Chapter 1531: Absolute Racing Performance Suppression

Some are happy, some are sad.

Verstappen is dumbfounded at this moment.

Damn, Qin Miao, how are you so fast?

How did you defend?

How are you still on my inside line?

Damn it, with such fast tail speed, you can still stick on my inside line?

It doesn’t make sense!

After this round of attacks and defense, the live broadcast director marked the tail speed of both drivers before they reached the braking point: Qin Miao hit a tail speed of 342 km/h while Verstappen reached 347 km/h.

Verstappen was almost hitting 350.

Under normal circumstances, such terrifying tail speed is indeed difficult to achieve, but Verstappen was releasing ERS at full power, coupled with the terrifying DRS efficiency of Red Bull RB19, and Qin Miao’s slipstream, resulting in such terrifying tail speed.

“Beautiful defense!” Bing exclaimed in the Five-Star Sports Studio upon seeing Qin Miao complete the defense against Verstappen: “Before the race, I was worried that Qin Miao couldn’t withstand Verstappen’s attacks today. After all, in recent races, Verstappen has noticeably overtaken Qin Miao more often on the track; indicating a high chance that Verstappen has figured out a way to effectively overtake Qin Miao on the track.”

“But now seeing it, it’s not that impressive, haha!”

Zhou Haoran also nodded in agreement, saying: “Before the race started, I deliberately reviewed the onboard footage of Verstappen’s car when he overtook Qin Miao in recent races. Verstappen basically went all out for a single overtake.”

“Today, watching from Verstappen’s first perspective, the method he used to overtake is practically the same as before when he overtook Qin Miao, but Qin Miao defended it today, indicating that Qin Miao found a solution.”

Fei commented: “Anyway, defending is a good thing, Qin Miao will most likely win the championship today.”

“Exactly, with Qin Miao’s defensive ability, after finding the trick to defend against Verstappen, keeping his position on the track shouldn’t be too difficult for Qin Miao.”

Meanwhile, in the live broadcast chat room of some small black workshops, viewers were rolling out comment after comment upon hearing the commentary of the three analysts.

[Round spiciness!]

[Qin Miao is in danger]

[Five-Star’s jinx is in effect!]

[I feel Qin Miao’s chances in this race are shaky]

[Elder Qin Miao: Fei, Bing, I don’t want the championship of this station, don’t jinx me, don’t jinx me~~]

…

After defending against Verstappen, Qin Miao continued to lead the race.

Crossing the finish line, the race entered lap 61.

Verstappen still has 9 laps of attacking time.

So although surprised that Qin Miao withstood his offensive, Verstappen remained calm; he doesn’t believe Qin Miao can take the championship from him today.

Meanwhile, while recharging his car’s battery, Verstappen also carefully thought about why Qin Miao could reach such high tail speed on the track.

F1 cars, as complicated as they are, can be simple to understand.

The source of extra speed for the car is basically one or two items, either DRS or ERS.

And Qin Miao being able to hit such terrifying tail speed on the track, most likely means he used the extreme output mode of ERS.

Using reverse reasoning from the results, it becomes clear why the team told me Qin Miao’s lap time is 0.3 seconds slower than the normal lap time, as Qin Miao was charging his car’s battery at that time.

Coupling this with evidence that, when I approached Qin Miao from behind, the flashing frequency of Qin Miao’s car’s rear indicator light increased.

Verstappen suddenly had a revelation.

When approaching each other, Qin Miao was also charging his battery.

Indeed, TMD is a sly old fox!

But even after figuring this out, Verstappen felt rather conflicted.

If I’m charging while behind Qin Miao, and he’s charging too, doesn’t this mean my original strategy won’t work?

But after experiencing Qin Miao’s deeply strategic setup during his slow pace, Verstappen knows that attempting to break through Qin Miao’s defenses under normal conditions isn’t insurmountable, but is indeed challenging.

Scratching his head, Verstappen sucked sharply on his teeth and pressed the button to speak with the team. On the team radio, he asks: “What should I do now?”

Pan at this point was also quite helpless. Clearly having a car better performing than the one ahead, but still couldn’t find a way to overtake.

The strategy group at Red Bull was also temporarily puzzled.

If they were to arrange a suitable pit stop strategy for Verstappen, they could do it quickly as this is their job, and they handle it smoothly.

But if you ask them to find a way to help Verstappen overtake Qin Miao on the track with 8 laps to go before the race ends, they couldn’t think of a way even if they cracked their heads.

It’s not possible to hire an assassin in the style of that video game to snipe Qin Miao on the track?

Ultimately, if the driver ahead can’t be overtaken on the track, it’s still a problem concerning the driver’s skill.

So after considering it for a while, the strategy group at Red Bull came up with a workaround of sorts.

They had Horner directly cut into Verstappen’s team radio, saying to Verstappen: “Max, the strategy group indeed doesn’t have any better ideas, everything henceforth is up to you. We believe you can certainly do it!”