Chapter 1371 - 515: The Power of Pirelli’s Patron

Chapter 1371: Chapter 515: The Power of Pirelli’s Patron

Finally, on lap 23, amidst the calm expressions of Pirelli staff and the tense faces of the strategy teams from Red Bull and Ferrari, Qin Miao’s first and second sector times began to noticeably drop.

At this moment, Qin Miao clearly felt the car’s grip start to decrease significantly, just like his lap times.

The team’s strategy group noticed that Qin Miao’s sector times were about 0.3 seconds slower than the previous lap, adding up to a total of 0.6 seconds slower overall, indicating that Qin Miao’s tires had reached a cliff point.

Immediately, they said on the team radio: "BOX! BOX! Pit this lap."

Although Qin Miao did not respond, he entered the pit lane.

Once inside the pit lane, Qin Miao parked perfectly, allowing the Mercedes team’s tire-changing crew to change his tires without needing any adjustment; the air gun was simply pushed forward to remove the bolts from Qin Miao’s car’s tires.

In fact, tire change is not solely the work of the tire change crew; to ensure the change is quick enough, the driver’s cooperation is also needed, specifically parking correctly.

If you don’t park your car in the ideal position for the team’s tire change crew, how can you expect their tire change speed to be quick enough?

Qin Miao parked as if he followed a textbook, and the Mercedes crew completed the tire change in 2.7 seconds.

Almost three seconds.

Qin Miao: ...

He suddenly felt like his passion had been fed to the dogs.

However, what can be said is, even if it was slow, at least the Mercedes tire change crew made fewer mistakes, and last season saw no errors in his tire changes.

Of course, to make a direct comparison, Hamilton’s tire change in this race was also quite lengthy.

As for the reason, Qin Miao was unclear.

But for Qin Miao, the 2.7-second tire change was not unacceptable.

After all, he had the advantage of making fewer pit stops, and what he needed to do next was not to overtake or attack, but to preserve tires, maniacally preserve tires, at any cost preserve tires.

After exiting the pit lane, Qin Miao’s position inevitably dropped sharply.

Before the pit stop window opened, Qin Miao was in third place. Now, having exited the pit lane, he’s directly wedged between Leclerc and Sainz.

Because of the strategic choice in today’s race, Qin Miao watched not whether there was a clear window behind when pitting, but when his tires hit the cliff point.

So, after exiting the pit lane, not only was he stuck between the two Ferrari cars, but he was just 1.4 seconds behind Leclerc ahead.

Normally, being this close to the car ahead leaves Qin Miao little room to use the speed of his hard tires.

However, the current situation wasn’t normal, and dealing with Leclerc ahead was not a problem for Qin Miao.

After all, Qin Miao pitted 10 laps later than Leclerc, and both were using hard tires; coupled with the fact that the Mercedes car was much more powerful than Ferrari this season, Qin Miao found handling Leclerc not overly challenging.

The out-lap confirmed this, as Qin Miao’s single-lap speed was 0.3 seconds faster than Leclerc, even before his tire temperatures had risen.

Meanwhile, Qin Miao was conserving his tires. If he wasn’t conserving, he estimated he could reduce the gap to Leclerc by 0.7 seconds per lap.

This is the difference between having a sword and not using it.

If Qin Miao’s single-lap speed wasn’t significantly faster than Leclerc, encountering this situation would truly be a headache for him.

Now, Qin Miao needed to preserve his tires until catching up to Leclerc, then use a bit of tire to overtake him.

Meanwhile, as Qin Miao found his single-lap speed, the first driver to pit today, Gasly, started his second pit stop tire change in the race.

The scene was somewhat abstract, with the first single-stop driver and the earliest double-stop driver only pitting one lap apart.

Quite a few fans, after seeing this, joked: "Special edition Pirelli, what more is there to say?"

"Special edition Pirelli? Have you heard of Pirelli’s power?"

"Pirelli’s credibility is continuing to decline"

"Do you understand the significance of Pirelli tires’ consistently record-high sales in China?!"

...

"This is Qin Miao, a set of soft tires ran for twenty-four laps, still faster than Lynk & Co’s De Vries on fresh hard tires by 0.2 seconds per lap." On the Five-Star Sports side, Zhou Haoran commented as he saw Qin Miao pit.

Although De Vries’ current F1 performance is not as dazzling as when he was substituting previously, De Vries is definitely weaker now.

Nonetheless, De Vries is still part of China’s first F1 team, so Bing says a few good words about him.

"Regardless, this is De Vries’ first official F1 driver season, so some nervousness and underperforming are inevitable. Not everyone is Qin Miao. Given a few races to adapt, I believe his performance will surely greatly improve, as his substitute results from last season couldn’t have been false."

"Plus, for a rookie driver, now being in fifteenth isn’t so bad at all."