CHAPTER 185: CHAPTER 120: FIVE RED LIGHTS OUT (PART 3)

But at this point, Qin Miao still had no intention of pitting. With the aid of his skills and his deliberate tire-conserving driving style, the average wear of Qin Miao’s set of soft tires was only 31%, and he hadn’t even reached the grip cliff point.

The cliff point, as the name suggests, has a strong correlation between tire wear and tire grip.

As the tires wear out, the tire grip gradually decreases, but this decline is very gradual.

Once the tire wear reaches a certain point, the rate of grip decline will suddenly accelerate. This point is the tire’s cliff point.

On lap twenty-six, Zhou Guanyu’s car encountered a gearbox issue coming out of T1, though not to the extent of stopping on the track. He couldn’t shift to a higher gear, which significantly reduced his speed.

On lap twenty-seven, Zhou Guanyu pitted for repairs. When he re-entered the track, he had fallen to the back of the pack, just ahead of Qin Miao.

Seeing Zhou Guanyu in front of him, Qin Miao was momentarily stunned.

I thought I hadn’t pitted for tire changes, so how did Zhou Guanyu undercut me?

After asking on TR, he found out that Zhou Guanyu’s car had an issue.

Looking at the unlucky guy in front of him with some pity, Qin Miao replied to Frankie with a simple "Got it."

Meanwhile, on Five-Star Sports, the three commentators sighed with regret after learning about Zhou Guanyu’s car failure. Given the current situation, with Qin Miao starting second and poised to take the win, and Zhou Guanyu solidly in second, the outcome seemed certain.

But in spite of such a promising situation, Zhou Guanyu’s car faltered.

This left domestic fans watching the race feeling sorry.

On lap twenty-nine, Qin Miao’s perseverance paid off when Artem Makarov, an India Force young driver, encountered an engine failure on the straight between Zhou Guanyu’s T1 and T2 fault sections.

Unlike Zhou Guanyu, who could still bring the car back for repairs, Makarov’s car shut down entirely, unable to restart.

As a result, the race officials used the yellow flag to transition to a safety car period.

After twenty-nine laps without pitting, Qin Miao’s soft tires had just reached the cliff point where grip started to rapidly decline, yet he could still hold on for another lap or two.

However, with a free pit opportunity under the safety car, Qin Miao naturally didn’t pass it up, seizing the chance to pit for hard tires.

Meanwhile, as Qin Miao pitted, in the familiar Ferrari meeting room, Binotto closed his notebook and left with Resta.

Sui Wentao and the others had privately practiced tire changes plenty, so this tire change went smoothly.

Moreover, they knew of Qin Miao’s significant speed advantage, so even if each tire was changed in 5 seconds, Qin Miao would still exit in first place, reducing any pressure during the change.

Upon exiting the pits, Qin Miao maintained his position, followed by Zhou Guanyu’s teammate Ilott, with Qin Miao’s teammate Mick Schumacher behind Ilott.

This guy fought his way from sixth on the grid up to third, which wasn’t easy.

The rise of the Prema team now seemed inevitable.

With Qin Miao making a splash in F2 and Michael Schumacher’s son climbing from sixth to third.

Saying Prema doesn’t win the championship this year would be a crime against nature.

(Bonus Chapter in the afternoon)