Chapter 1507: Toto’s Invitation_2

The length from the starting point of the Catalonia circuit to T1 is the longest in the F1 calendar, and Qin Miao is starting from the inside line. Combined with the fact that Qin Miao’s W14 car is recognized for its fast straight-line acceleration, Verstappen couldn’t help but be particularly wary of Qin Miao at this moment, even deliberately glancing back to check Qin Miao’s exact position before entering his car.

When Qin Miao turned to look over, Verstappen also withdrew his gaze. He hooked his hands over the bridge of the flip-flops and just squeezed himself into the car.

Qin Miao pursed his lips and then glanced in the direction of the Mercedes team’s base, knowing his wife and daughter were watching his race from there.

Speaking of them, Qin Miao initially thought of letting them return to the hotel after getting acquainted with some people, since the noise on the F1 circuit, in Qin Miao’s impression, is quite loud and not very child-friendly.

But it turns out Qin Miao was somewhat ignorant; after last season, the Mercedes team upgraded the soundproofing system in their team base.

You don’t even need to stay in the driver’s dedicated rest room; just being in the team base allows you not to hear the external sound of F1 cars roaring by.

Of course, you can still hear Hamilton’s singing next door.

The reason Qin Miao didn’t think of this is partly because when he’s at the team base, he’s either playing games or working, with his attention not on the room’s noise.

The other reason is that Qin Miao’s work is indeed quite busy. Without commercial activities, most of Qin Miao’s time is spent looking at data or overseeing his mechanics maintaining, servicing, and adjusting his car in the team garage.

In any case, despite Qin Miao’s uncertainty about whether he will win the championship in today’s race, he knows that he must bring something back with the two people most important to him as his backup.

Whether it is a champion or runner-up trophy, he has to take one for his beloved daughter as a gift.

And he has to strive for a better result.

If Toto can give his daughter gifts, then getting a Spanish Grand Prix champion trophy for his daughter to drink water from shouldn’t be a problem, right?

After all, a trophy is a trophy.

“T1 is your best chance to attack. Our car has acceleration advantages over RB19, and you’re on the inside. As long as we don’t get blocked by Verstappen at the start, there’s a high probability of grabbing first place in the beginning stage.

This isn’t particularly difficult for you, so after overtaking Verstappen, what you need to do is defend against him as long as possible, deplete his tire reserve, and prevent him from pulling too far ahead. Today’s race strategy remains the differentiated tire pit stop strategy.”

Before leaving the track, Frankie communicated with Qin Miao through the radio while flipping through his notebook.

Qin Miao continuously nodded, indicating that he heard.

As time passed, most of the team staff withdrew from the track.

Only the jack technician and the tire warming blanket technician remained on the track.

But they didn’t stay on the track for long and quickly withdrew as well.

Due to the Catalonia circuit’s characteristics, even though Pirelli officially provided the hardest three tires, C1~C3, tire consumption on this track remained high.

So basically, all drivers adopted a two-stop strategy for today’s race.

Of course, there are exceptions, such as Qin Miao.

However, Qin Miao didn’t plan to adopt the widely anticipated red-yellow single stop or yellow-white single stop strategies.

Instead, he’s using a red-white single stop strategy.

He’s starting with soft tires due to the reason Frankie just stated to Qin Miao; they’re planning to have Qin Miao take the lead right from the start.

If Qin Miao wants an advantage at the start, medium tires clearly won’t meet his needs.

But even running a red-yellow single stop strategy, Qin Miao would feel the tire reserve somewhat lacking, so he could only use this special pit stop strategy.

If an unexpected event occurs on the track, the strategy team can adjust Qin Miao’s pit strategy at any time.

With all the team staff withdrawing to the side of the track, the warm-up lap began.

As soon as Qin Miao started the warm-up lap, he threw his skill onto Verstappen.

Qin Miao’s thoughts at this time were simple: if he didn’t limit Verstappen at the start stage, then during the subsequent race, Verstappen would likely use RB19’s comprehensive speed advantage to increase the time gap between them further and further. Qin Miao’s possibility of catching up using a differentiated pit stop strategy in this race would be very low.

And with Sainz and Hamilton right behind him, unless something unexpected happens to him, it’s hard for them to pressure him during the race phase.

In this situation, keeping his skill is useless; it’d be better to use it sooner now.

Causing more interference for Verstappen would give Qin Miao more advantages.

With this thought, Qin Miao glanced at the top of Verstappen’s head.

[Pressure Level: 10%]

He clicked his tongue and complained to himself while waving left and right behind Verstappen to warm up his soft tires, “Where does Pan get such composure? Aren’t you really nervous before the race starts?”

Of course, during this process, Qin Miao also did a sudden brake, heating his brake discs.

Doing this is to prepare for heavy braking after T1.

F1 car brakes, like engines, only perform optimally when they reach a specific temperature range.

In a normal race, Qin Miao wouldn’t need to do this; after completing a normal warm-up lap, the brake disc temperature would reach the optimal working temperature. Then, he can run the race normally.

But Catalonia is different; the distance from the start position to the T1 braking point on this track is simply too far.

Moreover, the air temperature in Spain, Catalonia isn’t very high today; it’s only about 20℃.

Therefore, charging from the start to the T1 braking point, Qin Miao is concerned that his car tire temperature might not reach the optimal working temperature.

Soon, as Verstappen slowly approached his starting position, Qin Miao also parked the car in the grid right behind Verstappen.

Once both Verstappen and he parked their cars, Qin Miao switched the telemetry data panel on his steering wheel and checked his car’s current status.

The overall temperature of the power unit was within controllable limits, and the car’s oil pressure and water temperature were normal as well.

The brake temperature was slightly high at 329℃, but this was within Qin Miao’s expectations; when the race starts and reaches the T1 braking point, Qin Miao felt the brake temperature would drop to around 100℃ under the air’s effect.

That temperature is roughly the optimal working temperature for his brake discs.

After confirming that all the components of the car had no issues, Qin Miao glanced at Verstappen on his left front.

At this moment, Verstappen’s pressure had risen considerably as well [Pressure Level: 15%].

Though a bit surprising that just one warm-up lap increased Verstappen’s pressure by 5%, the pressure level still wasn’t high enough to cause Verstappen to make mistakes.

But Qin Miao wasn’t worried; although on this track, the W14’s overall advantages over RB19 are limited, limited doesn’t mean none, and the start stage’s long straight is Qin Miao’s W14 comfort zone.

Soon, as the last driver parked in the grid, Leclerc, starting from the pit lane, was ready, and the race was about to begin.

Indeed, Ferrari ultimately did not let Leclerc start last.

The main reason being that Leclerc was not satisfied with the tuning of his car, so running such a performance was annoying.

Therefore, Ferrari changed the tuning of Leclerc’s car, and unsurprisingly, Leclerc was penalized to start from the pit.

With this, Ferrari just replaced all punished parts with the ones that would otherwise face penalties on Leclerc’s car.

Since he’s already starting from the pit lane, replacing these illegal parts again won’t incur additional position penalties.

No matter how far down he falls, he’s still at rock bottom.

Two big words appeared brightly on Leclerc’s forehead: give up.