How Did I Become an F1 Driver?

Chapter 945 373: Accident-Filled Qualifying Session

With a helpless sigh, Qin Miao got out of bed, washed up, and went into the paddock.After going through all the pre-race procedures, Qin Miao returned to the team's garage.

By the time Qin Miao appeared in the broadcast footage of the race, he was already in his car.

At this time, Reyes and his team had not yet left the track, and there was still a rain cover on Qin Miao's car.

Obviously, it was still drizzling on the track, and to prevent water from leaking into the car and damaging it, a rain cover was needed.

Once the race starts, however, the holes in the car are not as easily penetrated by water.

Although by the time of the imminent start, the rain had considerably decreased since the pre-race driver parade, it was still falling.

Therefore, all drivers chose intermediate tires for the race.

Ten minutes later, the warm-up lap began.

The track had not yet developed a racing line, and the entire surface was waterlogged.

However, during the warm-up lap, the team informed Qin Miao via TR that the rain was expected to gradually lighten, but in 15 minutes, another rain cloud would pass through, bringing more moderate rain.

Fortunately, whether a pit stop to change tires would be needed as the track dried wasn't something Qin Miao had to worry about; he just needed to follow the team's instructions during the race.

Before long, all drivers except Zhou Guanyu had parked their cars in their grid positions, waiting for the race to start.

Zhou Guanyu wasn't in his original position because, after yesterday's qualifying, the team made adjustments to his car.

Even though after the qualifying, the cars returned directly to the team's garage.

During this process, the team's staff weren't allowed to touch the cars.

The proper procedure was to bring the cars back to the garage and only lift and push them back without touching.

Then, the FIA staff would come to check the cars' condition. Only after the FIA staff had finished checking were teams allowed to modify or clean the cars.

But for some reason, it seemed like the Alfa Romeo team members might have transferred over from Ferrari since, after Zhou Guanyu was eliminated in Q2 and returned to the garage, his team's engineer immediately opened the car's engine cover.

Although the engineer was quickly stopped, Zhou Guanyu still violated the FIA regulations.

The team also realized there was a parameter setting error and adjusted Zhou Guanyu's setup accordingly.

As a result, Zhou Guanyu's qualifying results in Q2 were forfeited, and he had to start the race today from the pit lane.

Upon hearing this news, Qin Miao even suspected there were Ferrari spies sent to Alfa Romeo.

Zhou Guanyu was truly having a streak of bad luck.

This was only the fourth race of the season, and Zhou Guanyu had already been disadvantaged by his team twice.

Back to the main topic.

Once all the cars were parked in their positions, the safety car moved into place, and the green flag waved.

The five red lights gradually lit up.

Soon, the five red lights went out, and the race began.

Due to the wet track, all drivers were using intermediate tires.

Therefore, at the start, drivers didn't dare to press the accelerator as deeply as they would on a dry track. Qin Miao and many other drivers even started in second gear to reduce the torque on the rear wheels and prevent slipping.

As a result, no driver unleashed the full potential of their car's engine immediately.

Starting in the rain made for a somewhat sluggish beginning.

However, F1 is F1.

Once the cars picked up speed, that sense of speed and sharpness returned.

Due to the rain on the track, shortly after the start, Qin Miao's view was quickly obscured by the water spray kicked up by the rear wheels of the car in front.

The spray was so heavy that Qin Miao could barely see the road ahead, only the three constantly flickering indicator lights on the car in front.

Last season, Qin Miao also raced in the rain, but despite the spray from the car in front, at least you could vaguely make out the road. This race, once the cars picked up speed, Qin Miao couldn't see the road at all, only the track boundaries and the indicator lights from the car in front.

This was actually a characteristic caused by the ground effect cars.

The floor of a ground effect car provides 60% of the car's total downforce.

Additionally, due to the rear diffuser, the low-pressure airflow converges with normal air at the car's rear.

This causes the rainwater on the track to be sucked up by the ground effect car's underfloor, resulting in much more spray behind the cars this season compared to the last.

And it wasn't just Qin Miao; other drivers were encountering the same issue.

Except for Verstappen, who started in pole position, none of the other drivers could see the road clearly.

Despite this, not a single driver on the track released their fully depressed accelerator.

This could be considered one of the instincts of F1 professional drivers: speed is everything here.

Qin Miao's reaction time at the start was actually very quick, and he promptly closed the time gap between himself and Alonso ahead.