Chapter 1386 - 522: Wofa: Can’t Win the Drivers’ Championship? Then I’ll Buy It!

Chapter 1386: Chapter 522: Wofa: Can’t Win the Drivers’ Championship? Then I’ll Buy It!

After the opening race, the rankings on the driver’s total points standings are basically consistent with the finishing positions of today’s race, so this won’t be elaborated upon here.

The final team points standings are as follows:

1. Mercedes: 40

2. Red Bull: 30

3. Aston Martin: 16

4. Ferrari: 8

5. Alfa Romeo: 6

6. Alpine: 2

7. McLaren: 0

8. Toro Rosso: 0

9. Haas: 0

10. Williams: 0

The only noteworthy aspect on the driver’s standings might be Aston Martin.

With Leclerc’s retirement, Sainz didn’t surpass Alonso during the race stage.

And behind Alonso, there is Stroll with an injured hand.

Ferrari couldn’t even maintain team third place in the opening race of 2023.

While this may be a normal turbulent period after a change of leadership, it must be said that many Iron Buddha Temple fans felt a deep disappointment seeing Ferrari in such a state.

However, most Iron Buddha Temple fans are quite indifferent about this.

After all, since KIMI, Ferrari hasn’t won a driver’s world championship, plus they missed out on the phenomenal genius Qin Miao in 2021.

Both long-standing fans and those who’ve become fans over one or two years are quite accepting of Ferrari’s performance.

Just let it go!

Results, whatever, doesn’t matter anymore.

As long as the team survives, it’s fine.

Of course, as a legendary team, even if Ferrari goes completely downhill, F1 will award them 5% of the annual total revenue shares as a long-term cooperation bonus each year.

Ferrari can entirely live off this bonus in F1 until they go bankrupt, without worrying about the team budget issues.

This bonus alone is sufficient to sustain the entire Ferrari.

It’s fair to say now F1 has given Ferrari a reason to stay in F1.

Needless to say, over all these years, Ferrari and the massive number of Iron Buddha Temple fans behind it are eager to see Ferrari return to its peak.

But leaving Ferrari aside, Mercedes’ successful start this season indeed boosted everyone’s morale significantly.

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When Qin Miao completed the post-race interview and returned to the team’s P room after changing clothes, he was ambushed by people hidden at both sides of the back door of the team’s P room.

Champagne was splashed all over Qin Miao.

Qin Miao looked a bit helplessly at the clean clothes he had just changed into, which got drenched within five minutes.

Fortunately, although it’s night time in Bahrain, the temperature is not too low, the warmth left by the sun during the day still remains on the ground.

Wearing wet clothes, there’s no concern of catching a cold.

However, Qin Miao is not made of mud, he picked up a bottle of champagne intended for the celebratory photos later and began his counterattack.

Luckily, Toto stepped in to promptly stop the palaver among the three of them.

After celebrating with the team staff, Hamilton arrived.

Since Qin Miao had taken the hit earlier, when Hamilton came to the team’s P room to prepare for celebration, he saw the mess on the ground, thus he was vigilant and didn’t fall victim to the ambush, maintaining the decorum of a gentleman.

Nonetheless, when the two posed for the post-race photo where the entire team gathered together.

Frankie and Bono, with their mischievous moves, exercised no martial arts morality, directly spraying the champagne from the bottles towards Qin Miao and Hamilton. Before the official photographers could even finish taking the picture.

Alright, now Old Man was also all wet.

And the photos after the opening race of 2023 were somewhat chaotic, with everyone smilingly dodging the champagne sprayed by their colleagues.

After the race, the discussions within the paddock naturally focused on Qin Miao and Verstappen.

Apart from Qin Miao, Verstappen completed the race with lap times nearly 10 seconds faster than Hamilton.

This was still after the prolonged track battle between Verstappen and Qin Miao, where they had an on-track incident before the race ended.

If there wasn’t Qin Miao’s interference and that incident on the track, with Verstappen’s current speed, it’s possible he could have finished 20 seconds faster than Hamilton.

Red Bull’s strong car performance is evident this season.

On the other hand, Qin Miao continued to showcase the tire preservation ability that perplexed all teams, including Mercedes themselves.

Qin Miao managed to protect his Grand Prix victory from the clutches of Verstappen by relying on a one-stop pit strategy coupled with his late-race defensive capabilities.

I believe after today’s race, Red Bull’s strategy team will definitely need to devise a suitable tactic considering Qin Miao’s tire management skills.

They can’t keep following Qin Miao’s pace, otherwise, it’s hard for Red Bull to achieve good results this season.

In summary, Mercedes started the season on a positive note, so Daimler was very satisfied and distributed bonuses to everyone in the team.

Qin Miao’s personal bonus reached a staggering 3 million euros.

After the Bahrain race, there’s a week’s break, but Qin Miao didn’t return to England or Monaco.

Although the next Saudi Grand Prix is in two weeks, Qin Miao went to Saudi Arabia ahead of time.

On one hand, Qin Miao doesn’t want to leave the dry climate environment here in the Middle East, his body has already acclimated to the local climate, if he leaves and comes back, he might need to readjust.

There’s also the risk of water and soil discomfort.

Considering for F1 drivers, water and soil discomfort is a common issue.

On the other hand, the Saudi royal family invited Qin Miao to visit.