Chapter 1510: Aftereffects of Car Damage

Hamilton suddenly lost that feeling and realized that Qin Miao didn’t slow down to curb his own speed after exiting the corner in the third sector.

Hamilton was somewhat surprised to find that even with DRS activated, he wasn’t closing in on Qin Miao as quickly as before after exiting the corner.

Only then did Hamilton react, realizing that his tire condition had deteriorated considerably after several laps of attacking and defending.

It was only at this moment that Hamilton realized he was using a set of soft tires.

Dammit, got played by that bastard!

At this instant, Hamilton suddenly felt a bit frustrated.

He also realized what Qin Miao’s actions during the race really meant.

Damn, it was all about overconsuming the durability of his tires.

Hamilton clicked his tongue and felt the urge to smack himself, but unfortunately, with his helmet on, even if he wanted to, he couldn’t.

In the ensuing laps, the Old Man found himself going from being able to threaten Qin Miao to barely keeping up with Qin Miao’s racing pace, unable to find a suitable window to attack.

Realizing he got outplayed by Qin Miao, the Old Man helplessly cursed out a word starting with F.

Meanwhile, by lap 10, Qin Miao hardly paid attention to Hamilton behind him, as at this point, the lap times of the Old Man began to drop rapidly, and his set of soft tires had gradually worn out under Qin Miao’s relentless teasing.

On the contrary, Qin Miao’s set of soft tires was in pretty good shape.

By lap 17, the time gap between Qin Miao and Hamilton had extended to 2.1 seconds, while the gap between Qin Miao and Verstappen had widened to 4.7 seconds.

Although Verstappen, due to blocking Qin Miao, was burdened with a five-second penalty, it was clear that if the race continued, it was only a matter of time before Verstappen widened the time gap between himself and Qin Miao to over five seconds.

Moreover, it’s important to note that Verstappen was using medium tires, not soft ones.

If Verstappen had used soft tires, Qin Miao would have been outrun even further on the track.

Of course, if Verstappen really used soft tires, while the time gap between Qin Miao and Verstappen would indeed be large at this point, Qin Miao would likely be gradually closing the gap instead of being continuously left behind by Verstappen.

Meanwhile, on the track, Ferrari began their usual antics after realizing their lack of presence.

On the track, the top three using medium and soft tires hadn’t pitted yet, while Leclerc, starting on hard tires from the pit lane, was called into the pits by Ferrari.

Honestly, this pit strategy is suffocating.

Furthermore, in the mid-to-late stages of the race, when Ferrari planned a second stop for Leclerc, Leclerc clearly stated he wanted medium tires after the stop, to which his track engineer verbally agreed, but ended up giving Leclerc another set of hard tires after the stop.

Honestly, Ferrari’s strategy team is just abstract.

Many of Qin Miao’s fans, knowing how abstract Ferrari’s strategy team was after the race, began to worry about their double champion potentially being tortured to the brink by Ferrari’s strategy team after joining.

Of course, they didn’t know the details of Qin Miao’s contract with Ferrari. If they did, they’d only marvel at how impressive Qin Miao’s negotiation team was to have predicted this ahead of time.

If Qin Miao were to join Ferrari and the strategy team dared to pull this, Qin Miao could indeed fire them directly.

In summary, Leclerc’s rather quiet presence on track in the later stages of this race was 80% due to Ferrari’s strategy team and 20% due to Leclerc himself not finding a satisfactory setup for the Grand Prix.

This is all in hindsight.

On the Mercedes side, Hamilton opted to pit and change tires only by lap 24.

Due to his prolonged stint and other drivers pitting earlier, when the Old Man came out, he was still in third place.

As for Qin Miao, he pitted later than Verstappen.

Verstappen chose to pit on lap 26, while Qin Miao did it on lap 27.

However, during this pit stop, besides swapping his car with four new hard tires, Qin Miao also replaced a set of front wing.

Though it seemed to the audience that the damage to Qin Miao’s front wing end plate did not result in a significant loss of lap speed due to the damage,

he even began to gradually push the Old Man out of his DRS zone from lap 10 onward.

In reality, the damage to the front wing end plate had a significant impact.

It’s just that Qin Miao managed to overcome these difficulties with his skilled driving technique.

Don’t think the absence of this part only results in a speed loss; in fact, the front wing end plate is very important.

It helps streamline airflow, reduces tire drag, and can optimize the car’s balance.

Don’t be fooled by Qin Miao’s multiple laps on the track; he seemed like nothing was wrong.

But Qin Miao knows his own situation well; after the front wing end plate broke, the resistance on both sides of the car was indeed different.

Though the difference in resistance on both sides was very small, an F1 car is a very sensitive thing.