Qin Miao originally thought the race organizers would just clear the debris and car that Latifi crashed into and be done with it. He was even ready to focus on Hamilton’s timing to control the pace, when suddenly a voice came through the team’s TR: "Qin Miao, the safety car will continue. Mick Schumacher just crashed as well, and now the track is littered with debris."
The broadcast quickly switched to Mick’s camera, and upon seeing the footage, Fei exclaimed, "Huh? Mick! This is under the guidance of the safety car; how did he crash?"
And after seeing Mick’s performance in this race, Bing sighed deeply and even jabbed at Mick: "Both are rookies who just joined F1, but the two from Haas are a bit unique compared to Qin Miao and Tsunoda."
"You can’t really blame them; Haas’s car is difficult to drive this year, and today it’s raining, plus they have the pressure from Qin Miao on the track. It’s normal to make mistakes." ʀᴇᴀᴅ ʟᴀᴛᴇsᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀᴛ NoveI(F)ire.net
While the three commentators were chatting, the live broadcast director switched to the footage showing why Mick made the error.
It showed Mick, after passing the safety zone exit, was excessively scrubbing his tires under the safety car’s guidance. During one of the tire scrubs, he over-steered, lost rear grip, and instinctively counter-steered to recover, but after correcting, Mick didn’t immediately adjust his steering wheel, causing the whole car to crash directly into the barrier behind the pit exit section.
Fortunately, Mick’s crash into the barrier was nose-first, so only his front wing got damaged, and the car could still continue racing.
Upon seeing this, Zhou Haoran exclaimed, "I feel like I’m seeing Grosjean on the track!"
However, after this crash, this race basically had nothing to do with Mick anymore. Haas’s car is already in a children-playing state this season; their hope of scoring points was slim, to begin with. Now, after the crash, they’ll have to change the front wing, and although Mick can still race, he’s essentially been given a death sentence.
Due to Mick’s crash, more debris was scattered on the track, so the safety car took a few more laps.
The safety car continued until the 6th lap, and after Mick’s crash, changing the front wing took 21.3 seconds.
Unlike the collision with Latifi, which was due to a human factor, Mick’s crash was purely due to inexperience.
The good news is that after these 6 laps, the track did dry up a bit, but the bad news is the sky was still unfavorably drizzling.
The top light of the safety car switched off at the T17 position, signaling the drivers behind that the race was about to restart.
After receiving this message, Qin Miao and Hamilton both began scrubbing their tires to warm them up.
After running a lap on the track, Qin Miao was somewhat mentally prepared for the rain battle, so this time he wasn’t as nervous as at the start.
Hamilton kept a slight hold on the car, only accelerating sharply after passing T19.
As soon as the safety car exited, Qin Miao kept his eyes on Hamilton’s rear, and as Hamilton accelerated, Qin Miao quickly followed.
After successfully starting, Qin Miao shifted his attention to the rearview mirror. Qin Miao knew that although he and teammate Hamilton were rivals, the biggest threat right now came from Verstappen behind him.
Verstappen, true to his reputation as a prodigy, was noticeably faster on his second start than Qin Miao. And when Qin Miao looked through his left rearview mirror, Verstappen’s car flashed past and moved to Qin Miao’s right side.
Seeing this, Qin Miao instinctively steered right, trying to defend against Verstappen.
But just as Qin Miao shifted his position, Verstappen’s car reappeared on Qin Miao’s right.
When Qin Miao saw that there was no car in his right rearview mirror and turned back to the left rearview mirror, he saw Verstappen’s front wing already at his rear wheel amidst the white spray kicked up by the tires.
At this moment, Qin Miao could no longer rely on lane changes to block Verstappen’s line.