Chapter 1520: Accidents Abound (8K, Making Up Yesterday’s Missed Update)_3

“No, it’s just that after being in this line of work for a long time, you inevitably meet all kinds of people, and you just lose basic trust in people. It’s not directed at you.”

Qin Miao: “You just don’t trust me!”

Reyes helplessly raised his hands in surrender: “I give up.”

Then, the two chatted a little more, and Qin Miao’s main purpose for coming to see Reyes today was fully achieved.

During the remaining time, the topics between the two became much lighter, mainly revolving around some things they encountered on the racetrack before.

After chatting for another hour or so, Qin Miao and Reyes finally parted ways.

After getting home, Qin Miao first made a call to Toto.

After all, getting Reyes out of Mercedes was just a step away; as long as Toto agreed, joining Ferrari for Qin Miao would be no problem.

And even though Qin Miao didn’t have to say much to Toto, despite Qin Miao leaving next season making Toto somewhat reluctant, even suffering insomnia over it: What’s wrong with Ferrari?

But Toto had no reason to refuse Qin Miao’s small requests.

Even if Toto wanted to refuse, Qin Miao had enough money to pay the penalty for Reyes, and Toto didn’t want any bad blood with Qin Miao after he left, so letting go of Reyes was a favor in passing.

After thanking Toto, Qin Miao then called Vassel.

And informed him of his plan to bring two people to join Ferrari after the end of this season.

Vassel replied: “Although I can help you with this kind of thing, you don’t need to ask me. You have the authority to appoint personnel from your team, just go directly to the head of the personnel department and tell him. He will take care of the entry procedures for these people, and due to their Mercedes background, they won’t even need to be reassessed.”

Qin Miao clicked his tongue: “The role switch is quite big in a short time, a bit hard to get used to, thanks for the reminder, I’ll go find him now.”

“Okay, keep in mind that you’re asking for a favor, be polite when you talk.”

“Got it, when I was in school I learned quite a few complex sentences…”

“Hmm… forget it, he’s Italian.”

…

After communicating well with the people at Ferrari, Qin Miao felt relieved about this matter.

Once this matter was handled, going to Ferrari would mean no worries about his adaptation problems.

Adapting to the car was not a concern; ‘Man and Car Unity’ was Qin Miao’s best adaptation ability.

As for the personnel adaptation, there’s Frankie on the track, the track engineer who has been working with Qin Miao since F2, they can be considered old partners, and going to Ferrari together would cause no issues. Once there, adapting to Ferrari’s workflow will be Frankie’s responsibility, Qin Miao only needs to familiarize himself with Ferrari’s cars.

And on the car side, Reyes is responsible, and adaptation is also his concern. He needs to train Qin Miao’s crew of technicians to become familiar to Qin Miao.

It can be said that Qin Miao now had no more worries.

After completing these things, Qin Miao continued to invest in training.

Although the Villeneuve circuit in Australia did not make layout changes this season like other tracks, and thus Qin Miao’s familiarity with this track has not changed, the Mercedes car characteristics from this season differ from last, so Qin Miao still needs to find the car and track compatibility anew.

Therefore, up until Thursday, Qin Miao spent most of his time in simulator training.

This might be a unique advantage for Qin Miao because during the Grand Prix he doesn’t need to, like other drivers, participate in some local events or shoot some videos.

He can use all his time for training.

Quickly, Thursday arrived, and Qin Miao went to the paddock.

The pre-race press conference and drivers’ meeting or even the whole Thursday walkthrough won’t be elaborated here.

Because it’s just a regular Grand Prix Thursday, you can’t even see fans in the paddock, there’s really not much to elaborate on.

But wait till Friday when the practice sessions begin; that’s when the fun starts on the track.

As soon as the first practice started, Qin Miao and Hamilton followed Mercedes’s usual habits and didn’t send their cars out immediately, but waited a bit in the pit lane before letting the drivers out for practice.

However, this wait made the two drivers awkward because a red flag appeared on the track.

Qin Miao and Hamilton were trapped at the pit exit and could only wait at the pit entrance, their minds momentarily confused, wondering what was going on?

Through Frankie’s team radio, Qin Miao learned that Gasly’s car had issues, stopped near T8, and couldn’t move.

There’s no concept of a yellow flag in practice sessions; it’s directly a red flag.

Actually, originally this was no big deal; remove Gasly’s car, then withdraw the red flag, and the practice sessions could continue.

This is as normal as it gets in a race.

But the frustrating part was that the race control center found out its camera was broken.

These weren’t the broadcast cameras but rather the speed tracking and the ones used for penalty replays.

So for safety reasons, the race control center directly paused the race to fix these issues.