CHAPTER 203: CHAPTER 126: STRANGE CONTRACT

Upon hearing Binotto’s direct proposal, Qin Miao fell into deep thought.

Bi’s intentions in seeking out Qin Miao were clear. Like the many team leaders who called Qimeng, Qin Miao could discern their objectives.

They simply admired Qin Miao’s exceptional driving talent after being promoted and wanted to recruit him into their team to compete in the F1 next season.

However, a driver contract, with transaction amounts often reaching hundreds of millions of British Pounds, isn’t easily secured. Thus, negotiations for such contracts can typically span one to two months with ease.

During this negotiation period, teams can observe Qin Miao’s performance on the F2 stage. If he performs well, it would be a win-win situation.

In this scenario, Qin Miao would hold the upper hand in negotiations with the teams, able to bargain for a higher offer, but that’s because his skills are worth the money, and everything can be discussed.

If Qin Miao’s performance is poor, things become even simpler—find a reason to terminate negotiations, or during negotiations, let the other side clearly feel his indifference.

Anyone with some insight would know that when negotiations reach this point, it’s practically over.

However, all this assumes that negotiations proceed on a mutual willingness basis.

But here’s where the problem arises.

Recently, what Qin Miao saw at Ferrari, along with his experiences at the racetrack, made him have certain reservations about becoming an F1 driver.

After all, as a driver himself, Qin Miao’s perspective in observing Grand Prix events differs from that of the audience.

Spectators attending a Grand Prix see how many great cars are present, which celebrities are there, which drivers they meet, whether they’ll get a driver’s autograph, if they’ve bought any merchandise, and what’s fun around.

As for Qin Miao, he observes what work drivers do and specifically what tasks are required during work.

Then he imagines himself in that position...

It’s a headache...

From arriving locally on Thursday and completing the track inspection, transitioning to Friday, basically from Friday to Sunday during those three days, there’s at least four hours each day spent dealing with spectators and reporters, not to mention those things Qin Miao couldn’t see.

It’s not that Qin Miao doesn’t want to drive those F1 race cars which are like rail cars compared to a supercar. Honestly, no driver can resist the temptation of driving an F1 car.

But Qin Miao is somewhat introverted, resisting a lifestyle that requires constant smiling, with endless announcements, spending most of his life exposed under the spotlight.

So asking Qin Miao to drive in F1 is no problem, but to become an F1 driver, Qin Miao truly has no plans in the short term.

Facing Binotto’s invitation, Qin Miao remained silent for this reason.

He was considering how to express that he had no intention of switching allegiances, yet also wasn’t planning to race F1 and become an F1 driver anytime soon.

Seeing Qin Miao silent, both Binotto and Lawson were somewhat helpless.

Compared to Red Bull and Mercedes, Ferrari is the team most familiar with Qin Miao’s capabilities, as he’s a product of their driver academy. Ferrari’s youth training program has a very mature assessment system.

They have personnel continuously observing these junior drivers and recording various aspects of their daily lives, such as training enthusiasm, personality, hobbies, and the like.

As for performances on the track, they’re pretty much obvious states. Besides, everyone involved in racing can directly assess a driver’s performance simply by observing their lap times. For professionals like Binotto, to further understand a driver’s capability, one only needs to also look at their track analysis charts aside from lap times.

There’s no need to have others analyze anything more.

This concentrated focus results in a high level of professionalism.

They then gave Qin Miao the following assessment:

[Too lax, though he never arrives late for training and the amount isn’t shortchanged in any session, there’s no record of extra practice ever, his passion for games is on par with his training enthusiasm, slightly socially anxious, not mingling with others, aloof and reclusive, lacking initiative, when it comes to food must be supervised to prevent unhealthy eating habits.]

In the eyes of those professionals at the youth training camp, Qin Miao’s personality seemingly destined him never to become a competent driver in his lifetime.

But there’s no choice because Qin Miao’s talent in racing is too extraordinary, to the point where even Binotto finds it astonishing.

Initially, some within Ferrari thought Qin Miao might only be a paper tiger, just showing prowess on simulators.

Yet, an internal Ferrari test led Qin Miao to slap the faces of all the other Ferrari academy drivers simultaneously, and also slap the faces of all Ferrari executives who doubted his credentials.

Seeing such a talent, Ferrari neither wants nor can afford to miss out.

But Qin Miao’s lifestyle is indeed a bit too lax, so Ferrari decided to let him linger in F2 for a while to let him come to his own realization.

Until he recognizes his problems, conversations about joining F1 next season won’t begin.

However, plans couldn’t keep up with change, even Ferrari didn’t anticipate that Qin Miao’s first showcase in F2 would be so impressive, proving his terrifying racing talent to the whole racing world by clinching champions in both the main race and sprint race.