Soon, everything was ready, and the five red lights in the game lit up one by one. Qin Miao stepped on about one-fifth of the throttle, keeping the engine speed at 9500 RPM, with his finger on the clutch button.
Qin Miao also focused all his attention on the signal lights, waiting for the moment when the five red lights would go out.
However, Qin Miao also spared some attention to check his system.
He was quite looking forward to the system giving him a task or something, not for the reward, but because Qin Miao wanted the race to be more challenging.
Unfortunately, Qin Miao’s expectation turned into wishful thinking. Maybe because this was just a simulator race, the system was silent and didn’t assign any system tasks to Qin Miao. Follow current novels on novel✶fire.net
Qin Miao wasn’t disappointed and withdrew his focus.
At the same time, the five red lights on Qin Miao’s screen went out simultaneously. Qin Miao pressed the clutch button almost at his fastest speed and kept the throttle depth for a quick start.
As the saying goes, people can be overwhelming, and products can be discarded when compared.
With a mere 59 points in starting ability, Qin Miao was insignificant compared to those F1 drivers. But compared to the other tourists joining this small challenge race with Qin Miao, his starting ability was remarkable.
Among the other two tourists participating in the event, one forgot to turn on the game’s built-in traction control system and went full throttle right after starting, causing his Mercedes to spin on the spot.
The other person’s start was decent and stable, but it only offered stability and lacked any speed, quickly falling behind Qin Miao.
Just with the start alone, Qin Miao pulled ahead by at least a second from the Mercedes behind him, not to mention the guy who couldn’t even start properly.
Due to the rules that required the Challenger to let the contender go ahead by 5 seconds, when Qin Miao drove off and entered T1, the defending driver began starting.
Also, the 5 seconds did not account for the time the cars were accelerating, so effectively, the gap between Qin Miao and the chasing driver was about eight seconds.
There’s nothing much to say about the first two laps. With an eight-second gap, besides the unlucky one who spun at the start, the defending driver couldn’t even catch up to the guy behind Qin Miao in the first two laps.
And Qin Miao steadily pulled away from the driver behind him by at least 1.5 seconds per lap. By the end of the second lap, the gap between Qin Miao and the driver behind him was nearly 4 seconds.
If such a gap appeared during a race, the driver behind would undoubtedly feel hopeless.
However, Qin Miao didn’t let his guard down, because the driver behind him wasn’t his opponent. In fact, the interests of both drivers were aligned; neither wanted the defending driver to overtake them.
Right in the middle of the second lap, the defending driver had already entered the DRS zone of the guy behind Qin Miao.
But Qin Miao was still somewhat optimistic, thinking that even if the person behind him was amateurish, at least he knew how to play racing games. Blocking the defending driver for half a lap shouldn’t be a big deal.
What Qin Miao didn’t expect was that when he diverted some attention back to the ranking option in the top left corner, the defending driver easily overtook that driver on the first DRS straight with a faster corner exit speed.
And now, he was rapidly closing the gap with Qin Miao.
At that moment, Qin Miao truly felt a chill down his spine.
Simultaneously, his driving style unwittingly became more aggressive and adventurous.
Although it was just a small, harmless match, Qin Miao’s competitive spirit was strong. Despite not admitting it out loud, he believed himself to be better than the average GT3 professional driver, with the aid of the system.
Yet, despite this, the original gap of over 6 seconds between Qin Miao and the defending driver was visibly closing fast.
Nearly 2 seconds per lap.
Given the opponent’s closing speed, Qin Miao really didn’t need to worry about the opponent catching up, as there were only two laps left in the race.
However, Qin Miao’s focus was entirely on the race, leaving no room to think about how long the race would last.
Moreover, the defending driver was exerting a substantial psychological pressure on Qin Miao in an invisible manner.
It’s hard to understand this feeling without experiencing it: having someone extremely fast chasing you at an incredible speed from behind.
Even though maintaining your pace ensures victory, the constant pressure of someone being right behind you, with any mistake resulting in the loss of a sure victory, can be suffocating.
Qin Miao’s mental state system had undergone analysis long ago, struggling at a mere borderline passing score of 61. Even after a period of high-intensity training, his mental attribute growth was minimal, only reaching 65 points.
These 65 points were about the same as most young people’s mindsets, capable of calm analysis under normal, non-disruptive conditions.
Minor pressure could be handled steadily, ensuring the mindset stays balanced.
But when the pressure increased, a mental breakdown and mistakes became highly likely.
Unfortunately, Qin Miao was feeling an immense pressure coming from behind at that moment.