Chapter 1523: The Main Race Begins

The qualifying session takes a short rest and enters the first flying lap of Q3.

Qin Miao is still running a baseline lap. After the first flying lap, Qin Miao ranks fifth, Hamilton fourth.

This is also Qin Miao’s regular performance, and Qin Miao’s fans didn’t feel too surprised.

Just when all the fans were waiting for Q3 to start, there was yet another unexpected incident on the track.

Piastri made a mistake at T7 and slipped into the wall, slamming the rear end into the guardrail on the side of the track.

This crash damaged Piastri’s rear wing, punctured the right rear tire, and caused the car to stop on the track, naturally triggering a red flag on the track.

This was originally just a normal track incident.

But the key is, originally during the Q3 stage of the qualifying session, the rain on the track maintained a gentle and acceptable range. Next, there would be heavy rain, but it wouldn’t affect Q3. However, this crash paused Q3 of the qualifying session.

And when Piastri’s car was cleared from the track and the race restarted, it happened to encounter a rain cloud that would increase the rain on the track.

As a result, no matter how hard the subsequent drivers tried, they couldn’t refresh their results.

Because the rain on the track was too heavy, and as time passed, the rain would get even heavier.

As a result, even Verstappen made an early exit, giving up this qualifying session.

As for the reason, Verstappen took first place in Q3 of the qualifying session, and he knew other drivers couldn’t refresh their results…

Qin Miao and Hamilton tried a flying lap on the track and found the rain was truly too heavy, making it impossible to refresh their results in such adverse weather conditions.

Thus, both drivers decided to give up today’s qualifying session Q3.

Three minutes before the end of the session, they brought the cars back to the team’s garage and clocked out early.

In the final stage of the qualifying session, apart from a few drivers at the bottom trying to refresh their results, most drivers chose to return to the team’s garage.

The qualifying session ended with the drivers’ rankings as follows:

1: Verstappen 1:25.858

2: Hockenheim

3: Alonso

4: Hamilton

5: Qin Miao

6: O’Kang

7: Norris

8: Sainz

9: Piastri

10: Albon

However, the qualifying rankings do not represent the starting lineup for tomorrow’s race.

Because during the qualifying session, several drivers blocked drivers behind them during either the out lap or the in lap, resulting in penalties, dropping them three positions.

Others, Qin Miao didn’t pay much attention to, but there’s good news for Qin Miao and Hamilton, which is that Hockenheim, in front of them, also has a penalty.

Compared to other penalized drivers, Hulk did not block drivers behind him on the track. Haas did a decent job in warning drivers.

Hockenheim was genuinely penalized for speeding on the track during the red flag, receiving the same three-position penalty.

Starting second, Hockenheim’s three-position penalty just happened to land him in Qin Miao’s position, thus Qin Miao moved from fifth to fourth for today’s race.

Hamilton was even happier, moving from fourth to third.

Initially, Qin Miao was somewhat frustrated for not being able to refresh his result in the last lap, but this news lifted his spirits quite a bit.

Because in tomorrow’s race, Qin Miao can start from the second row, although on the dirty side, it’s still a bigger advantage than starting from the third row.

This counts as the only consolation in an otherwise unlucky race weekend.

After Saturday’s qualifying session ended, during the post-race interviews, Qin Miao had little to say. This qualifying session focused more on luck than on skill, and the release habits of Qin Miao, Hamilton, and the Mercedes team made it almost impossible for them to achieve good qualifying results in today’s weather.

Time quickly moved to Sunday, the day the race starts.

Unlike the dense clouds on Friday and Saturday, the weather in Montreal, Canada improved after Sunday, and according to the team’s meteorological department forecast, it’s unlikely to rain all day.

It seems as if all the rain Canada had been holding back was emptied in the two days of Friday and Saturday.

However, no rain is not necessarily good news for the F1 drivers.

Because the Canadian Grand Prix doesn’t have F2 and F3 supporting races. After all, not being a European event, F2 and F3 teams have limited transportation ability.

Thus, before the Canadian Grand Prix starts, there’s only a Porsche Carrera Cup race as a support race.

And Porsche cars cannot adequately clean the debris and dust left on the track after yesterday’s rain.

Additionally, the rain washed away the rubber deposits left by the practice and qualifying sessions, so during the race stage, Qin Miao and his team anticipate poor grip on the dirty side at the start.

Therefore, Qin Miao specifically asked Frankie to clean the dust around his starting position during the preparation phase before the race.

Even though they can’t sweep the entire surrounding ground, they can use blowers to clear the area around Qin Miao’s car.