CHAPTER 523: CHAPTER 228: THE UNDERLING SURPASSING THE SUPERIOR (6K, BONUS UPDATE 12/19)_2

After exiting T3, it becomes quite tricky to handle because the car ends up on the left side of the track, but T4 is a left turn. To gain speed, the car needs to be as close to the right side of the track as possible when entering the corner. However, the straight track between T3 and T4 is very short, leaving no room for Qin Miao to pull the car to the right side quickly.

Moreover, right after T4 is a long straight stretch. If T4 is not tackled well, the car’s speed on the upcoming long straight stretch will be slow, significantly impacting the lap time.

Therefore, choosing the entry point for T4 is very difficult.

Qin Miao turned right after exiting the corner and was about two meters from the shoulder on the right side of the track. He started decelerating into the corner at four-fifths of the track’s right side.

A normal driver would have very high tire temperatures by now, given the two full-throttle high-speed corners, a heavy braking zone, and then a long slow corner prior. These would quickly heat up the tires, so by this point, a normal driver’s tire temperature would be approaching 140°.

Therefore, in T4, there would be severe issues of oversteering during braking into the corner and understeering when accelerating out of the corner.

However, Qin Miao had no such issues. At this moment, the sensor displayed that Qin Miao’s tire temperature was just barely above the operating temperature by 3°. Although slightly higher than the designated operating temperature, it wasn’t excessively high. The performance of Qin Miao’s tires was still excellent.

Naturally, Qin Miao took the big-angle turn of T4 aggressively, maximizing the shoulder usage. He even nibbled on the sausage curb a little due to insufficient speed.

Before the car was completely straightened out, Qin Miao had already started full-throttle acceleration, but the steering control remained gentle.

Then, through T5, he activated the DRS upon passing the DRS monitoring point, to sprint with full force.

In the middle of the DRS zone, Qin Miao completed his first timed segment.

His first timed segment was directly purple, 0.211 seconds faster than his teammate Hamilton.

After seeing this result, Toto’s eyelids twitched, and he suddenly had a bad premonition.

The joys and sorrows of people differ. While Toto sensed something unusual and frowned, the three commentators from Five-Star Sports excitedly stood up upon seeing Qin Miao’s purple first segment.

Could it be?

Even though the steering wheel displayed a purple time for his first timed segment, Qin Miao didn’t spare the purple on the steering wheel a single glance. He was entirely focused on observing the track.

At T6, Qin Miao’s tire temperature was a bit high as well, given the recent high-speed corner exit followed by another high-speed turn, and now facing a heavy braking corner.

However, Qin Miao, having completed a simulation of the qualifying round and gained insights from three flying laps in qualifying, knew exactly how to handle this.

He adjusted the brake balance to the rear, reducing the front wheel load while increasing the rear wheel load to effectively counteract understeering during corner entry.

Then he engaged the differential to enable smoother corner entry for Qin Miao.

With consistent braking, he started to enter the corner at the 50-meter marker, and since the corner was long, he usually arrived late at the corner apex; thus, when initially entering the corner, he kept a bit distance from the inside of the track to effectively reach the true inner apex on the left side.

Following that, he took the shoulder, maximizing shoulder grip.

As Qin Miao clipped the corner apex, the outer side of the rear tire even slightly hit the sausage curb, but fortunately, not much, so it didn’t bounce Qin Miao’s car up.

After exiting the corner, he quickly pulled the car slightly back to the left and began to enter T7.

This was another long corner. Silverstone has numerous such long corners.

The feeling of navigating this corner was somewhat like placing a triangular roof on top of a circular ball.

First, clip a bit of the apex, then approach an unseen apex point inside the corner, and clip the apex again before exiting.

After exiting, to maintain sufficient speed, he couldn’t consume too much shoulder. Qin Miao didn’t even use the shoulder, he simply went full throttle out of the corner heading directly to T8.

Upcoming T8 and T9 were full-throttle corners.

Paying attention to the smoothness of the steering while cornering, the rest could be less concerning.

However, T9 posed a challenge for any driver’s neck, as Qin Miao faced 5.2 Gs of lateral G-force when taking this corner.

Adding the weight of the head and helmet, Qin Miao’s neck faced nearly fifty pounds of pressure.

The body also felt like it was under hundreds of pounds of weight.

A normal person would definitely not endure this, but Qin Miao, like all other F1 drivers, had long since become accustomed to this feeling.

After T9, all the way to T11, it was full-throttle sections. As long as he followed the normal line, there would be no issues.

But since the subsequent curves were a series of corners, each corner entry needed to prepare for the next one and had to be perfectly fluid when entering.

For T10, the fake corner, he could take a bit of the shoulder, then drive all the way to T11, where he could also use a bit of the shoulder, and keeping full throttle after the exit.

However, as he approached T12, some braking actions were necessary, so after T11, he needed to move further to the right side of the track to ensure a larger entry angle.

If the downforce was sufficient during this corner, he could slightly ease off the throttle, but if the downforce was adjusted to be relatively low, he would need to slightly tap the brakes.