Chapter 1378 - 518: The Gap Between Ideals and Reality (2)

Chapter 1378: Chapter 518: The Gap Between Ideals and Reality (2)

Saving up too much is also a waste.

And after the DRS zone on the main straight after the start, Verstappen closed in to 0.5 seconds behind Qin Miao.

It’s clear that as the race progresses, Verstappen’s tires are also starting to struggle.

If it were the tires from the previous lap, Verstappen could likely catch up to 0.4 or 0.3 seconds behind Qin Miao.

The prolonged chase combined with the fierce driving in the previous lap is pushing Verstappen’s tires closer to their limit.

At least for Qin Miao, this is good news.

In the next two corners, Verstappen closed in to 0.4 seconds behind Qin Miao.

But in the DRS zone of T3 and T4, Verstappen only caught up to 0.3 seconds behind Qin Miao.

You heard right, Verstappen only closed in 0.1 seconds in a DRS zone.

So much so that Qin Miao didn’t take the inside line at the end of T4, but entered the corner at a normal angle.

Obviously, this was intentional by Verstappen, he knows that this could be his last chance for an attack and overtake on Qin Miao this race.

In the following corners of the second sector, Verstappen is cautiously guarding against Qin Miao’s brake tests, while also trying to maintain the time gap between them within the 0.3-0.2 second range.

And he is constantly wary of any "mistakes" that Qin Miao might make.

But Qin Miao also knows the saying, once bitten, twice shy.

In fact, he didn’t even use the second chance, Qin Miao made no mistakes in this lap.

Smoothly navigating through the six corners of the second sector, Qin Miao arrived at T10.

Before Verstappen reached T10, he was virtually concentrating all his attention on Qin Miao.

At this moment, he even had two different contingency plans in his mind.

The first was what line to take if Qin Miao made a mistake.

The second was which path to take if Qin Miao tested him with brakes in the corner, so he could avoid losing speed without braking.

But all these thoughts in Verstappen’s mind were destined to fall short.

Because Qin Miao did nothing surprising, no tricks at all, just exited the corner normally entering the DRS zone.

Instead, due to the intense focus and the massive physical exertion over the long race, combined with caution in the final corner, Verstappen widened the time gap to 0.5 seconds upon exiting.

However, Verstappen doesn’t care anymore. As he enters the straight, he locks onto Qin Miao’s slipstream, activates ERS, then enters the DRS zone, boosting his speed in the chase of Qin Miao.

On the other hand, Qin Miao’s only extra power is his ERS, which he also starts to use.

But Qin Miao doesn’t directly activate the ERS mode to use it all up in a short time.

After all, Verstappen can ignore the last segment after crossing the line.

But Qin Miao can’t afford to ignore it.

Previously, Qin Miao was fearless, but the situation has changed. Now Qin Miao is the one with something to protect, facing Verstappen, his career’s toughest rival.

Verstappen isn’t intimidated by Qin Miao at all now.

"If we die, we die; if not, we live forever," may be Verstappen’s strongest belief now.

Verstappen’s car begins visibly approaching Qin Miao’s car quickly.

0.4 seconds.

0.3 seconds.

0.2 seconds.

Sitting in the car, Qin Miao sighed. Up to this point, he has done everything he possibly could.

Whether he can maintain his victory in this Grand Prix now depends on whether the team engineers have improved the horsepower of his W14 enough during this winter break.

Soon, as Verstappen chased to 0.2 seconds behind Qin Miao, a position where he could pull alongside and threaten Qin Miao, Qin Miao proactively switched to the inside line.

But Qin Miao didn’t directly shift to the inside line, he once again predicted Verstappen’s intentions, and switched before Verstappen was about to move to the inside line.

He timed it just right to block Verstappen’s attempt to pull alongside on the inside line.

Although being jammed by Qin Miao disrupted his rhythm a bit, Verstappen sneered. At this point, I have at least a 10 km/h speed advantage over you, Qin Miao. Besides occasionally annoying me, what else can you do to defend against me?

Hence, although Verstappen didn’t get the inside line advantage, he didn’t mind taking the outside line and began to pull alongside from the outside of Qin Miao.

Even though the slipstream effect from Qin Miao is gone, Verstappen has spent enough time gaining slipstream from behind Qin Miao, possessing a significant relative speed advantage.

Qin Miao watched as the Red Bull car on his right quickly caught up, even alongside him with a third of the DRS zone distance left before the braking point.

Despite knowing that this might not work, Qin Miao still instinctively applied more force with his leg, pressing harder on an already fully depressed accelerator pedal.

Realizing that even after doing so, the speed of his car didn’t improve much, Qin Miao quickly understood that he couldn’t afford to hold back anymore.

If he fails to hold off Verstappen’s attack in this corner, then the final DRS zone won’t leave him any room to exploit.

As soon as he realized this, Qin Miao turned the ERS mode adjustment knob on his steering wheel with his left hand, activating the full ERS power output mode.