Chapter 1383 - 520: Verstappen’s Filter on Qin Miao Shattered (2)

Chapter 1383: Chapter 520: Verstappen’s Filter on Qin Miao Shattered (2)

At this point even Verstappen had already parked his car; Qin Miao was the last one to come back, and by now basically everyone was standing there waiting for the defending champion to return to the throne that belonged to him.

After he stopped, Verstappen’s Red Bull was on Qin Miao’s left, and his teammate Hamilton was on his right.

As soon as Qin Miao parked the car, Reyes and the others hurried over and shoved the coolers into the three air intakes on Qin Miao’s car.

Even though they were really worried about the condition of Qin Miao’s car at this moment—after all, they didn’t know whether the plank on the underside had been worn down past the FIA’s limit after grinding along the track for so long.

Because if it exceeds the FIA limit, the race result will be cancelled.

But according to FIA regulations, before FIA staff finish the post-race inspection of the car, they’re not allowed to touch the car other than plugging these cooling blowers into the air intakes.

Once the car was stopped, Qin Miao shook his hands a couple of times, which were a bit numb.

Yes, an F1 steering wheel has power steering.

But in order for the driver to feel the track surface and the car’s behavior more clearly, the power assistance on an F1 car is actually not that strong.

Because of that, once Qin Miao’s tire blew the steering wheel basically turned into a raging bull, shuddering wildly in his hands the whole time.

Qin Miao had to keep fighting it to hold the wheel, otherwise the car would have gone out of control.

After running the final timed sector plus the in-lap back to the pits, his hands were straight-up shocked numb.

Climbing out of the car, Qin Miao saw, outside the barrier, his teammates’ faces lit up with enthusiastic smiles.

Standing on top of his car, Qin Miao raised both arms high and looked around.

The fans at the circuit knew the script and gave him applause and cheers.

After taking a moment to enjoy the fruits of his victory, Qin Miao jumped down from the car, didn’t even bother with his steering wheel, and just dove straight into the crowd.

Honestly, once he charged into the mass of Mercedes team staff, he felt like they were whacking his helmet even harder than when he sealed the overall title last season.

His colleagues really were a bit overexcited right now.

Because this was a classic reenactment, and as Hamilton’s colleagues as well they knew just how insanely difficult it was to bring the car back in one piece with a wheel missing.

Shock and delight were overflowing at the tips of their hearts.

After a brief round of hugs with everyone, Qin Miao came up to Toto; they hugged, and the wrinkles on Toto’s face bunched up from his grin: "Well done. All of us are proud of the result you got out there today. After the race we definitely need to take everyone out for a proper meal and celebrate."

"In your name."

Qin Miao didn’t think too much about it just then; he just said thanks.

Later though, he realized Toto was once again helping him farm goodwill with the rest of the team.

In other words, he was deepening the bonds between Qin Miao and the rest of the crew, nudging Qin’s relationship with the team another step forward.

That way the "emotional silent cost" of leaving would be really high, and his chances of walking away from Mercedes would drop.

Qin Miao didn’t exactly resent any of this; besides, Toto really had done a lot over the past two years to keep him at the team.

All of Toto’s moves and effort, Qin Miao had taken in with his own eyes—saying he wasn’t moved would be a lie.

Hearts are made of flesh; even a rock would be warmed up after this long, let alone someone like Qin Miao who caves to soft touches but not hard ones.

So right now the scales in his heart were starting to tilt.

That whole Iron Buddha Temple thing—it’s all a scam.

Shoddy brainwashing music cooked up by pyramid-scheme outfits to fool the clueless masses, nothing more.

I, Qin Miao, will forever be a loyal supporter and driver of the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team. If the team tells me to go east, I’m definitely not going west.

After all, everybody knows I’ve always heaped praise on the styling and design philosophy of Mercedes’ classic AMG GT sports car.

...

After another round of mutual congratulations with the other higher-ups, Qin Miao turned to head over for the post-race interviews.

But before that, he and Hamilton shared a hug.

Looking at the blown right-front tire on Qin’s car, Hamilton joked, "Don’t know why, but I’m seeing more and more of my past self in you. Feels like one day you’re going to replace me."

They both laughed together after he said it.

As for how much of that was a joke and how much was serious, only Hamilton himself probably knew.

Qin Miao didn’t answer head-on; he just chuckled and brushed it aside.

Then facing Verstappen—Pan had already taken off his helmet and sweat cap.

Qin Miao could see that Verstappen’s expression toward him wasn’t exactly friendly right now.

The rest might be okay; Verstappen had even had time to rethink their on-track contact by now.

That collision was never going to be easy to pin on either side; you could only call it a normal racing incident, and if the FIA really wanted to penalize it, both of them would get punished.

So Verstappen had pretty much come to terms with that part.

What he really couldn’t accept was Qin Miao giving him a brake test.

Two years—Verstappen had known Qin Miao for two years.

In those two years, Verstappen had almost lost count of how many times they’d gone wheel-to-wheel, trading attacks and defenses on track.

Their duels could be said to have gone both ways, but you couldn’t deny that Qin Miao had taken most of the wins.

But Verstappen knew: Qin Miao was strong, sure.

Yet from beginning to end Qin had always been a very rule-abiding driver; whether defending or attacking, he stayed within what the FIA allowed.

Even when he squeezed people off the track, it was only when he was already ahead of your car.

Verstappen would even admit that in both attack and defense, Qin drove much cleaner than he did.

It’s just that, well, that kind of thing is dirty laundry; he couldn’t exactly go around telling everyone.

So even though Qin was Verstappen’s biggest rival, and had literally snatched last year’s world title right out of Verstappen’s hands,

up until the start of today’s race Verstappen still genuinely respected Qin Miao from the bottom of his heart.

This guy was a straight-up gentleman.

But after today’s race, the image Qin had built up in Verstappen’s mind over two years basically collapsed.

That brake test from Qin Miao had completely thrown Verstappen.

Strictly speaking it didn’t violate any FIA rule; you could call it a gray area.

But it smashed Verstappen’s first impression of Qin.

So right now the look Verstappen gave him was a little complicated.

On one hand he was surprised Qin had started playing dirty; on the other, he was more than a bit worried.

When Qin played clean, fighting him wheel-to-wheel was already that hard. Now he’s willing to go dirty—won’t my second half of the season get even more miserable?

Still, no matter what he was thinking, the two of them had no beef off track, and with the race over and that many cameras pointed at them, Verstappen couldn’t exactly just swing at Qin right there over this.

So they at least nodded to each other in a friendly-enough way, considered that a greeting.

After that Qin Miao did the routine weigh-in, and once everything checked out, tidied himself up and headed to the post-race interview area.

"Congratulations, Qin Miao. It’s pretty obvious that today’s win was once again a championship you brought to Mercedes purely on your own abilities."

Hearing that, a huge question mark popped up in Qin Miao’s head.

Bro, are you brain-cramped? Who asks that kind of thing in a post-race interview?

Or did you take money from Ferrari?

This question really was a bit presumptuous—clearly trying to stir up trouble between Qin and the team.