CHAPTER 209: CHAPTER 127: DOMINATING QUALIFYING

Drivers like Qin Miao, whom the teams are eager to sponsor, are few and far between. Prema, as a well-funded big team, is naturally willing to invest in Qin Miao to win the F2 drivers’ championship.

The car loan is essentially an interest-free loan granted by a company to a promising driver. The amount borrowed is the same as the amount repaid.

However, until the loan is fully repaid, the driver’s helmet or car must display the loan provider’s logo. Some contracts even stipulate that drivers must continue advertising for the sponsor on their cars and gear for a year after repayment.

However, such contracts are a win-win deal for both the drivers and the loan companies.

After chatting with Qin Miao, Qimeng chose not to opt for the driver loan but instead picked a few sponsors with minimal requirements and less money, simply for convenience.

As a result, Qin Miao’s car and racing suit now sport a few more advertisements, although most of these sponsors are relatively unknown compared to the recognizable Shell and Ferrari logos on Qin Miao’s attire.

Once Qin Miao was ready, the practice session began. The director immediately focused the camera on the pit lane, locking onto Qin Miao’s car.

After last week’s race, Qin Miao has become the spotlight in F2, a strong contender for this season’s championship.

The director showed ample respect and focus to this current F2 sensation.

Buckling the seatbelt, Sui Wentao came over to check Qin Miao’s headrest, seatbelt, and helmet. After ensuring everything was in order, he gave a thumbs-up in front of Qin Miao’s helmet, signaling that the car was ready.

Qin Miao nodded, reached out to shake hands with Sui Wentao, then Sui Wentao stepped back, and Qin Miao started the car, driving out of the pit lane after the practice session countdown ended.

As Qin Miao drove out of the pit lane, cameras from above and photographers with handheld cameras kept their focus on Qin Miao’s car.

Up until Qin Miao exited the pit lane.

There wasn’t much to say about the practice session. Qin Miao had already found a suitable setup for this track last week, so there was little room for improvement during the practice session.

Perhaps only more precise adjustments to Qin Miao’s current setup, but the enhancements were negligible, at most a 0.05~0.1-second improvement.

Of course, this was just the case for Qin Miao; other drivers indeed still had potential to tap into on this track.

So Qin Miao just ran seven laps on soft tires and then came back in, not going out again until the practice session ended.

Qin Miao now needed to conserve his tires, and due to his contract with Ferrari, he knew he had to perform exceptionally well in F2. Hence, Qin Miao still aimed to win the sprint race this week.

As for the main race?

No exaggeration, as long as his car had no issues during the main race, Qin Miao was confident he could easily guarantee a win.

The practice session ended with Qin Miao idling, following the usual routine of packing things away...

In the afternoon, after receiving notice from the race committee, Qin Miao and his team returned to the pit lane for the qualifying race.

The qualifying stage differed from the practice session, as Five-Star Sports launched a live broadcast.

Due to Qin Miao, both the audience and the three hosts of Five-Star Sports were eagerly anticipating the performance of Qin Miao and Zhou Guanyu, the two Chinese drivers in F2.

After the familiar opening scene, the TV broadcast cut to the pit lane exit for the qualifying stage.

Although the qualifying had not yet started, more than ten F2 cars were already waiting at the white line at the pit lane exit.

Qin Miao’s start wasn’t aggressive, and only after the cars at the gate left did Qin Miao drive out from his parking spot.

By this time, the drivers doing heat laps were halfway through their laps.

But Qin Miao didn’t care. On one hand, he believed he could still reach the top five even if blocked, and on the other hand, he trusted Frankie’s timing strategy for releasing the car.

After all, Frankie wasn’t part of Ferrari’s strategy group.

With 24 minutes and 31 seconds left in the qualifying session, after doing two warm-up laps, Qin Miao got a cue from Frankie to press his speed at T7, then began to accelerate rapidly to complete his first flying lap.

He clocked a time of 1:14:349, holding all three sectors in purple, temporarily in first place.

Two minutes later, Zhou Guanyu also breached the 1:14 mark with a lap time of 1:14:933, coming up behind Qin Miao by 0.6 seconds.

Viewers and commentators of Five-Star Sports loved the current scene, with the two Chinese drivers dominating the top two positions.

They were naturally unstinting in their praise for the duo.

However, Qin Miao knew his lap time was not yet at its peak; during the first Austrian Grand Prix, his practice lap time was faster than this.

So Qin Miao returned to the pit lane for adjustments, and as the qualifying countdown reached 14 minutes and most F2 cars returned to the pit lane for adjustments, Qin Miao drove out again.