CHAPTER 555: CHAPTER 241: HELL MODE START_2

Soon, Reyes came over, drenched in sweat.

Qin Miao looked at Reyes nervously and asked, "How is the situation?"

Reyes’ expression was quite serious: "Not optimistic."

Upon hearing Reyes’ words, Qin Miao felt a chill in his heart.

But before Qin Miao could ask further, Reyes continued, "We’ve recovered about eighty percent of the rear mechanical grip, so this race will still be pretty tough for you."

Qin Miao, who was initially a bit tense, breathed a slight sigh of relief after hearing Reyes’ words. The loss of rear mechanical grip wasn’t fatal to Qin Miao.

At least he could still run, unlike Perez and Norris who retired directly.

Though losing twenty percent of downforce on this hard-to-overtake track was still quite deadly.

"Okay, I understand, thanks for your hard work." Qin Miao patted Reyes on the shoulder, then, despite the drizzle, started checking his car for any other damages.

Then he reached out and touched his car. With the Man and Car Unity skill, Qin Miao only felt something strange with the car’s rear.

After confirming his car was fine, Qin Miao turned and went to the team’s pit room.

Mostly because it was still drizzling on the track, and for a better competitive state, Qin Miao couldn’t stand in the rain for long.

After arriving at the team’s pit room, Qin Miao watched the replay of the recent bumper car incident.

Only then did Qin Miao fully see what happened on the track; it was all caused by the rain, and Perez also underestimated the power of the downhill braking point at T1.

But if Qin Miao were to judge the accident from a race steward’s perspective, he would classify it as a regular track accident, which basically wouldn’t dock Perez’s Super License points, and may not even require him to go to the stewards’ room.

During the time waiting for the red flag to end, Qin Miao didn’t leave the team’s pit room. He pulled up a chair and blatantly sat beside Toto, looking down to play his phone.

Qin Miao wasn’t checking messages or replying to emails; he was genuinely playing Genshin Impact directly.

Toto noticed, but he didn’t react at all, as if he hadn’t seen Qin Miao blatantly slacking off.

However, to give due credit, Qin Miao’s performance on the track earlier wasn’t too great. Despite being hit, it’s undeniable that he lost quite a few positions.

With the mistake already made, Qin Miao still dared to slack off in front of his boss, truly deserving to be called audacious.

At this moment, the driver order in the pit area is as follows:

1: Hamilton

2: O’Kang

3: Vettel

4: Sainz

5: Tsunoda

6: Latifi

7: Alonso

8: Russell

9: KIMI

10: Mick

11: Qin Miao

12: Gasly

13: Ricardo

14: Verstappen

15: Mazepin

16: Giovinazzi

Honestly, people paying attention to Qin Miao are divided into two camps. One believes Qin Miao’s race is over, and he won’t keep his lead in the standings.

This camp has solid reasoning. Qin Miao’s performance in wet races from F2 to F1 has never been as outstanding as in dry conditions, a view that has gained considerable support.

The other camp cites Qin Miao’s impressive performance in Monaco, a track even harder to overtake than Hengelo, and believes he still has a chance to turn the tides in this race.

If Hamilton is willing to back up the pack, there might even be a chance for Qin Miao to end in the top three.

It’s worth noting that backing up on this track is much easier than at Silverstone.

Regardless of the arguments among spectators, Qin Miao remains unaffected.

Twenty minutes later, Qin Miao received good news from the weather department; the rain was lessening, and the sun might come out soon.

With five minutes left before the red flag ended, Qin Miao greeted Toto and left the pit room, heading to his car.

After gearing up again, Qin Miao got back into his seat.

By this time, the rain had stopped completely, and the sun was emerging. But the track remained slippery, so the first few laps would probably still require intermediates before switching to slicks.

Soon, as all the drivers prepared, the live broadcast camera focused on Verstappen.

The audience could see through the broadcast that the entire structure of the right deflector on Verstappen’s car was gone.

The damaged connecting structure was also wrapped in metallic duct tape by the Red Bull crew.

This effectively reduced the drag from the frayed carbon fiber surface.

The side pod damage was relatively simple to repair.

Each team has one or two spare parts for their cars, and an F1 car’s side pod can be considered like a family car’s front hood.

It’s naturally replaceable, so Red Bull directly swapped out the side pod cover for Verstappen.

As for the deflector, it’s integrated with the car’s chassis.

Despite Red Bull having spare parts for the floor, replacing it is particularly troublesome.

It involves completely disassembling all components from the old floor and fitting them onto a new one, an impossible task within the red flag’s half-hour duration.

Even if Red Bull’s technicians had superhuman strength, capable of changing the floor in half an hour, they wouldn’t do it.

Doing so at the track would attract engineers from all ten teams in the paddock to come over and watch Red Bull’s disassembly and repair process.

The inevitable result would be Red Bull’s internal structure being studied by all other teams.

The more shameless teams might even copy Red Bull’s entire design.

Especially since bottom teams like Haas, Alfa Romeo, and Williams would have nowhere to benchmark against stronger teams like Mercedes, Ferrari, and McLaren.

And gaining several positions after copying Red Bull? Why not?

Thus, Red Bull’s repair approach for Verstappen was the best they could imagine.

Honestly, the repaired side profile of the car looked even cleaner without the deflector, with a sense of simple elegance.

But truthfully, upon seeing Verstappen’s car’s appearance on the broadcast, Qin Miao thought his race was probably ruined like Perez’s.

The reason being that staying on the track was probably for Red Bull to see if Verstappen still had enough speed. If possible, scoring a point would be worthwhile.

Scoring one more point in this race could reduce the gap between Verstappen, Qin Miao, and Hamilton by one point in the next race.

One minute countdown for the red flag.

Qin Miao habitually checked his equipment and the car’s system, with Reyes helping to confirm there were no oversights with Qin Miao’s car.

After confirming everything was ready, Qin Miao’s crew members removed the tire warmers from his intermediates and retreated to the sides of the track.

When the one-minute countdown ended, Hamilton took the lead as the safety car guided him out.

Though the rain had stopped and the sun was out, the track remained wet, so nearly all drivers were on intermediates.

However, once on the track, Qin Miao realized that other areas of the track were significantly drying, in a semi-wet, semi-dry state.

While completing the out lap, Russell commented, "At this rate, everyone will pit to change tires."

At this moment, Qin Miao also mentioned in his TR to Frankie, "The track is drying quickly, I think I can pit for slicks."