How Did I Become an F1 Driver?

Chapter 1157 - 438: Major Overhaul

Even though Geely said they wanted to acquire a racing team, everything in F1 is actually unfamiliar to Geely itself.It’s impossible for Geely to simply buy a team and instantly understand all the processes on the F1 circuit and the ins and outs of the paddock, the human interactions involved.

Nor is it possible to rely solely on the reports of the team’s leaders below.

After all, if things were really as described above, is it Geely that has acquired a new team, or is it the team’s leader who has acquired a new team?

Ultimately, greed is a human instinct, and relying on others’ conveyance always leads to some distortion of reality.

Therefore, Geely also needs to send people to the paddock to thoroughly understand the operations flow of F1 teams and a Grand Prix weekend.

What’s puzzling to Qin Miao is why Geely’s people talked with Red Bull’s Marco for so long?

On Thursday morning, when Qin Miao went to the paddock, he saw a familiar Geely executive responsible for F1 events entering the Red Bull team’s lounge.

After all, Qin Miao is currently the highest-achieving F1 driver from China, even all of Asia.

Naturally, he has the opportunity to meet them.

But when Qin Miao finished all his work and left the paddock in the afternoon, he saw the man just coming out from the Red Bull team’s lounge.

As he came out, Marco and Horner were still with him.

They had been talking almost the entire day.

But Qin Miao was merely puzzled; in the afternoon, he also saw Geely’s people enthusiastically chatting with Elliott and others. It might just be that they are making early gestures toward team leaders to enhance mutual feelings ahead of time.

Providing more leverage and connections for Geely’s future entry.

Friday, during practice sessions one and two.

Qin Miao arrived early as usual; the Italian Grand Prix had a refreshing feel to him today.

Whether it’s the whole process of entering the paddock or interactions with fans and staff on-site, even though nobody greeted Qin Miao with smiles and cheers as if this was his home ground, being wildly excited whenever seeing him.

At least there’s no verbal abuse; many fans would warmly wave and greet Qin Miao upon seeing him.

Some of the bolder ones even asked Qin Miao directly, right in front of the Mercedes team staff beside him: "Qin Miao, when are you going back to Ferrari?"

Leaving Qin Miao momentarily at a loss whether to laugh or cry.

On the side, Mercedes staff were also full of awkwardness.

Despite a bit of unpleasantness, this time at the Italian Grand Prix feels much more comfortable for Qin Miao than last week’s Dutch Grand Prix.

This week Qin Miao replaced a whole new set of engine and gearbox.

Because Monza is one of the easiest tracks to overtake in the calendar, also one of the races where DRS is most efficient among the remaining 7 races this season.

Therefore, the loss caused by a general replacement of car gearbox and engine on this track is minimal, making it easier to catch up with slower cars ahead.

Thus, the team proposed Qin Miao to directly replace a whole set of engine and gearbox for this race.

Considering the characteristics of the Mercedes cars this season and the low-drag high-speed performance shown by Red Bull cars this season, Qin Miao anticipated that Red Bull has a high probability of finishing first and second at Ferrari’s home ground today’s race. Even if not first and second, they could at least take home a race win here.

So Qin Miao agreed to the team’s proposal.

Thus far, the Italian Grand Prix is the first race this season where Qin Miao has made a comprehensive engine replacement and the first where a penalty has been incurred due to changing the engine and gearbox.

Of course, despite already planning the engine replacement, Qin Miao would still use the old engine during Friday’s practice sessions one and two as well as Saturday’s practice three.

After Saturday practice three, during a break, the team will replace Qin Miao’s car with a new engine.

Also, because Qin Miao has to change to a new engine, Qin Miao triggered FIA’s penalty regulations.

Since the parts Qin Miao wants to replace have exceeded FIA’s usage limits.

In total, Qin Miao received a 15-place grid penalty.

At the same time, Qin Miao’s teammate Hamilton also changed his car engine.

Besides them, drivers like Sainz, Bottas, Verstappen also received different levels of grid penalties due to changing parts of their car engines.

No matter how good the qualifying performance of Qin Miao and Hamilton is, they are likely to start at the back of the grid during the race.

The difference depends on Tsunoda’s qualifying performance; if Tsunoda doesn’t enter Q2 during qualifying, the Japanese driver will start behind Qin Miao and Hamilton.

Meanwhile, Mercedes engineers didn’t bring new upgrades to the drivers this week.

Mainly because Mercedes’ mid-term development approach caused quite a stir among many, many planned upgrades need to be redefined, combined with adapting to new car design philosophies and languages, all of which require time.

Being able to collectively pull together a new sidepod is already Mercedes staff’s full effort.