Chapter 1522: Accidents Abound (8K, Yesterday’s Missed Update Repaid)_5

There’s really nothing that can be done, the rain on the track is too heavy.

If full wet tires aren’t used, intermediate tires may not have enough grip on the track.

The third practice went relatively smoothly for Qin Miao. During this process, Qin Miao made several adjustments to his car setup, ultimately achieving the most comfortable setup before the end of the third practice.

Time moved on to the qualifying session.

At this time, it was still raining on the track, but not as heavily as during the practice sessions, so drivers could switch to intermediate tires and continue lapping.

Right at the start of qualifying, Zhou Guanyu’s car had a problem and stopped on the track, causing a yellow flag.

Subsequently, because Zhou Guanyu’s car stalled, the yellow flag was upgraded to a red flag.

After all, qualifying is unlike practice sessions; time is valuable for all drivers, so the countdown is stopped during the red flag period in qualifying.

Just when all the home fans watching the qualifying thought Zhou Guanyu was going to retire from the race, the Alfa Romeo, through Zhou Guanyu’s efforts, restarted and wobbled its way back to the pits.

Because of Zhou Guanyu’s restart, the red flag on the track was lifted.

This is when someone would ask, isn’t starting an F1 car usually done with a starting stick? How could Zhou Guanyu’s car self-start on the track?

Actually, F1 cars do have a self-start function, but it consumes a lot of battery power.

The self-start function of an F1 car relies on its own motor, which itself is a major power consumer, especially when driving an engine to start.

A single start can consume about 30% of the battery’s total power.

And on Zhou Guanyu’s side, during the red flag period, they returned to the team’s pit and, remarkably, repaired the car and rejoined the track before the red flag ended.

The home fans watching were momentarily unsure whether to commend Alfa Romeo or criticize them.

…

After the race restarted, Qin Miao, known for being lazy in qualifying, was called onto the track by the team to consistently lap.

When the clock stopped in Q1, Qin Miao was five seconds away from the finish line, so he didn’t have the chance to cross the line before the race stopped to run his last flying lap in Q1.

Nevertheless, Qin Miao still advanced to Q2, ranking third.

There’s nothing to be done; Qin Miao is quick by nature, and when he’s not playing around, his performance naturally improves.

As for Zhou Guanyu, he didn’t make it to Q2.

It’s not that Zhou Guanyu’s rain combat ability is weak. In fact, Qin Miao feels Zhou Guanyu’s rain combat ability is slightly stronger than his own in normal conditions.

According to his own system rating, it’s about 85~86.

After all, being someone who has driven since childhood, his sense for the car is still there.

But today’s Zhou Guanyu was off overall after the car stopped on the track.

After the race, when Qin Miao asked Zhou Guanyu in the group, he said that after the car was repaired, the overall feel was off, and ultimately he didn’t achieve a good result.

On this, both Qin Miao and Leclerc expressed: “This is just Alfa Romeo.”

Ultimately, Zhou Guanyu was eliminated in twentieth.

In the Q2 stage, Albon immediately used soft tires.

Since the later part of Q1, the rain had stopped, and with the drivers continuing to drive and the natural evaporation of water on the track from the end of Q1 to Q2, clear racing lines were visible on the track.

So it made sense for Williams, who love to gamble, to take this chance.

And with Albon being the first to take this risk, naturally, he relied on the team’s aggressive judgment and his own excellent driving to take first in the first flying lap of Q2.

With Albon leading the way, other drivers rushed to the pits to switch to soft tires.

However, the window period when the rain stopped was brief, and drivers changing tires later had already missed the best tire-changing opportunity.

After getting back on track, the conditions began to slowly deteriorate, so they couldn’t better Albon’s lap time, constantly updating their times behind him.

And in the Q2 stage, there was another unlucky driver, and that was Leclerc.

In the final two minutes, when it was lightly raining on the track, the previous racing lines were wetted again.

Yet, despite this, Leclerc told the team he wanted to switch to soft tires.

But Ferrari refused him.

After pitting, Ferrari switched him to intermediate tires.

Leclerc’s intermediate tires didn’t reach the appropriate working temperature in the remaining time.

As a result, Leclerc didn’t achieve a satisfying result in his last flying lap.

Ultimately, Leclerc was eliminated in eleventh place.

After getting out of the car, Leclerc looked extremely agitated.

It’s clear that Leclerc was genuinely angry.

But there was nothing to be done; Leclerc had already been eliminated.

And never had Leclerc envied Qin Miao’s power to ignore team & track instructions like now.