Chapter 1560 - 569: FIA: I Dominate the Circuit! (2)

Chapter 1560: Chapter 569: FIA: I Dominate the Circuit! (2)

The taste wasn’t that different from Coke.

After all, they both had plenty of carbon dioxide pumped into them.

After the celebrations, normally there should be a group photo session.

But after celebrating for a bit, Qin Miao couldn’t even be bothered to look at Verstappen, and with his champagne and trophy in hand, he walked straight off the podium under the slightly bewildered gazes of Leclerc, Verstappen, and Verstappen’s race engineer.

The camera that had been fixed on the podium as usual suddenly swung hard like it had just caught some explosive gossip, cut straight to Qin Miao, and followed him as he left.

"After the race, from how Qin Miao behaved in the post-race interview, we thought he’d managed to stay calm enough after going through all that, but now it looks like Qin Miao is still really angry," Bing commented.

But as Qin Miao’s fans, and with him being the only F1 world champion from their country, of course they were going to be a bit biased in their commentary.

Fei said, "You can’t really blame Qin Miao for this, can you? He’s the one who got screwed over out on track. Being mad at a time like this is the most normal thing in the world."

"And even taking ten thousand steps back, Qin Miao is only 22 right now. A young guy not being completely steady in how he handles things sometimes is something we can understand and forgive."

"Yeah. I just hope this doesn’t affect Qin Miao’s form going forward. But from what I know about him, after something like this, he’ll probably be even more careful and on guard in future," Zhou Haoran said.

"Right, so next up we can look forward to seeing what kind of eye?catching performance Qin Miao will deliver back at his home race in Britain in a week’s time," Bing wrapped up.

...

Back at the track, after watching Qin Miao leave early, the live feed cut back to Verstappen and Leclerc.

Once the group photo on the podium was done, the director put up the standings and points from this race.

P1: Verstappen +26 (fastest lap)

P2: Qin Miao +18

P3: Leclerc +15

P4: Perez +12

P5: Hamilton +10

P6: Sainz +8

P7: Norris +6

P8: Alonso +4

P9: Gasly +2

P10: Stroll +1

Of course, this wasn’t the final points, because a lot of drivers had track?limits violations during the race.

Initially the FIA didn’t dig too deep into this, since there were just too many drivers and too many laps involved; checking them one by one would’ve been way too time?consuming and labor?intensive.

But then the FIA received a protest from Aston Martin, and at that point there was no way around it.

Once someone files something, as F1’s governing body the FIA has to act.

So the FIA immediately launched a review of the race after the chequered flag. They pulled all the telemetry and footage from this race and went through it.

As for who needed to be penalized, they weren’t going to let a single one slip.

After several hours of work, the FIA finally released the result.

During the race there were a total of 83 track?limits violations, with 8 drivers collectively receiving 12 time penalties.

Among them, Tsunoda got 5 seconds. (Forever the unlucky guy.)

Sainz, Hamilton, Gasly, Albon, and Russell each got 10 seconds.

De Vries got 15 seconds, and O’Kang was slapped with a full 30 seconds.

Seeing O’Kang get 30 seconds, the happiest person was probably Aston Martin’s Brother Tou.

It’s even possible that this whole Aston Martin request for a review from the FIA was done on Brother Tou’s say?so.

Of course, that’s more like paddock gossip.

For drivers outside the points, these time penalties didn’t really matter much. No matter how many seconds you add, they’re not scoring anyway. Even if they get dumped to the very back, they’re no different from the guy who finished 11th in the standings.

But for the drivers in the points, these penalties were a real pain in the ass.

First up, the least unlucky one was Gasly. You can’t exactly say he wasn’t unlucky, just that he wasn’t as bad off as the others.

Gasly originally finished 9th and should’ve taken home two points, but because of the 10?second penalty, he got dropped to 10th.

His two points got chopped in half down to one.

Even though his haul got halved, he actually lost the least.

Among the front?runners, Hamilton and Sainz both had 10?second penalties, so they effectively cancelled each other out relative to one another, and Old Man was still ahead of Sainz.

But bear in mind, both of them were carrying 10 seconds.

So after these penalties, Hamilton and Sainz were both demoted by two places and dropped behind Alonso.

This is probably one of the reasons Aston Martin was so insistent on getting the FIA to review the race.

Quite possibly the main reason, even.

So the real top?10 finishing order and points for this race were as follows:

P1: Verstappen +26 (fastest lap)

P2: Qin Miao +18

P3: Leclerc +15

P4: Perez +12

P5: Norris +10

P6: Alonso +8

P7: Hamilton +6

P8: Sainz +4

P9: Stroll +2

P10: Gasly +1

For today’s race, there’s no need to say much about Pan’s performance—strong flavor, nothing more needs to be said.

It really was a pity for Qin Miao. Without that mistake... strictly speaking you can’t even call it a mistake; Qin Miao was just unlucky, getting hit by that random gust of demon wind out of nowhere.

And then Pan stuck another knife in him on track. In the end, the fact that Qin Miao still managed to finish second was already pretty good.

At least Pan didn’t punt him into a DNF.

As for Leclerc...

Given Ferrari’s performance, their chances of getting a podium at the Red Bull Ring were actually pretty low. Ferrari had both Mercedes and Red Bull ahead of them; with those two mountains sitting there, for Ferrari to land on the podium, Mercedes and Red Bull basically had to mess up...

And as it happened, thanks to Mercedes handing them the chance, Leclerc got that podium.

Hamilton was really way too polite.

One in?race time penalty plus another post?race penalty, adding up to 15 seconds in total, Old Man basically carried Leclerc up onto the podium.

As for Perez in fourth.

In this race, Solid Perez pretty much pulled his head clean out from under Red Bull’s executioner’s blade.

Perez started 15th and finished 4th.

Red Bull really couldn’t find much to nitpick about his drive today.

So naturally, Perez’s HP bar climbed back above the execution threshold.

Speaking of the execution line, the luck of De Vries—once in the junior Red Bull team, now in Lynk & Co—was nowhere near as good as Perez’s.

Signing De Vries had been the old junior Red Bull team’s decision and had nothing to do with Lynk & Co...

Though that’s not entirely accurate, because bringing in De Vries also had big Red Bull’s blessing. It was basically another example of Red Bull’s tradition of fast?tracking promotions.

After all, De Vries had really shown his talent and ability in that one stand?in drive, and with his Red Bull junior background, a promotion came naturally.

That’s the Red Bull junior system for you—if you seize the opportunity they give you and show what you can do, Red Bull will give you more chances to move up.

This is also what Red Bull does very well: when they see a talented young driver, they genuinely are willing to give them a shot.

But once De Vries actually got into F1, he just wasn’t as impressive as he’d been as a stand?in.

Lynk & Co were pretty dissatisfied with De Vries’ performances on track.

He got completely crushed by his teammate Yuki Tsunoda, whether in the race or in qualifying, and rarely managed to beat him.

Even though Lynk & Co had brought in quite a few Chinese engineers and had two or three Chinese managers in the leadership team,

at the end of the day it was still largely the original Red Bull crew, bringing over a lot of Red Bull’s team culture.

So after internal discussions, Lynk & Co executed on De Vries.

After the Austria Grand Prix, the junior Red Bull team released a statement.

De Vries would become Lynk & Co Team’s reserve and test driver, and his replacement would be the Australian, Ricardo.