Chapter 1508: Pan’s Defensive Maneuvers

Five red lights light up one by one.

The commentators at Five-Star Sports are also raring to go, ready to enjoy the spectacle of this Grand Prix weekend.

“Okay, we can see that the five red lights are up, and the race has started!”

“Let’s see how Qin Miao’s start goes in today’s race.”

“Qin Miao had a great start!”

“Verstappen also noticed Qin Miao’s excellent start and changed lanes to block Qin Miao’s acceleration path.”

“Verstappen directly blocks in front of Qin Miao, and Qin Miao smoothly moves to the outside lane.”

“Verstappen wants to firmly defend against Qin Miao by also moving to the outside lane, but… what? There’s a collision! Qin Miao and Verstappen have collided!”

On the track, as the commentators from Five-Star Sports said, Qin Miao and Verstappen collided after the start, but it’s not serious.

Qin Miao’s left front wing endplate was scraped off by Verstappen’s rear wheel, and the car briefly lost balance, but Qin Miao controlled it.

This damage doesn’t cost Qin Miao much speed, probably around 0.1 seconds per lap.

If it were in Monaco, such damage would be negligible since there’s little room for aerodynamic parts to play a role in Monte Carlo.

But on the highly versatile Catalonia track, this 0.1-second loss in speed is quite crucial for Qin Miao.

At least if Qin Miao wants to defend against the drivers behind, it will be much harder.

As for Verstappen, at least for now, Pan’s car doesn’t seem to have any major issues.

Even though he drove over Qin Miao’s front wing debris, his tires didn’t puncture and the car can still drive normally.

Verstappen’s track defense was really effective.

Between T1, Verstappen not only blocked Qin Miao’s attack but also took the inside line at T1.

This really cut off all possible attacking opportunities for Qin Miao at T1.

Qin Miao is naturally aware of this.

However, Verstappen’s defensive actions seem a bit excessive to Qin Miao, as well as to the commentators and spectators present.

He was literally chasing Qin Miao around with aggressive defense.

Qin Miao couldn’t understand it. The Catalonia track is famous for being good for overtaking, so what’s the problem if his defensive skills are a bit strong? With Verstappen’s Red Bull RB19 having such amazing performance, there should be opportunities to overtake at the back, right?

But Verstappen just insists on aggressively defending against Qin Miao on the track.

And Qin Miao won’t indulge Verstappen either; after being hit, Qin Miao directly vented in the team TR: “Damn it, Verstappen can’t drive, then he should quit! If he wants to play bumper cars, he can go to an amusement park, not an F1 track! I really suspect if his father cultivated him since childhood to drive dangerously and damage others’ cars without harming his own. He’s too skilled at it!”

Frankie naturally saw Verstappen’s actions on the track too, and he was even more furious than Qin Miao, but as Qin Miao’s track engineer, Frankie knows the most important thing right now is not to stir up resentment with Qin Miao but to calm him down.

However, before that, Frankie also feels Qin Miao’s words were quite harsh, although aside from the beginning, there were no curses for the rest…

But Qin Miao, your clean words would be released though!

Frankie gathered his scattered thoughts and said to Qin Miao: “We saw Verstappen’s defensive move; it was indeed against regulations. Don’t worry, we’ll appeal Verstappen’s illegal action to the FIA. Hold your position and don’t let Verstappen pull ahead too much; we still have a chance.”

“Hell, with that Red Bull car’s insane speed, we barely have a chance.” Even though he was still grumbling, Qin Miao didn’t transmit his negative emotions to his colleagues; this sentence was said with the TR turned off.

“Okay.”

Meanwhile, Old Man behind Qin Miao had clearly witnessed the entire process of Qin Miao being attacked by Verstappen after the start.

So, on the team TR, Old Man directly said: “Verstappen penalty five seconds.”

Old Man’s words indeed came true, as five minutes later the FIA issued a penalty for the collision between Verstappen and Qin Miao, adding 5 seconds to Verstappen’s time.

But that’s something to talk about later.

On the track, after the collision, Qin Miao naturally eased off the throttle subconsciously due to the car’s damage, slightly increasing the gap to Verstappen.

As a result, Qin Miao’s car lost speed, got squeezed outside by Verstappen, and lost all threat to Verstappen.

But fortunately, Qin Miao has good acceleration, and Hamilton—the only one potentially threatening Qin Miao’s position—didn’t start as fast in today’s race.

Thus, although Hamilton reached Qin Miao’s inside line before the T1 braking point, his front wing only reached Qin Miao’s rear wheel position, which posed no real threat to Qin Miao.

And Catalonia’s T1 and T2 form a combination of left and right turns.

Although Hamilton’s front wing reached Qin Miao’s side pod after T1, upon approaching T2, Qin Miao used his inside line advantage to slightly squeeze Hamilton’s exit line. Although he left enough space for Old Man to exit, it severely disrupted Hamilton’s rhythm and line into the long T3 turn.