Chapter 322 Beiting Defense Front
Although he felt a little uncomfortable after having to chase so much distance for no reason, Qin Miao still stabilized his mentality and started the pursuit while protecting the tires.
On lap 6, Qin Miao caught up with Alonso and used DRS to overtake Alonso.
Brother Tou had no intention of defending Qin Miao and simply gave way to Qin Miao before the braking point of T17.
Qin Miao came to the second place.
At the same time, Hamilton passed Sainz and came to fourth, and Verstappen had also passed Magnussen and came to sixth.
The three drivers are chasing each other crazily.
However, judging from the data provided by the FIA, Verstappen's average lap speed is about 0.2 faster than the two Mercedes drivers.
This is still the state when Verstappen never had the chance to run a normal unobstructed lap time.
On the 13th lap, Qin Miao finally caught up in the DRS area behind Perez.
The Red Bull in today's game has actually been upgraded, but before the start of the race, no one knows how much improvement Red Bull's upgrade has brought to their racing performance.
However, judging from Perez's performance today, Red Bull's improvement in this upgrade is extremely huge.
Because in the first 4 games, Perez’s speed was not only unable to match his teammates, but also Qin Miao and Hamilton. Judging from Perez’s state in today’s game, he at least With the ability to fight Qin Miao on the track.
On the same lap, Hamilton also passed Alonso.
Compared to letting Qin Miao go, the old man Alonso was obviously more interested in the other old man.
Alonso put all his attention and energy on defending Hamilton, just like returning to the Hungaroring that year.
In fact, with the performance of the Mercedes car, it is not too difficult for Hamilton to overtake Alonso on the track.
However, Alonso was really serious about defending Hamilton in today's game, blocking many of Hamilton's good overtaking opportunities.
Coupled with the deliberate braking test and rhythm change before entering the straight, it not only made Hamilton feel sick, but also restricted the performance of the W14 on the straight.
After all, every time before entering the straight, the original time gap of 0.3 seconds between Hamilton and Alonso would be deliberately reduced to 0.5 seconds and 0.6 seconds by Alonso.
With such a big time gap, no matter how powerful the Mercedes car is, there is no way to catch up with Alonso's car and overtake him at the same time.
Also because Alonso and Hamilton got into a fight on the track, Verstappen, who started ninth, finally overtook Sainz and came behind Hamilton.
This process only took 13 laps.
Verstappen watched the two men fighting inextricably in front of him, and he was still a little happy. At least Alonso helped him delay Hamilton for a long time, but when Verstappen saw Qin After the time gap between Miao and Alonso, Verstappen couldn't be happier.
Although Qin Miao caught up behind Perez, there was no good way to hold Perez for a while. Looking at Qin Miao's single lap speed and the time gap between him and Perez, Wei Wei Stapan judged that Qin Miao was charging his car at this time, waiting for an opportunity to achieve success in one fell swoop.
Forget it, but how did the 5-second time gap between Qin Miao and Alonso come out?
After Verstappen was surprised, it was Qin Miao's turn to be surprised.
Because as the race came to the 18th lap, it was almost the pit stop window, and Qin Miao still did not surpass Perez.
It’s not that Qin Miao doesn’t want to, or that Qin Miao has any defensive strategy.
Qin Miao really couldn't find a way to surpass Perez for a while.
During this process, Qin Miao fully charged the battery of his car twice. He thought about it many times, but never succeeded.
The tail speed of Perez's Red Bull car is also amazing. At the same time, I don't know where Perez learned it, and he also started to use various loopholes when defending.
Even Qin Miao himself couldn't hold it back many times.
However, Qin Miao soon regained his inner peace.
Because Qin Miao knows that he will surpass Sainz sooner or later. After all, the pressure value hanging on Sainz’s head at this time is [71%]
Now all he needs to do is wait for Perez to make a mistake on his own initiative.
And the driver behind him is still Alonso.
Although Miami is not an easy track to defend.
But with Verstappen appearing behind Hamilton, and the tires of Hamilton's car starting to wear out, it will become easier and easier for Alonso to defend Hamilton.
And Verstappen also provides DRS to Hamilton at all times because of the presence of Alonso in front of Hamilton.
It is not easy for Verstappen to overtake Hamilton.
So in general the advantage is on your side.
Now I just need to run the rhythm I am most familiar with and wait for Perez to make mistakes.
However, on the field, Qin Miao did not wait for Perez to make a mistake on his own initiative. Instead, he waited until the pit stop window opened.
At the end of lap 18, Sainz took the lead in blowing the pit horn for the drivers in the leading group.
The drivers in front also pitted to change tires under pressure from Sainz.
Even Perez, who was in front of Qin Miao, chose to pit for tire changes.
In fact, given the time gap between Perez and Verstappen, as well as Red Bull Racing's strong tire changing capabilities, there will be no problem for them even if they pit with two cars.
But in today's race, Verstappen used hard tires at the start. After all, he started from such a rear position. If he used soft tires and the pit stop strategy of other drivers, it would be easy to end up in the pit stop. It's a waste of time in overtaking. It's better to just start with hard tires and directly undercut most of the drivers whose lap times are slower than yours, like now.
So at this point in time, Verstappen's tires still have plenty of room to spare, and it would be completely unwise to pit at this time.
Soon, as the race came to the 20th lap, after all the drivers in front pitted, Qin Miao became the driver in the leading position.
And also actually completed the undercut for Perez on the track.
After all, Qin Miao came behind Perez and had no way to surpass Perez. In addition to the upgrade brought by the Red Bull Racing Grand Prix, the straight-line tail speed of Red Bull Racing has been greatly improved. Perez also has Creates a lot of turbulence ahead.
Qin Miao's downforce, which was not very effective during the cornering phase, became better than nothing.
Therefore, Qin Miao was unable to catch up to a position behind Perez that could pose a threat to Perez before the DRS zone in the middle of the second and third periods.
This is completely a vicious cycle, and it can even be said that this is the characteristic of Miami Speedway.
Because there is always a winding curve before the DRS area of Miami Circuit. After passing the curve, you start to enter the DRS area. This makes it easier to defend a car that is not used to straight lines in the DRS zone.
Now that there is no obstruction from Perez in front of Qin Miao, Qin Miao is using medium tires. With Qin Miao’s ability to protect tires, Qin Miao’s current single lap speed is even It's faster than Perez's new hard tires, although it's only 0.09 seconds faster in a single lap.
At this time, some people will be curious, why Red Bull did not let Perez stay in front of Qin Miao to slow down Qin Miao's pace of the game, and wait until Verstappen caught up with someone who was a threat to Qin Miao. position, or would Perez be allowed to pit after his tires really failed?
Let's put it this way, Perez is also a human being, and now Red Bull is barely satisfied with Perez's performance this season and has no plans to give up Perez directly.
It is also impossible for them to directly let Perez seamlessly transition into the second driver position.
On the other hand, Red Bull feels that Perez can compete for the championship in today's game, while Verstappen is trapped in the DRS train.
Although there is indeed a certain strength gap between the two drivers, under the circumstances, Perez had a higher probability of winning the race than Verstappen.
In the following time, Qin Miao successfully led the race, and after there was no obstacle, he began to slowly expand the time gap between himself and Verstappen.
However, the expansion speed is very slow, almost 0.1 seconds per lap.
On lap 25, the time gap between Qin Miao and Verstappen was fixed at 5.2 seconds.
Qin Miao is first, Verstappen is second, Perez is third, Hamilton is fourth, and the leader is already fifth.
At this time, the time gap between Qin Miao and Verstappen remained unchanged, and Verstappen even sometimes had a faster lap speed than Qin Miao.
Obviously, even if he is as strong as Qin Miao, his tires have begun to fail.
If he pits during this lap, Qin Miao will fall 17 seconds behind Verstappen and 1.7 seconds in front of Perez.
This was Qin Miao’s opportunity to make a pit stop on the track.
If there were no mistakes in the tire change this time and the tire change was completed within 3 seconds, Qin Miao would be about 1.3 seconds ahead of Perez after coming out.
But if it exceeds 3 seconds, it is hard to say where Qin Miao will appear.
After all, when Qin Miao just came out of the maintenance area, Qin Miao's tire temperature did not reach the most suitable working temperature, and he would suffer a lot on both offense and defense.
If Perez blocks him, Qin Miao will be in trouble.
“Okay, we see that Qin Miao is about to make a pit stop.”
“A set of soft tires lasted 25 laps, which is considered a normal pit stop for Qin Miao. ." Zhou Haoran said.
“Let’s see how long it took for Mercedes to change tires at this pit stop...”
A lot of coincidences actually happened in the Five Star Sports studio last week. .
For example, just after the Five Star Sports commentators praised the performance of Guanyu and Qin Miao on the track last week, the two Chinese drivers retired from the race one after the other.
Although it is obvious that this incident has nothing to do with the commentators of Five Star Sports, the key is that this incident is such a coincidence.
Although it was not like Norris's killing spree, Norris had an accident immediately before he finished speaking, and the wreckage of the McLaren car was scattered on the ground.
But it was almost the same. As soon as the words were spoken, the two drivers had problems one after another.
For this reason, many domestic car fans who believe in this aspect have verbally criticized several commentators from Five Star Sports.
Although the three commentators do not want to believe these things subjectively, the pragmatism in the bones of the Chinese people still makes the three commentators be more cautious when explaining Qin Miao's game.
So at this critical moment, the commentators of Five-Star Sports did not dare to make judgments as decisively as before in the live broadcast room.
Slowing down, entering the maintenance area, turning on the speed limit button, Qin Miao slowly drove his car into the tire changing position at the door of the P room of the Mercedes team.
At this time, the team's technicians were all ready and were waiting for Qin Miao to park the car.
Qin Miao's parking position is still so perfect.
It just so happened that his tires and front nose were delivered to the team's tire changer.
For this reason, before Qin Miao's car stopped, the car was set up, and the bolts and tires were removed almost at the same time.
After the four tires were removed and taken away, four new hard tires were installed on the car.
The moment the four tires were installed, the front and rear jack technicians released their jacks at the same time.
While the car was on the way down, the four technicians responsible for locking the bolts had also tightened the bolts of Qin Miao's car.
After completing this series of operations, the four wind gunners raised their wind cannons to signal that the tire change was completed.
Then Reyes gave the signal to release the car, and Qin Miao stepped on the accelerator and left the parking place to change the tire.
At the same time, Qin Miao's total tire change time popped up in the upper right corner of the broadcast screen, which had been watching Qin Miao's tire change.
【2.0】
“Beautiful!”
"This pit stop was perfect. Qin Miao successfully overcut Perez. The next step is for Qin Miao to take advantage of his long-distance speed!"
......
Saw this After the tire change time, the five-star sports commentators who were still hesitant at first opened the champagne with confidence and boldness.
Because the Miami track does not consume a lot of tires, and Pirelli provided three types of tires with medium hardness for this race, the durability is sufficient. Therefore, under normal conditions, the drivers They all adopt a one-stop pit stop strategy.
And Qin Miao changed to hard tires, which is obvious. Qin Miao is going to run the entire race on a set of hard tires and will not enter the pit area to change tires again.
There is no risk of getting into trouble in the maintenance area, and the three commentators can naturally pop the champagne in the studio.
On the track, Qin Miao also felt that the tire change was very fast. When he came out of the pit area, he even praised the team TR: "Awesome."
Frankie He smiled and said: "The next step is up to you."
"Let's see!"
Because the team made a perfect tire change this time, after Qin Miao came out of the pit area, not only He got stuck in front of Perez, and the originally expected time gap of 1.7 seconds with Perez increased to 2.0 seconds due to this excellent tire change.
And Perez sighed slightly when he looked at the Mercedes car that appeared in front of him. It's over, the championship of the race is gone...
ps. Dads, take a day off tomorrow
(End of this chapter)