Chapter 1368 - 514: Pirelli: Exhausted, Let’s Destroy Things, Hurry Up

Chapter 1368: Chapter 514: Pirelli: Exhausted, Let’s Destroy Things, Hurry Up

As time passed, Qin Miao repeatedly brought a small shock of genius to Perez.

Now facing Qin Miao again, Perez had no extra emotions other than a clearer understanding of the gap between a genius and an ordinary person.

However, being an experienced professional driver, Perez also had a strong belief, even though he knew he might have to hand over his position to Qin Miao in the next DRS zone.

But before Qin Miao truly overtook him, Perez did not give up on defense.

Indeed, from T4 to T9, Perez fully activated his ERS.

He expanded the original 0.2-second time gap between himself and Qin Miao back to 0.5 seconds.

At this moment, Perez could only hope that the DRS zone between T10 and T11 wasn’t enough for the Mercedes W14 to unleash its full performance.

But clearly, the result was not as Perez wished.

After reaching T10, Qin Miao exited the corner steadily, without counter-steering corrections, and directly began full-throttle acceleration once the car straightened.

At this time, one could see W14 quickly shortening the distance given to RB19, and as both cars passed through the DRS zone, the gap between W14 and RB19 closed even faster than before.

At this point, the broadcast director smartly fixed the live camera on Qin Miao and Perez.

"Qin Miao has caught up with Perez, DRS is open, Qin Miao’s speed is fast, is there a chance? Perez takes the inside line, Qin Miao on the outside!"

"Oh, just a little bit short, Qin Miao on the outside line... outside line cut, Qin Miao directly overtakes Perez on the outside!"

"Beautifully done, Qin Miao, onto the podium!"

On the track, Qin Miao indeed completed the overtake of Perez on the outside line.

The main reason is that T11 is a high-speed uphill corner, and the angle of T11 isn’t very sharp.

If the corner’s angle were slightly larger, Qin Miao on the outside line wouldn’t gain much advantage.

Qin Miao’s maneuver was also very straightforward, braking late, and relying on his superior braking control compared to Perez, he braked his car to the ideal entry speed within the shortest distance under extreme conditions.

As a result, Qin Miao could straighten his car earlier than Perez.

Then Qin Miao, while adjusting slightly, started to accelerate.

Perez on the inside line had a poor entry angle initially, and now blocked on the outside by Qin Miao, naturally had to brake earlier, and he also needed more time to straighten and accelerate.

Thus, Qin Miao could seize Perez’s position later by relying on the terrifying acceleration capability of the car.

I must say, had the W14’s acceleration been slightly worse this season, Qin Miao couldn’t have taken the position so easily.

Of course, given the strength gap between Perez and Qin Miao, Qin Miao potentially overtaking Perez in the subsequent straight DRS zone might just have been a matter of time.

In the fifth lap, after overtaking Perez, Qin Miao slowly began to reduce the gap between himself and Hamilton, gradually leaving Perez behind.

At the same time, Alonso and Stroll behind also regained their positions from O’Kang and Hockenheim, with both Aston Martin drivers returning to their starting positions.

Mistakes are mistakes, yet the performance of the Martin cars still has substance this season.

In the tenth lap, Gasly, who just joined Alpine, was the first in the entire field to pit, changing to hard tires.

In F1, changing tires is one of the audience’s favorite segments.

Because in this segment, teams usually like to achieve one of two extremes.

One is the extreme of speed, while the other is the extreme of spectacle.

In the twelfth lap, the race officials discovered while reviewing the start video that O’Kang’s front right wheel was one centimeter outside the starting grid at the start.

It wasn’t outside the front of the starting grid; all F1 drivers have trained for this, and before stopping, they find reference points on the track with the help of team members, and they don’t park incorrectly.

O’Kang exceeded the one-centimeter mark on the white line of the right-side starting grid.

Well, the FIA clarified this, so Alpine had no choice but to call O’Kang back to accept the penalty.

Having completed 12 laps, although it was slightly earlier by two laps than Alpine’s strategy group expected pit stop time, there was no other option now.

So O’Kang pitted.

O’Kang drove in, stopping the car at the tire change spot, and the Alpine crew was ready, waiting for the five-second penalty to pass before starting to change the tires.

According to FIA rules, during penalties, team staff are not allowed to touch the car in the pit lane.

Zhou Guanyu has a clear experience of this, as a race where he could score was ruined by the team due to this penalty.

In short, Alpine felt O’Kang’s penalty time was over five seconds and immediately ordered the crew to change the tires.

The new hard tires were fitted, and O’Kang sped off.

The five-second penalty was barely acceptable; at least in today’s race, if the drivers ahead faced multiple incidents, he might still have a chance to compete for points.

Then, just as O’Kang thought he could finally breathe a sigh of relief,

the FIA’s timing staff reported another message that Alpine’s tire changer touched O’Kang’s car 0.4 seconds too early.