Chapter 1052: Chapter 404: Ferrari: Basic Operations_2

But the advantage he’d built up earlier was still there, so Qin Miao wasn’t in a hurry to pit. He planned to wait until Leclerc came out of the pits and closed to within two seconds behind him before considering pitting, to squeeze a bit more life out of his softs.

However, just as Qin Miao was gritting his teeth and hanging on, something suddenly happened on track.

O’Kang, who had passed the ailing Verstappen on lap 37 and quickly pulled more than a second clear of him, suddenly lost power on lap 39.

And then he was overtaken in turn by Verstappen, Mick and Magelsen behind him.

What’s more, O’Kang didn’t just coast into the pits on momentum, but stopped directly on the track.

And the spot where O’Kang parked was the very definition of "middle of nowhere."

It was a long way from the Matthew entrance, basically a spot that guaranteed a Safety Car.

This was absolutely good news for Perez, who was currently fifth and 24 seconds behind Hamilton ahead, but for Hamilton it might not be so great.

For Qin Miao, though, this news wasn’t necessarily bad either.

He hadn’t pitted at all yet in this race, and while the Safety Car would wipe out the time advantage he’d worked so hard to build over the Ferraris behind,

at least it would guarantee he wouldn’t lose the lead after pitting for fresh tires.

Luckily, when Race Control threw the yellow, Qin Miao happened to be on the straight between T15 and T16—two more corners and he’d be at the pit entry, so he wasn’t going to miss anything.

And with 13 laps to go, it would likely be a bit of a hassle to clear O’Kang’s car; it would probably take two laps, plus the extra lap for the Safety Car to pull in.

When the Safety Car period ended, there would be 10 laps left in the race.

And in the team’s simulations, in a normal push stint without tire saving or excessive wheelspin, and in low-fuel race-ending conditions, Qin Miao’s softs could last 14 laps at Silverstone Circuit.

That was more than enough for him.

Even though they didn’t know all these details, once the Five-Star Sports commentators in the studio saw what was happening on track, they all got excited.

"Safety Car! Qin Miao! He can box for new tires right now!" Bing was getting more and more worked up as he spoke, practically jumping out of his seat.

As soon as Bing finished, Qin Miao on track naturally chose to pit.

"From my humble understanding of Qin Miao, this stop should be for the red tires," Fei said with a grin.

"They’ll definitely go for reds. The only question is, they just gave Hamilton a four-second stop—are we going to see any ’incidents’ this time?" Zhou Haoran said.

And once Qin Miao parked precisely on his marks, the team didn’t pull any stunts on him—or on the Mercedes fans nervously watching him.

Brand-new softs, 2.4 seconds for the stop.

Once the change was done, Qin Miao floored it out of the box.

The rear tires kicked up a puff of white smoke.

When he rejoined, Qin Miao slotted in right behind the Safety Car.

What Qin Miao couldn’t wrap his head around, though, was that in this pit window Ferrari only called in Sainz for tires and didn’t pit Leclerc.

Listening to Frankie report Ferrari’s situation over team radio, Qin Miao was full of question marks.

What the hell are those Ferrari guys thinking? Why not bring Leclerc in?

This isn’t even about the whole "double stack so Sainz might lose a place" argument.

If they didn’t pit Leclerc now, the final phase of the race would basically be Leclerc on old hards versus a bunch of guys around him all on fresh softs.

The key point is: this is under a Safety Car, so after the restart the gap between Leclerc and Sainz behind him won’t even be a second.

And no matter how durable your hards are, there’s no way they can outrun a set of new softs.

It’s easy to predict that Leclerc is going to get absolutely mugged by the guys behind in a bit.

Any normal team would read this situation clearly: even if Sainz behind Leclerc might lose a place to Hamilton due to the double stack, that’s a driver problem.

The team must think from the team’s perspective—how to get both drivers the maximum points.

But if Leclerc doesn’t pit, he might not even keep fourth, since Qin Miao, Hamilton, Perez and Sainz are all on softs now.

At worst, Sainz still gets fourth, but with Leclerc’s pace, if he bolted on fresh tires he’d be able to attack Qin Miao up front.

Yes, the Mercedes pace today is decent, but overall it’s still not as quick as Ferrari; the reason Qin Miao is leading is mainly down to his tire management.

In short, once he heard Ferrari’s pit strategy, Qin Miao’s head was full of confusion.

But whatever—Ferrari pulling some blackout-inducing move is hardly breaking news.

Just corporate culture.

In the end, the Safety Car led them through to lap 42, which meant that from lap 43 the Safety Car would come in and the race would restart.