Qin Miao naturally knew that with his normal driving, the dium tires wouldn’t last the entire race, so he had to start conserving them now.
To protect the tires, during the safety car period, Qin Miao hardly wore them down.
Midway through lap ten, Yuki Tsunoda’s car had already been removed from the track, and the safety car’s top lights went out.
At T15 of lap ten, Hamilton pressed the car briefly before suddenly accelerating.
Since Qin Miao couldn’t see Hamilton’s car, naturally Hamilton didn’t give Qin Miao a signal, so he just started on his own, trying to widen the gap between himself and Verstappen as much as possible.
Qin Miao’s start reaction was a bit faster than O’Kang in front of him, but because the temperature of Qin Miao’s car tires was too low, the grip wasn’t enough to match the power output from his engine.
Moreover, imdiately after the start were the combination corners T14 and T15, where Qin Miao couldn’t overtake.
So after the start, Qin Miao’s position remained unchanged.
However, Qin Miao didn’t get anxious because he was stuck behind O’Kang, he was just waiting. Once DRS was enabled, overtaking an Alpine with a DRS-equipped rcedes wouldn’t be too difficult.
Actually, seeing O’Kang in front stirred so emotions within Qin Miao, because the first F1 driver he saw in real life was O’Kang.
He rembered that it was in Shanghai, where Qin Miao attended an event thanks to Boss Zhou’s connections.
Back then, Qin Miao could only watch O’Kang from a distance like a star-struck fan.
It really felt like "Eighteen years old, standing like a lackey" at that ti.
Touched by the setting, Qin Miao casually used his skill "Flood Beast" on O’Kang.
After all, Qin Miao’s current tire situation was tight, and he had to carefully calculate his tire wear every ti he overtook soone ahead of him.
What surprised Qin Miao was that when he used this skill on Verstappen, his initial pressure level started at 0% and increased.
But after using it on O’Kang, O’Kang’s initial pressure was actually as high as 26%.
Qin Miao didn’t understand but he was greatly shocked.
Why was O’Kang under so much pressure?
I didn’t really do anything.
In fact, the Frenchman felt the pressure of the rcedes spacecraft right after Qin Miao rejoined the track behind him.
Although the Frenchman knew they weren’t in direct competition, his innate competitiveness didn’t allow him to easily give up his position.
So he placed so pressure on himself, thinking that Qin Miao could overtake him, but not without paying a price.
But what O’Kang didn’t expect was that when Qin Miao got within 1.5 seconds behind him, the presence of Qin Miao’s car suddenly intensified, and that mismatched red helt on the black rcedes body stood out in O’Kang’s retina. Every ti he checked his mirrors in the overtaking zone, he’d subconsciously glance at that red helt.
Then Qin Miao noticed that the closer he got to O’Kang’s car, the faster the pressure increased.
After all, the rcedes was faster than the Alpine, so even on tire-saving strategy, Qin Miao was within 0.4 seconds behind O’Kang by the twelfth lap.
Then Qin Miao saw O’Kang’s pressure level increase by 1% with every corner.
Even before DRS was reactivated, at positions T7 and T8 on the twelfth lap, with his pressure level reaching 40%, O’Kang made a mistake and ran wide at the exit, with the right rear wheel hitting the sausage curb at T8’s apex.
O’Kang’s rear wheel was directly bounced up by the curb, although the car eventually returned to the track, and O’Kang skillfully got it back on course, his corner exit speed was greatly affected.
As a result, Qin Miao overtook O’Kang without even taking the overtaking line, just following the normal racing line with ease.
After passing O’Kang, Qin Miao moved up to sixth place.
Three seconds ahead was Perez.
Although the race restart had only been two laps, O’Kang hadn’t been seriously doing lap tis during them, thinking all along about how to defend like a lion against Qin Miao, naturally, his speed wasn’t fast.
However, once Qin Miao overtook him, O’Kang was left behind, and his mistake even pushed him out of Qin Miao’s DRS zone. Alpine’s car wasn’t as fast as rcedes to begin with, and now it was effectively a GG.
But O’Kang didn’t actually lose anything, because he was originally in seventh place, and now he was just back where he belonged.
It’s worth ntioning that Sainz had been trailing 1.7 seconds behind Qin Miao, like Leclerc, Sainz struggled to keep up with Qin Miao, his ERS battery depleting fast.
Nonetheless, all Sainz could do was barely keep the gap from widening further with Qin Miao.
Within Ferrari, there had been ongoing talks.
The word was that Qin Miao had more talent than Sainz, and if Qin Miao had stayed at Ferrari, their points might not allow them to trample Red Bull and punch rcedes, but they’d definitely overtake McLaren and challenge Red Bull.
And many people agreed with this opinion.
These discussions reached Sainz’s ears.
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