Qin Miao braked early, and during braking, took a wider line for himself. After adjusting to the right speed, he easily reclaimed his position with a small switchback line.
This was mainly because Ferrari’s engine isn’t as strong as Honda’s. If Leclerc was driving a Red Bull, he would’ve overtaken Qin Miao before the corner entry and gained the line advantage. No need for late braking, just a normal entry; if Qin Miao dared to dive in on the inside, he’d just squeeze him out.
After exiting the corner, the speed difference between the two cars widened by 0.5 seconds again.
Under normal driving conditions, apart from T2, there really aren’t any good overtaking spots on the Imola circuit unless the car ahead makes a mistake.
But Qin Miao already proved his stability on the track during his time in F2, so no one worried about Qin Miao losing position in the second and third timer sectors on this lap.
At T16 on lap fifteen, Qin Miao baited Leclerc behind him by feigning a mistake. When entering T17, Qin Miao braked a bit harder, causing a slight wheel lock.
Since it was still raining on the track, Qin Miao’s deliberate lock was quickly resolved without the car deviating from the racing line.
Therefore, this lock didn’t have any substantial impact on Qin Miao’s tire condition, but it did slow him down considerably, offering Leclerc behind him what looked like a chance to overtake.
Leclerc, who was already closely tailing Qin Miao on this lap, wasn’t going to miss such a good opportunity. He braked late, attempting to force his way into Qin Miao’s inside line.
Naturally, this played right into Qin Miao’s strategy. By changing lanes to overtake, Leclerc couldn’t stay on the normal racing line and his line became even narrower, while Qin Miao traded a temporary speed loss for a wider corner exit line.
As a result, Qin Miao’s speed after exiting the turn was significantly faster than Leclerc’s.
By the time both cars exited T18, the gap, initially 0.4 seconds, had widened to 0.8 seconds.
With a small decoy, Qin Miao effectively neutralized Leclerc’s upcoming attack at T2.
Defense doesn’t always have to be reactive; it can also be about preemptively setting a trap.
After realizing Qin Miao’s "mistake" was a setup, Leclerc felt a bit unsettled.
In daily interactions, both Leclerc and Zhou Guanyu described Qin Miao as: a pure person, purely carefree, a couch potato.
But on the race track, while it’s not like Qin Miao completely changes, his use of cunning tactics and strategically defensive maneuvers, although not flawless, seems as if he’s done them countless times skillfully.
This contrast delivered a considerable mental shock to Leclerc. But more importantly, Qin Miao’s defensive abilities genuinely felt thorny to him.
Even though the team had provided Leclerc with a lot of Qin Miao’s recent race footage and data, his impression of Qin Miao remained stuck in the past, a young driver who once questioned himself for not handling a corner well at Silverstone. Tʜe sourcᴇ of thɪs content ɪs nοvelfire.net
But now? Forced defensive squeezes, setting up a defense three corners ahead.
For a moment, Leclerc really felt that defending against him wasn’t his friend but a seasoned racing fox.
Qin Miao’s setup again extended his breathing space on the track, so at T2 on the sixteenth lap, Leclerc didn’t have enough distance to attack Qin Miao again.
And by the end of the sixteenth lap, having suffered once, Leclerc stayed alert. Even though Qin Miao was in energy-saving mode and slowed down significantly, and despite several overtaking opportunities in the corners, Leclerc didn’t rush but simply followed 0.3 seconds behind Qin Miao, waiting for T2 on lap seventeen.
Leclerc had a feeling, all the openings Qin Miao showed now seemed like traps just like the previous one.
He didn’t dare, nor did he feel the need to try, because he was faster than Qin Miao, and this time entering T2, he could simply attempt a late brake to seize the racing line, then squeeze Qin Miao out of T3—no need to overthink the twists and turns.
Now deeply engaged in a battle of wits with Qin Miao, Leclerc didn’t notice that most areas of the track had stopped raining, with only the second timer sector still having raindrops falling, while the first and third sectors only had some remnants of water, which were gradually diminishing due to the continuous driving of the cars.
Exiting T18, Leclerc found that the rear tail light of Qin Miao’s car ahead wasn’t flashing, usually indicating Qin Miao had activated his car’s ERS. The key was, despite Qin Miao’s ERS activation, Leclerc, even with slipstream and ERS assistance, couldn’t catch up with Qin Miao in front.
Only after realizing this, did Leclerc belatedly notice that the track was beginning to dry.
Meanwhile, at the T2 position, Qin Miao saw a car.