Vettel’s early pit stop attracted a lot of attention, including track engineers and team leaders from various teams, as well as viewers, live broadcasters, and commentators.
Although the track has gradually dried up, no one knows exactly how the cars will perform with dry tires, and Vettel’s pit stop gave them an opportunity to observe.
However, judging from the immediate rear wheel spinning and sliding after Vettel exited the pit, the track conditions at this time are not suitable for dry tires.
Moreover, you don’t need to look at Vettel’s performance, just look at the rankings; after switching to dry tires, Vettel was directly overtaken by the two Red Bulls behind him.
Although Leclerc, about a second behind Qin Miao, is putting continuous pressure on Qin Miao, Qin Miao is very stable, showing no psychological fluctuations due to Leclerc’s frequent peeking out.
Leclerc does not pose a threat to Qin Miao when Qin Miao does not make a mistake, so Qin Miao is in a cruising state, and the team is not afraid that suddenly reporting this data to Qin Miao will affect him: "Vettel just pitted, switched to dry tires. Although the speed in the third sector is ideal, the speed loss in the first and second sectors is too great, so the conditions are still not suitable for dry tires, please continue to stay on the track."
After receiving this message, Qin Miao indeed felt much calmer; though still needing to race with wet tires, the overall track conditions are gradually improving, and his speed is also gradually increasing.
Meanwhile, Hamilton and Verstappen in front, as their tires gradually degrade, also ended their battle of over 15 laps. Hamilton is ahead, Verstappen is behind, maintaining a 1.2-second gap and waiting for the track conditions to improve.
In lap 27, the second driver to switch to dry tires appeared, which was Yuki Tsunoda from Red Bull.
At the same time, data from the race indicated that Vettel, who had switched to dry tires, was now 0.7 seconds faster in the first sector than Hamilton, who was in first place. So it can be foreseen that drivers will start pitting to switch to dry tires next.
At the end of lap 27, Verstappen, who had been following Hamilton, chose to pit and switch to dry tires.
However, due to the nature of the track, the average time for a pit stop at Imola is around 30 seconds, so after Verstappen exited the pit, although he was behind Qin Miao, he still had about 10 seconds of clear air between him and Qin Miao.
Qin Miao could not deliberately slow down to defend against Verstappen; if he did so, Qin Miao wouldn’t be Mercedes’ number two driver, rather Hamilton’s father, since only such a role would have the standing to do so.
Seeing Verstappen pit for tire change, Qin Miao hurriedly asked on his TR: "Can I pit?"
Honestly, driving the race car in the rain really made Qin Miao feel powerless, and the team quickly responded after receiving Qin Miao’s question: "Yes, BOX, we’re using intermediate tires; this is our last pit stop."
Qin Miao thought about it. With his ability, running the remaining 33 laps on a set of intermediate tires is challenging but not impossible, as Imola is relatively friendly to tires.
So, Qin Miao did not say anything else but started to push as hard as possible, making an effort to increase the gap between himself and Leclerc behind.
Even though Ferrari’s tire changers frequently create chaos, big and exceptional changes, sometimes they are indeed fast, and Mercedes’ technicians also occasionally make mistakes, despite practicing tire changes every day.
Therefore, to protect his second place, Qin Miao used up all the electrical power from his battery before pitting, increasing the time gap between himself and Leclerc to 1.8 seconds.
Switching cameras, Hamilton also pitted and switched to intermediate tires one lap after Verstappen, with a total time of 4 seconds due to a slow right front tire change.
Compared to Verstappen’s tire change, it was slower by 1.8 seconds, and it can be foreseen that Hamilton’s original advantage will disappear due to this tire change once he exits.
After all, Verstappen is faster than Hamilton after switching to dry tires.
But there is no time left for Mercedes’ technicians to be upset or sad. As soon as Hamilton left the tire change spot, Qin Miao appeared at the pit lane entrance.
Unlike those drivers whose tire treads in the center of the rain tires had nearly worn off, Qin Miao’s tire treads, although worn, were still clear.
It is believed that Qin Miao can continue racing on these tires for another dozen laps without any pressure. Tʜe source of this ᴄontent ɪs NoveIꜰire.net
A heavy brake in front of the pit lane white line locked the tires, and he aptly reduced his speed to 80 km/h.
Then entered the pit lane channel, parked precisely at the team’s tire change spot.
The team’s tire change this time did not encounter any issues, and Qin Miao did not face the problems Hamilton did, with a tire change speed of 2.1 seconds.
Not fast but definitely ranked at the top of the tire change speed leaderboard in this race.