Chapter 1509: Pan Hualong_2

Qin Miao knows the W14, so he’s well aware that although the W14 can take T3 flat out on exit, you absolutely have to be on the correct line in and out of the corner to do it.

And right now that line is locked down by Qin Miao; if Hamilton doesn’t want to go flying off the track, he just has to back off and slow down.

Of course, that’s in qualifying trim; at the moment, even though Qin Miao has the optimal racing line, with the car on full fuel he still has to lift to hug the apex and then power out.

But overall, Qin Miao has still managed to defend his position.

The race proceeds as normal from here.

Qin Miao finally lets out a breath after the start.

And in the process, Qin Miao notices something that gives him a bit of a headache: after just one lap, the gap between Verstappen and himself has already stretched to 0.7 seconds.

He doesn’t even need to wait for DRS to open; next lap Verstappen will be able to drop him out of the DRS zone behind.

Sighing, Qin Miao knows that although Verstappen’s defensive move against him just now was definitely dodgy, faced with this kind of incident the FIA is, in all likelihood, only going to give Verstappen a 5-second time penalty, and maybe dock three points on his Super License later.

Even if they go for the maximum penalty, it’s at most ten seconds.

Beyond that, he’s not going to get anything more out of it.

And with the terrifying pace of the RB19 right now, it’s really not impossible for Verstappen to open up ten seconds to Qin Miao out on track.

Meanwhile, the broadcast director also pushes out the replay of the start collision between Qin Miao and Verstappen.

“We can see that Qin Miao’s reaction off the line is quicker than Verstappen’s; once Verstappen notices this, he moves over to squeeze Qin Miao on the inside.”

“At that point it’s actually fine, that’s just a normal defensive move, changing line to cover off.”

“Exactly.”

“Qin Miao reacts very quickly; before Verstappen can completely shut the door on him, he countersteers and goes to the outside of the track.”

“Then Verstappen squeezes again towards Qin Miao on the outside, and only after Verstappen’s left rear clips and launches Qin Miao’s front wing endplate does this attack-and-defense finally end.”

Zhou Haoran watches the replay and immediately concludes: “This collision is absolutely entirely Verstappen’s fault. Forget the weaving, he nearly shoved Qin Miao off the track on the outside; he didn’t leave Qin Miao any space at all.”

Bing and Fei also nod in agreement with Zhou Haoran’s view: “Yeah, this is definitely on Verstappen, no question.”

“Minimum penalty should be ten seconds!”

At this moment the director also plays Qin Miao’s ‘complaint’ over team radio right after the collision.

The earlier bit of swearing at the beginning has been muted, but the sarcastic, passive-aggressive part afterwards is left in.

Since there’s no actual profanity.

Sometimes you just have to admire Qin Miao’s big-game nerves; he’s just been hit right after the start and still has the presence of mind to be sarcastic on the radio.

Maybe that’s the innate advantage of being Chinese.

Qin Miao’s sarcasm clearly lands better than the drivers’ usual swearing; it makes the audience chuckle knowingly and go wild munching on the drama.

After all, most of the drivers’ swearing is simply muted straight out by the FIA.

Whereas Qin Miao’s line, even without any dirty words, is obviously him calling Verstappen ill-bred.

But crucially, right before that last line, he still tosses in a “I really suspect…”

So Qin Miao doesn’t actually leave himself open to any backlash.

The Five-Star Sports commentators had still been fired up and angry, but when they suddenly hear this team radio from Qin Miao, they all freeze for a second; as Zhou Haoran translates it, the other two commentators crack up as well.

Out on track, once DRS is enabled, Qin Miao starts having to withstand the pressure coming from Hamilton behind.

What? Shouldn’t the driver behind Qin Miao be Sainz?

It’s simple: if Qin Miao can threaten Verstappen’s position off the line, clearly his car isn’t damaged, and with no interference from Verstappen, Hamilton naturally gets past Sainz alongside him into T1.

Even though Sainz’s reaction off the line is quicker than the Old Man’s, my W14 may not have an advantage over Red Bull’s RB19, but you think it doesn’t have an advantage over your Ferrari SF23?

Originally the pace gap between Qin Miao and Hamilton was marginal: the Old Man a bit quicker on single laps, Qin Miao quicker over long runs.

But now that Qin Miao’s car is damaged, Hamilton is naturally faster than Qin Miao, and on top of that Hamilton has Qin Miao’s slipstream to use.

So we end up with a scene a lot of people love to see: the two Mercedes drivers kicking off their long-lost intra-team fight.

To be honest, earlier, once he knew his front wing was damaged, Qin Miao more or less figured that today’s race win probably has nothing to do with him anymore; if luck is a bit worse, he might not even be able to hold on to second place.

But Qin Miao still wants to fight for it.

From here, most of the real action on track is concentrated in the midfield pack, while on Qin Miao’s side, apart from Verstappen steadily pulling away, what he’s mostly doing is defending against the pressure of Hamilton’s attacks from behind.

Because their cars have the same performance, it’s very hard for Qin Miao to drop Hamilton in a short time; once the other guy gets DRS off him, he sticks behind like a plaster, no matter what Qin Miao does he can’t shake him off.

But there is some good news: in the corners, Hamilton also doesn’t have the capability to pull off a clean pass on Qin Miao, and on the straights their power and acceleration are identical, so Hamilton’s only real edge over Qin Miao is slipstream plus DRS.

The DRS zone between turns 8 and 9 isn’t too bad.

That DRS zone isn’t particularly long, so what the Old Man mostly does there is just cut down his gap to Qin Miao.

There are a couple of occasions when Hamilton does go for it with enough battery saved, but all Qin Miao has to do is stay in the middle, forcing the Old Man to go around the outside, and Qin Miao can easily block off Hamilton’s line of attack.

And since T10 after T9 isn’t a long straight, even if the Old Man wants to try a switchback, the track layout simply doesn’t allow it.

The only really troublesome place is the modified third sector.

That part is genuinely a bit painful.

Because once you exit T12, you barely need to touch the brakes; you can keep your foot in it all the way to the DRS zone on the main straight.

To defend against Hamilton’s attack there, Qin Miao usually has to slightly ease his rhythm on exit from T12, and then brake again at T13.

At that point Hamilton’s absolute speed will be higher than his, but thanks to the DRS zone back in sector two, the Old Man has already brought down the gap to Qin Miao, so the two are very close.

Which means Qin Miao can block off Hamilton’s optimal exit line.

Right then Hamilton is faced with two options.

Either slow down, or keep sticking to his original exit rhythm and most likely run into the rear of Qin Miao’s car.

For the first two laps, the Old Man chooses restraint and doesn’t risk a dive.

At the time Hamilton’s thinking is very clear: Qin Miao’s car is damaged—granted, it’s only the front wing endplate, but damaged is damaged.

With a damaged car, Qin Miao’s lap times are definitely not as quick as before; finding a chance to attack him from behind shouldn’t be too difficult.

And there’s still a long way to go in the race; Hamilton knows he doesn’t need to rush.

But as time goes on and they get to lap 7, Hamilton gradually realizes something’s off.

He notices that up until then, Qin Miao has basically been blocking his attacks by the skin of his teeth every time, giving him the illusion that if he just pushes a little harder, he’ll be able to overtake.

Seducing him into trying again and again.

But from lap 7 onward, that state just disappears.