CHAPTER 537: CHAPTER 232: VERSTAPPEN RETIRES FROM THE RACE

Moreover, due to the excessive consumption of ERS power, after exiting T14, Leclerc was overtaken once on the inside line by Hamilton behind him.

Fortunately, T15 is a high-speed corner that doesn’t require slowing down, so defending wasn’t too difficult for Leclerc.

After one failed attack attempt, Leclerc abandoned the idea of continuing to attack Qin Miao.

There was no way, the speed gap between Mercedes and Ferrari was too large, and as a friend of Qin Miao, Leclerc was well aware of how extraordinary Qin Miao’s defensive abilities were.

When playing on the simulator, unless Qin Miao eased up, Leclerc really couldn’t overtake Qin Miao successfully.

And he also had to focus on defending against Hamilton behind him, so that previous attempt was Leclerc’s first, and only reckless move of this race.

However, Leclerc’s attack did serve as a reminder to Qin Miao that although Ferrari is having a laid-back season, Leclerc still posed some threat.

So by lap eight, Qin Miao kept the gap between him and Leclerc at around 1.5 seconds.

At this gap, Leclerc would be affected by the turbulent air from the rear of Qin Miao’s car, impacting his lap speed, but he wouldn’t be able to catch Qin Miao’s slipstream, which was the safest approach.

The gap was quite large, and the speed Leclerc lost due to the turbulent air was minimal.

On the ninth lap, Hamilton gathered enough ERS power to attempt overtaking Leclerc on this lap.

After all, he had a ten-second penalty to serve, and if he stayed behind Leclerc, after serving the penalty in the pits, Hamilton might even end up behind Stroll.

So Hamilton needed to speed up now.

However, once Leclerc decided not to have any illusions about Qin Miao’s position in this race and focused solely on defending his current position, he was constantly guarding against Hamilton behind him.

Now, seeing Hamilton planning an attack, the ERS that Leclerc started charging from the lap after attempting to attack Qin Miao played a crucial role.

Hamilton found it impossible to reach the DRS zone behind Leclerc.

The two started to entangle, and for a while, it became somewhat dull, making Perez the only highlight of the race.

With only eleven laps into the race, Perez had climbed from nineteenth to twelfth and seemed to be heading for the points zone.

Fans from other countries might feel somewhat dissatisfied with this race because, apart from Verstappen going off track, there wasn’t much exciting or eye-catching happening on this circuit.

However, domestic fans didn’t think so, seeing Qin Miao leading the race from the beginning made them as happy as if it were the New Year.

Of course, some fans who were not very familiar with F1, or just beginners, got a bit worried seeing Qin Miao maintaining the gap with Leclerc at around 1.5 seconds.

But seasoned fans knew that Qin Miao was employing the ’Hitting the Bull from a Distance’ strategy, seemingly slowing down to defend against Leclerc, but actually defending against Hamilton.

In the second timing sector of lap fifteen, Leclerc suddenly reported a momentary engine stall, which self-corrected swiftly, though his speed dropped significantly.

The original two-second gap with Hamilton quickly closed to just over a second.

Experiencing that laid-back racing feel reminiscent of his time in F2 ahead, Qin Miao, after passing T14, suddenly noticed a lack of that red shade in his peripheral vision via the mirrors. A glance at the ranking data on the steering wheel revealed that Leclerc had slowed down.