, as another Aston Martin driver, Alonso was continuing to elaborate on Hamilton’s Defense Overview in second place, while Stroll had begun to be lapped by Verstappen from behind...

Young master, you know how it is.