Chapter 328: Chapter 165: The Third Lap of the Gods (Part 3)
Halfway down the straight, Verstappen had already drawn alongside Qin Miao on the outside line, and before entering the corner, he completed the alignment with Qin Miao.
In this corner, Qin Miao couldn’t force Verstappen’s line like he did in the last defense. Due to the chain reaction from that small mistake, without needing to brake late, Verstappen surpassed Qin Miao by the length of a front wing merely relying on DRS before entering the corner.
Now the track priority was in Verstappen’s hands, and Qin Miao couldn’t continue his firm defense.
However, Qin Miao did not give up his position either, and the two cars entered the corner side by side. After entering, due to the cornering advantage of the Mercedes car, Verstappen couldn’t shake off Qin Miao, and the two cars passed T11 and T12 wheel to wheel, reaching T13.
Coming into T13 side by side, Qin Miao’s position turned to the outside line, and Verstappen wanted to replicate Qin Miao’s previous maneuver, using his line authority to force Qin Miao off the track.
But Qin Miao anticipated Verstappen’s intentions, opting to brake early and cross the line out of the corner instead of playful tactics.
Seeing that Qin Miao did not appear on the left of his car, but instead braked early for the corner and then started accelerating, Verstappen felt a moment of tingling on his scalp.
Because Qin Miao seemed to be like a worm inside Verstappen’s stomach, consistently predicting his thoughts and the next planned maneuvers.
Nonetheless, the Honda engine’s advantage on the straight and the grip of Verstappen’s new hard tires still showed their strengths at this moment, so when exiting the corner, Qin Miao remained side-by-side with Verstappen, continuing wheel to wheel to T14.
Before entering T14’s DRS detection point, Qin Miao deliberately switched off his ERS mode that was on the whole time, so before passing T14’s DRS detection point, Verstappen was slightly ahead of Qin Miao.
Entering the corner a bit later and still on the outside line, Qin Miao didn’t contest with Verstappen this time, letting Verstappen take the lead while he opted for a wider line.
Verstappen took the defensive line because he wasn’t sure how Qin Miao would attack him.
But because Verstappen was on a defensive line, his exit speed was not actually faster than Qin Miao’s, and now Qin Miao had both DRS and an excellent slipstream, with half of his ERS power remaining.
Qin Miao’s relative speed was 10 km/h faster than Verstappen’s.
Just past the starting line of the main straight, Qin Miao drew alongside Verstappen on the inside line.
Verstappen immediately cut to the inside line for defense, while Qin Miao naturally steered to the outside line.
Verstappen also followed, but at that moment, Qin Miao had already drawn alongside on the inside line, and Verstappen had no choice but to leave Qin Miao some space and attempt to disrupt Qin Miao’s aerodynamic effect with his turbulence.
But these flashy maneuvers were futile because Qin Miao’s relative speed was too fast.
So by the time they reached four-fifths of the main straight, Qin Miao had already completed the overtaking of Verstappen.
Up until now, Qin Miao had defended Verstappen for three laps.
...
"How far is Hamilton from me now?"
"24 seconds, great job Qin Miao, Verstappen won’t be able to catch up to Hamilton."
"Copy."
ps. Today there’s a bit of writer’s block, only 4K words...