Chapter 1423 - 535: Damn FIA with the Safety Car! (Part 2)

Chapter 1423: Chapter 535: Damn FIA with the Safety Car! (Part 2)

Although it seemed to the audience that Qin Miao overtaking Hamilton this time didn’t cause much delay.

In reality, after running a lap behind Hamilton, the original time gap of around 2.5 seconds between Hamilton and Verstappen increased to 3.4 seconds due to this lap of tussling and Qin Miao overtaking Hamilton.

Clicking his tongue, Qin Miao helplessly muttered, "Was it necessary?"

Shaking his head, Qin Miao knew it wasn’t the right time to complain about Old Man Hamilton, and began to maintain his pace in pursuit of the leading Verstappen.

At this point, there are 7 laps left in the race, and there’s still a chance.

Meanwhile, in the Mercedes pit, everyone sensed the tension in the atmosphere.

The strategy team was glancing at Toto’s expression from the corner of their eyes, but at this moment, Toto’s face remained as calm as usual, showing no signs of emotional fluctuations.

Seeing that the team leader had no reaction, everyone exchanged glances and went back to their work.

...

"Frankie, what’s my closing rate on Verstappen?"

"In the lap where you caught up behind Hamilton, your lap time was 0.4 seconds faster than Verstappen. I’m not sure about the latest lap yet, but as the race progresses, your advantage will grow, and you will definitely catch up to Verstappen before the race ends." Frankie precisely provided all the information Qin Miao wanted to know.

Upon hearing this, Qin Miao’s frustration from being blocked by Hamilton dissipated mostly, or rather, at this moment, Qin Miao couldn’t afford to be frustrated anymore and began to fully concentrate on chasing Verstappen.

On lap 53, Qin Miao narrowed the gap between him and Verstappen to 2.8 seconds.

Qin Miao closed 0.6 seconds on Verstappen in a single lap.

However, just as Qin Miao completed this lap, Frankie reminded Qin Miao again, "You’re going too fast, slow down a bit, we have time, there’s no need to rush."

Qin Miao had no choice but to ease his pace and gradually slow down.

On lap 54, Qin Miao shortened the gap to Verstappen down to 2 seconds, this time Qin Miao was faster by 0.8 seconds.

Frankie scratched his head, wanting to remind Qin Miao that there’s no need to rush, if you use your tires too much now, it might get tense when attacking Verstappen.

But as Frankie instinctively glanced at Qin Miao’s lap time.

All the timing points showed yellow, indicating Qin Miao hadn’t pushed at all for this lap.

At this moment, Frankie realized it wasn’t that Qin Miao was getting faster, but Verstappen was slowing down; his tires had reached the cliff edge!

However, Frankie was still uncertain and needed to continue observing. ℴℴ𝘮

On lap 55, Qin Miao clearly noticed Verstappen’s speed dropping, and in this lap, Qin Miao chased into Verstappen’s DRS zone from behind.

He closed in over 1 second on Verstappen in a single lap.

At this point, Verstappen was also sweating profusely.

Although during this period, Qin Miao hadn’t applied any substantial pressure on Verstappen, Verstappen had been continually protecting the tires.

Otherwise, it wouldn’t have been possible to shake off Hamilton just over three seconds.

Throughout this process, Verstappen had been conserving his tires.

But alas, Qin Miao’s tire management ability always felt like a heavy mountain on Verstappen’s mind.

Hard tires under himself seemed like a version with double wear, whereas under Qin Miao, they seemed like a version with double endurance.

Anyone facing such a Qin Miao would feel somewhat uneasy internally.

Over at Red Bull, everyone felt somewhat depressed, unable to help it, from the current situation on the track, it appeared that Verstappen’s win at this Grand Prix was not secure, which made it difficult for anyone to be happy seeing this scene.

However, just as Mercedes was feeling euphoric and Red Bull was filled with despair, with Red Bull’s strategy team scratching their heads on how to remedy all this, a yellow flag suddenly appeared on the track.

Everyone was stunned, and finally, the broadcast director presented the images.

Magelsen’s car had a puncture in the left rear tire.

Soon the director presented the replay footage.

During the replay, the audience saw that as Qin Miao was chasing Verstappen, Zhou Guanyu had been pressuring Haas’s Magelsen from behind on the track.

He was constantly hanging around 0.3 seconds behind Magelsen.

The scene was actually quite interesting, though no one noticed mainly because Qin Miao and Verstappen’s chase was more attention-catching.

During this process, possibly due to the pressure Zhou Guanyu applied or Magelsen’s mistake.

He exited T2 of this lap wide, causing the right rear tire of the car to hit the guardrail, resulting in an immediate puncture and airborne, with the right rear suspension also breaking instantly.

Although Magelsen suffered a puncture and the right rear suspension broke, an F1 car with three wheels could still drive on the track.

So after the tire burst, Magelsen managed to bring his car to Matthew’s entrance before stopping and getting out.

Yet before Magelsen retired, he left something on the track.

Those were his tires.

As expected, the safety car was deployed by the race director.

Although the tire drop location was right next to Matthew’s entrance, under yellow flag conditions, Matthew was not permitted to enter the track to clean up debris.

And not only were tires left on the track, but there were also many carbon fiber fragments, though they were quite small and not easy to see on the broadcast footage.

But these fallen carbon fiber fragments were in unfortunate locations.

So the safety car was sent out.

The appearance of the safety car immediately set the strategy team workers at Mercedes and Red Bull’s heads burning.

Grooved safety car!

Grooved FIA!

After shouting an insult, the teams hastily plunged into calculations, whether Qin Miao needed a pit stop during this safety car period?

However, Mercedes soon came to the conclusion that neither Qin Miao nor Hamilton needed to pit.

Because at this moment, regardless of Verstappen’s choice, Qin Miao held the initiative.

If Verstappen pitted to change tires now, Qin Miao would naturally take the lead position, with Hamilton just over 2 seconds behind Qin Miao.

Even with new soft tires out of the repair area, Verstappen would need to overtake Hamilton before targeting Qin Miao.

Not to mention Alonso was actually 7 seconds behind Hamilton.

If Verstappen pitted during the safety car, the safe distance between Verstappen and Alonso would be only two seconds.

That means if there’s any mistake during the tire change, Verstappen could potentially drop directly behind Alonso.

At that point, given Alonso’s defensive ability, Verstappen might not even make the podium.

If Verstappen stayed out, Qin Miao would be at a slight disadvantage.

Because after the safety car restart, DRS won’t be enabled within three laps, hence Qin Miao won’t have DRS before the race ends.

He could only rely on the car’s speed on straight-road and tire advantage to attack Verstappen, but even so, taking down Verstappen wouldn’t be a particularly difficult task for Qin Miao.

Only the difficulty would be slightly higher compared to having DRS.

The only concern for Qin Miao now is that FIA might decide to lead the race to the finish line with the safety car.

If FIA were to actually do that, there’d be no opportunity at all for him to attack Verstappen.

However, soon Frankie reassured Qin Miao, "Patiently await the restart, we still have a chance!"

Although Frankie didn’t explicitly say so, his words reminded Qin Miao.

FIA has clear race regulations that, when possible, they should avoid leading the entire race with the safety car.

Because such practice significantly affects the race’s watchability and also kills the chance for all drivers to make that last bet.

Qin Miao nodded, then began to slow down, releasing the slow cars.

As he drove on, an unexpected event happened, the race director showed a red flag.

Not only Qin Miao, but Verstappen, Hamilton, Alonso, most of the drivers were filled with questions at this moment.

Why suddenly a red flag out of nowhere?