But fortunately, Qin Miao’s reaction was swift enough, and with an extreme counter-steer, he managed to save the car.
However, this recovery and the wheelspin resulted in a significant loss of speed for Qin Miao.
And today, Zhou Guanyu, full of fighting spirit, was constantly fixated on Qin Miao’s car; with such intense concentration, Zhou Guanyu’s start was almost on par with Qin Miao’s.
Now that Qin Miao made a mistake, Zhou Guanyu certainly wouldn’t miss this heaven-sent opportunity.
Thus, Zhou Guanyu quickly closed the gap between himself and Qin Miao. Plus, to avoid the rain, Zhou Guanyu took the inside line, and with the upcoming T9 being a high-speed right turn, Zhou Guanyu, leveraging his speed advantage, was already side by side with Qin Miao before entering T9, going wheel to wheel into the turn.
Realizing his mistake, Qin Miao wanted to defend against Zhou Guanyu, but the momentary wheelspin of the rear tires cost him all his momentum, and by the time he regained traction, Zhou Guanyu’s front wing was already at his rear wheel. Thɪs chapter is updated by novel⚑fire.net
If Zhou Guanyu were replaced by Tsunoda at that moment, Qin Miao would have undoubtedly moved over without a second thought, doing his utmost to shrink the opponent’s entry line.
After all, Qin Miao had not changed lines at this point, so moving over to squeeze Tsunoda’s line wasn’t considered a violation.
But unfortunately, it was Zhou Guanyu; such a risky maneuver, Qin Miao would definitely have defended against it in a game without any hesitation, but this was reality, and it was raining heavily. Qin Miao also knew this defensive move was very dangerous, and if Zhou Guanyu didn’t react in time, an accident was highly likely.
So Qin Miao decided not to defend against Zhou Guanyu.
Moreover, even if Zhou Guanyu took an F2 championship, so what? Qin Miao wasn’t lacking for a championship on this track.
Since Zhou Guanyu seized the opportunity of his mistake, Qin Miao decided, as he had thought to himself when he saw the rain, to let Zhou Guanyu go, giving his all to fend off the drivers behind, to see if Zhou Guanyu could also take a championship in this race.
"Qin Miao made a starting mistake, wheelspin on the rear! Zhou Guanyu, on the other hand, had a great start... side by side into the corner, Zhou Guanyu goes inside! He’s done it! Zhou Guanyu overtakes Qin Miao with his start!"
"Brilliant! Zhou Guanyu’s start was absolutely world-class."
Witnessing this scene, fans couldn’t help but marvel at Zhou Guanyu’s reputation as the Rain Master, with such formidable combat power in rainy conditions.
After overtaking Qin Miao, Zhou Guanyu was also a bit excited and surprised. He truly didn’t expect that someone as stable as Qin Miao would make a starting error in the rain.
And behind Zhou Guanyu, Qin Miao clearly understood just how large a spray Zhou Guanyu mentioned when they were sitting side by side in the pit lane.
Forget about the road ahead; on the stretches with a lot of water, the spray from the car in front would even blur Qin Miao’s sight of the red tail lights of the car in front, only able to see the red glow flickering through the rain curtain.
Moreover, because of the spray obscuring a portion of his vision, Qin Miao’s driving style lost its precision and crispness compared to dry conditions, making his maneuvers rather timid.
But fortunately, Lord behind him was also affected by the spray from Qin Miao’s car, only barely trailing behind him; as for overtaking... just like Zhou Guanyu said, unless Qin Miao made a mistake, even if Lord had a faster speed than Qin Miao, he couldn’t overtake Qin Miao’s car with Qin Miao’s defense.
By the sixth lap, only two laps into the race, Zhou Guanyu had already opened up a 1.5-second gap to Qin Miao behind him without any interference.
Although this partly attributed to Qin Miao slightly reducing speed to avoid being affected by the spray from Zhou Guanyu’s car ahead, it also demonstrated Qin Miao’s competence in rainy conditions.
After starting, the drivers at the front entered cruising mode, as the race directors hadn’t activated DRS due to the rain, and with everyone on standard cars, without any mistakes, it was challenging to make overtakes in wet conditions.
By lap eight, many cars were entering the pits because the weather map suggested the rain was unlikely to stop before the race ended, leading some drivers to pit for a tire change, planning to finish the race on one set of tires.
"Once the race enters mid-phase, footage of Qin Miao and Zhou Guanyu significantly decreases, or even disappears," commented Zhou Haoran in the Five-Star Sports Studio as the race reached mid-phase.
Fei responded with a smile, "It can’t be helped, Qin and Xiaozhou are both too strong; with drivers of similar strength at the front, under such conditions, it’s hard to have any battles, so it’s normal for the live director not to give them footage."
Bing nodded, "For us, this might be a happy problem to have."
On the track, Qin Miao realized he was weak in rain battles, but the Tsunoda behind seemed even weaker. After almost ten laps, the gap between them remained at 1.2 seconds, with Tsunoda constantly chasing but unable to catch up.
Qin Miao suddenly felt he might have worried for nothing; if he hadn’t made a start error, Zhou Guanyu might not have been able to take his first position.
However, thinking about it now was meaningless, as Qin Miao and Tsunoda both were stuck behind the car, unable to overtake.
By the twentieth lap, more than half of the drivers had pitted for tire changes, yet the top eight drivers continued to persist on track.