CHAPTER 518: CHAPTER 227: OLD LONDON AND THE UNION JACK (6K, EXTRA 11/19)

The first thing that started was the pre-race interview session in front of fans, which is considered a basic activity. Qin Miao basically attends every time before a Grand Prix starts.

Then there is an explanation for the team’s VIPs, which is an event exclusive to Mercedes’ VIPs. During their rest time before the race starts, a Mercedes staff member will explain the day’s workflow and objectives of the Mercedes team or discuss the testing plans for the two drivers.

This enhances the patrons’ sense of identification with the Mercedes team, gives them a stronger sense of participation, and lets them know what the drivers are specifically doing during practice and the race.

And today, Qin Miao is responsible for explaining to the VIPs what the team aims to achieve in today’s practice session and qualifying race.

Besides that, there’s also a grid-hopping mini-game. Qin Miao had participated before; it’s basically a fun Q&A game with many drivers, and, much like the Grand Prix race, to see which driver scores the most. After holding several rounds of the same game, the highest-scoring driver will receive a prize.

But what exactly the prize is, the official personnel organizing the event have not disclosed.

Even though Qin Miao isn’t too sure about his current score, he feels that he has been hovering around the midfield group and is destined to have no chance of winning this mini-game championship.

Then there’s another activity Qin Miao has participated in before, taking the VIPs for a lap on the track, so there’s no need to elaborate on it.

The final activity is the post-race autograph session.

This session was put on hold for some time due to the pandemic, but now, over here in Europe, it has been restarted openly.

So this session has been initiated once again.

This activity is more or less like an autograph signing event where you can buy a Qin Miao’s shirt, cap, or some other item on-site.

Then you enter a lottery, and if you win, you get to meet the driver in person and have the item you purchased signed.

With so many people and limited time for the drivers, the odds of winning aren’t high, but fans are always willing to spend money if they have the chance to meet the drivers, chat for a while, and get their autographs.

Moreover, the clothes and hats sold here aren’t much more expensive than outside, with at most a 10% markup.

After confirming his five activities for Friday, Qin Miao can count on receiving his system reward securely.

Although what he gets might not be too great, even scanty meat is still meat.

Friday.

Today is the day the first practice session and qualifying race begin.

Today’s qualifying race determines Saturday’s sprint race’s starting order, and based on Qin Miao’s system, if he wants to achieve Pole to win at the British Grand Prix, he must clinch pole position in today’s qualifying race.

And it’s quite possible that he has to ensure he brings back the first place in Saturday’s sprint race too, not to mention Sunday’s main race.

Qin Miao is busier on Friday than on Sunday, running around to various activities while also having to find the suitable setup for his car as much as possible during the short first practice session before jumping into the qualifying race.

However, compared to other circuits, Mercedes’ simulator has the highest fidelity for the Silverstone Circuit because it’s right at their doorstep, whether collecting circuit data or regular car testing, the simulator department conducts it all at the Silverstone Circuit, naturally building a rich data reserve.

With such vast data support, the data generated on the simulator carries a high degree of reliability.

Despite knowing he will be very busy today, Qin Miao’s wake-up time hasn’t changed much since he and Qimeng were staying directly at the driver’s parking lot next to the track yesterday, eliminating any commuting anxiety.

After getting up and refreshing himself in the RV, Qimeng, as if having a flair for this, always prepares everything for Qin Miao without fail, be it the minutiae of daily life or commercial and contract matters with Qin Miao.

After tidying up, Qin Miao and Qimeng exchanged a hug before he left the RV and headed for the paddock.

Barber arrived late today, mainly because there’s Qimeng in Qin Miao’s RV, and having Barber in the car as well could be somewhat inconvenient, so he returned to his home like other Mercedes engineers.

Since he arrived quite early, Qin Miao didn’t see many team staff on the road, most of them were people like Matthew and the FIA, with no familiar faces.

However, Qin Miao was quite the prodigy, and in this paddock zone, his influence was not at all smaller than Perez, Red Bull’s second driver.

So as he walked down the road, many people greeted him, and some even directly took out their phones wanting to take a photo with him.

But having been an F1 driver for quite some time now, Qin Miao also learned the other drivers’ on-the-go photo-taking technique.

That is to say, he would keep walking forward, you’re welcome to take a photo with him, but you also have to keep up with his pace and the time left for you to take a photo won’t exceed three seconds.

Whether or not you can snap a good picture purely depends on your own skills.