bestfiction Chapter 1153 - 436: Holding His Head High
Chapter 1153 - 436: Holding His Head High
On the other side, there really isn’t much to say about Hamilton.The seven-time champion wrung every last drop of performance out of the current W13.
Facts proved that even though the current W13 has been upgraded, and the upgrades work pretty well, in overall speed the car is still not as quick as the Red Bull Verstappen is driving.
Qin Miao was relying on his trademark long stint plus a bit of luck to take this win at Verstappen’s home race.
Leclerc’s race was a bit plain and uneventful; the only thing worth mentioning is that Leclerc returned to the finishing position he knows best and feels most comfortable in: fourth.
Sainz’s race, on the other hand, was a bit ugly.
During the safety car caused by Bottas, Sainz strongly demanded the team put him on softs.
Clearly Sainz wasn’t satisfied with the current gap the team has on track; after all, last season Ferrari were still fighting for both the drivers’ and constructors’ titles, and after that single TD039 technical directive dropped, Ferrari went straight to being the third-fastest team in the paddock—anyone would have a hard time swallowing that.
At the start, Sainz’s set of softs did have some effect on track: he went straight past his teammate Leclerc and set off in hot pursuit of Hamilton ahead.
But in the latter stages, as Sainz’s softs kept falling off, Leclerc took his position back from his teammate.
Perez in this race looked like he was actively avoiding his own teammate; his performance over the whole race just wasn’t great, in either qualifying or the race itself.
In a rare sight, Stroll actually scored points this time—and he did it by stepping on the head of Zhou Guanyu, the gatekeeper of the points-paying positions.
Just like mentioned above, Zhou Guanyu finished this race in eleventh.
Only one step away from the points, but compared to his teammate Bottas’s retirement, finishing just one step away from the points isn’t exactly unacceptable.
And after the race, when Qin Miao was chatting with Zhou Guanyu, he heard from Zhou that his car had run into gearbox problems again.
Otherwise, in today’s race he still had a shot at scoring.
Honestly, if Alfa Romeo drop from sixth to seventh this season and get overtaken by the junior Red Bull team, then 90% of the blame has to go on this crappy Alfa gearbox.
After this race, the overall drivers’ standings look like this:
1: Qin Miao – 264
2: Verstappen – 243
3: Perez – 186
4: Leclerc – 184
5: Sainz – 139
6: Hamilton – 124
7: Norris – 68
8: O’Kang – 64
9: Bottas – 38
10: Alonso – 37
11: Magelsen – 19
12: Zhou Guanyu – 19
13: Vettel – 19
14: Gasly – 17
15: Ricardo – 14
16: Tsunoda – 9
17: Mick – 6
18: Stroll – 3
19: Albon – 1
20: Russell – 1
As the F1 season heads into the mid to late stages, the gaps in points between drivers are getting bigger and bigger.
We’re no longer seeing that situation where after a single Grand Prix the order among the drivers shuffles around all over the place.
At the same time, the constructors’ standings are as follows:
1: Red Bull – 449
2: Mercedes – 431
3: Ferrari – 346
4: Alpine – 119
5: McLaren – 82
6: Alfa Romeo – 64
7: Junior Red Bull – 26
8: Haas – 25
9: Aston Martin – 23
10: Williams – 2
After today’s race, Mercedes’s total points haul is actually higher than Red Bull’s.
Of course, because of Mercedes’s weakness at the start of the season, even though both Mercedes drivers did very well in this race overall, in the constructors’ standings there’s still a certain gap between Mercedes and Red Bull.
With the season at this stage, the trend of the late-season picture and the main talking points are already very clear.
By the end of the year it’s definitely going to be Mercedes vs Red Bull for the constructors’ championship.
And Qin Miao vs Verstappen for the drivers’ title.
That’s where all the intrigue is.
Post-race in the pit lane.
After the race, Qin Miao did a cool-down lap and then drove the car back into the pits.
As the home driver, Verstappen was allowed, after the race, to cruise around the track for a couple of laps and say hi to the Dutch crowd at the circuit.
But clearly today’s P2 was not enough to satisfy Verstappen; after the race he went straight back to the pits just like Qin Miao.
He parked his car under the podium, in the spot with the number 1 board for the winner.
Qin Miao started taking off the steering wheel, undoing his belts, getting ready to get out.
At this moment the area around the podium felt a bit quiet; the Dutch fans who had been making a lot of noise earlier somehow weren’t setting off their trademark orange smoke flares after the race.
After Qin Miao parked his car and climbed out, no one in the stands gave him applause or cheers for this Grand Prix win.
But Qin Miao felt the atmosphere was actually pretty nice—after a Grand Prix he’d basically turned the Dutch Grand Prix into the Dutch Library, which sounds pretty badass when you think about it.
Of course, the quiet was only relative.
Chinese people are famous for wandering all over the world.
So there was still one whole block of grandstand that was packed with overseas students who’d come just to watch Qin Miao race.
Now that Qin Miao was standing up in his car, the Dutch-fan-dominated sections were relatively quiet, but that group was making a ton of noise, and they were waving the national flag and Mercedes’s black flags like their lives depended on it.
Qin Miao stood on the car and celebrated hard; this race really did feel comfortable for him, and it was a bit of a cathartic, vindicating win.