Chapter 947 - 374: All Thanks to My Peers

In this accident, Qin Miao was the biggest beneficiary, as he directly moved up 5 positions, jumping from 11th to 6th.

Apart from those like Qin Miao and Magelsen who benefited in front, the happiest has to be Zhou Guanyu, who started at the back of the grid.

Although the number of his main competitors ahead did not change, at least the time gap between him and the drivers in front, initially from the pit lane, was erased due to this safety car, and his position also moved up two places.

Even though Ricardo appeared behind Zhou Guanyu, Zhou was not intimidated at all. The defensive techniques he learned from Qin Miao just lacked a suitable opponent to practice on.

The safety car led from lap 1 to lap 4, and the race was about to restart from lap 5.

After the race restarted, there were no other changes in the drivers’ positions.

After all, the positions before restarting have now been restricted, so this scene is believed to become mainstream during future safety car periods.

After the race restarted, Qin Miao stuck closely behind Magelsen.

However, as the race progressed, Qin Miao also realized that with the wet track conditions, he basically couldn’t launch an attack on Magelsen ahead.

Even though following closely this season is easier than last season, the top speed of the straight for the Mercedes in the late phase is somewhat lacking, and Haas, for some unknown reason, was exceptionally fast.

It might also be due to Ferrari’s engine being a bit too dominant this season.

Fortunately, the situation soon improved because, over time, the racing line on the track started to emerge.

Qin Miao’s speed also began to improve.

On lap 11, Qin Miao finally overtook the Ferrari-engined Haas in front of him at the end of the main straight with great difficulty, moving his position up to 5th.

However, even though Qin Miao overtook the Haas ahead of him, there was still a 4-second gap to Norris in front.

Only 6 laps had passed since the race restarted...

At the same time, as Qin Miao broke free from Magelsen’s constraints and ran his normal long-distance pace, he did not forget to deliberately splash through the water puddles on the roadside to cool his car’s tires.

Since the rain had stopped, and Qin Miao had been trying to attack Magelsen in front of him, his set of intermediate tires was running a bit too hot.

Regarding long-distance speed during the race, Qin Miao was actually faster than Norris, gaining 0.2 seconds on him each lap.

But due to Magelsen’s presence, the time gap between Qin Miao and Norris was somewhat too large, a full 4 seconds, meaning Qin Miao would need 20 laps of normal running to catch up.

With the speed of the W13, even if he caught up with Norris in front, as long as Norris did not make a clear mistake, it would be difficult for Qin Miao to overtake him.

At that time, he would only be able to cast a skill over Norris’s head and continuously pressure him, hoping for a forced error.

On lap 17, Ricardo, who was at the back of the lineup, still did not overtake Zhou Guanyu in front, so he simply stopped trying.

Anyway, the racing line on the track was already quite clear, so Ricardo decided to pit for a tire change, coming out on a set of medium tires.

At this time, since the racing line had appeared, the speed of Ricardo on dry tires could actually be faster than other drivers.

But now the only problem is that another rain shower is expected soon.

While other teams were still torn between running on intermediates until the rain arrived, or taking advantage of the little time left to pit for a tire change.

On lap 18, in the first sector, Ricardo was 2 seconds faster than Albon in front of him.

Yes, that’s in one sector.

And his lap speed was only 0.2 seconds slower than Red Bull’s Verstappen.

That 0.2 seconds may not seem much, and even though Ricardo on dry tires was not faster than Verstappen.

But considering the performance gap between the McLaren and Red Bull cars, having such results can only suggest that the track was indeed suitable for dry tires.

Therefore, by lap 19, a large number of drivers chose to pit and switch to dry tires.

A two-second per sector speed advantage was simply too great, and basically, no one would miss this opportunity.

And Qin Miao was no exception when called to the pit for tire replacement.

But unlike the other drivers, Qin Miao switched to soft tires.

On one hand, considering that rain would fall again later, with soft tires, Qin Miao could push fully and try to undercut Norris ahead of him.

On the other hand, Qin Miao did not have any tire temperature concerns.

Even though the racing line on the track was now evident, the track temperature could not reach the normal average level quickly.

And the optimal working temperature of soft tires is about 10° higher than that of medium tires,

which is why all teams chose medium tires at this time, because medium tires were easier to reach optimal working temperature under these track conditions, even though they knew rain might fall soon.

Overall, medium tires still offered better cost-performance than soft tires.

But this was not a problem for Qin Miao.