When the camera switched over, Yuki Tsunoda’s little Red Bull car was seen stopped at the intersection of T11 and T12 on the track.
Previously, the Japanese media had praised Tsunoda’s performance for earning points in his first race.
As for Qin Miao, who took second in his first race, he was directly overlooked. What kind of car does Qin Miao drive? A Mars Rover! Mercedes-Benz, W12.
And what kind of car do I, Tsunoda, drive? A little Red Bull, the earth group’s car, the two are fundamentally incomparable.
Is the difficulty of you earning points higher than mine, Tsunoda-kun?
It’s not that you have great skills; it’s just that your car is good. If Tsunoda were to drive a Mercedes, he might even challenge Hamilton’s status within the Mercedes team.
As for Qin Miao winning the championship in Imola later, or reigning dominant throughout the F2 season, of course, these were directly ignored.
The double standards left the three commentators and many domestic racing fans fuming.
So, after seeing Tsunoda retire, the three commentators sarcastically shouted in the studio, "Oh dear, Tsunoda, the highly anticipated Japanese driver, and considered a potential future world champion, has retired just like that, haha..."
The subsequent commentators then laughed gleefully, full of meaning.
Because Tsunoda’s car engine stopped, the car just parked on the outside of the corner.
The race officials spent another half a minute confirming that Tsunoda could not restart his car before deploying the safety car.
On the Mercedes side, after Tsunoda brought out the safety car, they began considering whether to call Qin Miao into the pits. With Qin Miao’s tire-saving skills, perhaps he could finish the whole race with a single set of yellow tires.
But doing so comes with risks.
Because during the practice session’s long-distance tests, the yellow tires’ cliff point was about fifty laps, but now there are fifty-seven laps remaining. Read complete versıon only at novᴇlfire.net
Meaning if Qin Miao opts to pit for new tires now, his last seven laps would be extremely struggling.
Toto’s heart was still leaning more towards having Qin Miao continue outside. He had retired from the last race due to a car failure, so taking such a gamble in this race would be too risky.
However, he still asked Qin Miao, "Qin Miao, the safety car is out, but our plan remains unchanged. We can put you on the yellow tires. What do you think?"
To outsiders, Toto’s words might seem unclear.
But as a member of Mercedes, Qin Miao could understand Toto’s message.
Toto’s implication was roughly that they were sticking to a one-stop strategy, where they could swap him to yellow tires to finish the rest of the race.
As for why not choose hard tires,
this is mainly because hard tires are too slow, a second slower per lap than yellow tires, and over two seconds slower per lap than soft tires, without any cost-effectiveness.
Suddenly receiving Toto’s TR, Qin Miao glanced at Verstappen and Hamilton in front of him, and then at Leclerc behind him.
He calculated slightly in his mind:
If this race follows the team’s original plan, pitting after the soft tire runs to a twenty-four lap window, no matter what, his total race time wouldn’t be less than Hamilton’s, and in high probability, he wouldn’t be able to surpass Verstappen either.
So instead of continuing to eat dust behind those two monstrous drivers, why not take a gamble?
What if? What if he gets a good result? What if another safety car appears on the track after the pit window opens?
"Okay, BOX," Qin Miao gritted his teeth.
After all, being young, Qin Miao didn’t overthink these overly risky plans and readily agreed.
Qin Miao’s sudden agreement, in turn, caused a headache for the Mercedes strategy group who proposed the plan, as they now had to constantly monitor Qin Miao’s tire condition after he pits.
Spectators and commentators were a bit perplexed to see Qin Miao’s Mercedes directly entering the pit lane.
And with the team’s staff’s help, he swapped to a set of yellow tires, using a total of 2.1 seconds.
During the safety car period, the seconds used in tire changes weren’t as significant; what truly perplexed the audience was why Qin Miao would choose to pit for new tires at this point.
And after the director switched to the footage of Qin Miao pitting for new tires, they also showed the communication records between the team and Qin Miao just now.
Fei and several commentators just then realized, "So this was Qin Miao’s own idea?"
Zhou Haoran analyzed, "If pitting at this time, Qin Miao should be planning for a two-stop strategy."
Bing suddenly curiously interjected, "Do you think there’s a chance he could finish with just a single set of yellow tires?"
"How is that possible?" Fei was the first to stand up against it, "There are still fifty-seven laps remaining, yellow tires simply can’t complete the whole race."
Zhou Haoran agreed, "Indeed, it should be two stops; yellow tires can’t finish the whole race."
Apart from Qin Miao during the safety car, Alfa Romeo’s Giovinazzi also chose to pit, followed by Russell and Latifi from Williams on the tenth lap.
Both, like Giovinazzi, switched from soft to yellow tires.
After exiting the corner, naturally, they fell to the back of the pack.
Because Qin Miao went in just as the safety car emerged, he didn’t drop too far back, conveniently landing in seventh.
Behind O’Kang, in front of Sainz.
After confirming his position, Qin Miao adjusted his car settings a bit, began conserving ERS, and changed his lines to be straightforward, only pursuing tire protection.