Chapter 1073: Chapter 410: The Mantis Hunts the Cicada, Unaware of the Oriole Behind

So at this moment, Leclerc is first, Qin Miao is second, and Verstappen is third.

This can also be considered an undercut on Verstappen.

Despite having Qin Miao as a buffer behind him, Leclerc doesn’t have to worry about Verstappen attacking him from behind in the short term. At the same time, due to performance issues with his car, Qin Miao also has a low probability of initiating an attack on him.

However, Leclerc still had no intention of slowing down to form a defensive alliance with Qin Miao. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Leclerc knows Qin Miao well. Qin Miao’s ability to attack is not much weaker than his defensive skills.

Once Qin Miao enters the DRS zone behind him, he could always look for an opportunity to overtake.

Pulling away is the best way to defend against Qin Miao.

Once Qin Miao’s ERS battery was nearly depleted, Leclerc began visibly expanding the time gap between himself and Qin Miao.

About 0.4 seconds per lap.

Privately, Leclerc doesn’t mind conceding a bit, but in a race, Leclerc will use every means to establish his advantage.

Qin Miao also understands Leclerc, so he had anticipated Leclerc’s behavior.

Moreover, he was mainly following Leclerc to take advantage of Leclerc’s slipstream, allowing him to get further away from Verstappen behind and ease the defensive pressure.

The upcoming race is going to be interesting.

Qin Miao’s single-lap speed was originally not comparable to Verstappen’s, but because Qin Miao had made Verstappen waste a lot of his tire performance before Hamilton’s pit stop.

So, in the short term, Qin Miao’s single-lap speed was unexpectedly on par with Verstappen’s.

Despite using medium tires, Qin Miao’s set of medium tires had already run 18 laps.

Next, Leclerc slowly pulled away while Qin Miao’s speed began to decline, and soon Verstappen entered the DRS zone behind Qin Miao.

However, Verstappen couldn’t produce decisive speed now, so Qin Miao could defend against Verstappen relatively easily.

He knew Verstappen’s attacking tactics very well.

Behind them are Sainz, Hamilton, and Perez.

Finally, on the 37th lap, after attacking for so long without any substantial effect, Verstappen finally couldn’t take it anymore.

With Qin Miao blocking him at the front and Leclerc getting further away, if he didn’t make some changes, his home race would end up in third place.

So this lap, Verstappen chose to pit again, switched to hard tires, and opened a two-stop window early.

Since he had a significant gap from the drivers behind, Verstappen only fell behind Sainz in fourth place after his pit stop.

However, with a set of hard tires that had only been run for 3 laps, Verstappen’s lap time was 0.3 faster than Leclerc’s per lap.

Naturally, he was faster than Qin Miao as well.

Actually, after Verstappen entered the pit, the team asked Qin Miao over the team radio whether he wanted to push hard for a lap, secure his position, and then pit to change to soft tires, or stay on the track and wait for his pit window.

Qin Miao thought a bit and eventually chose the latter.

The reason is simple: During his first stop, the team gave him a 3.4-second tire change, and Qin Miao was a bit worried the team might do it again, so he wanted the pit crew to take a short break and change the tires at the planned time, giving them some mental preparation.

On lap 50, Qin Miao pitted for his second stop.

Naturally, he switched to a completely new set of soft tires.

At this moment, there were still 21 laps remaining in the race, and the overall weight of Qin Miao’s car had been significantly reduced due to fuel consumption.

The load on the tires was much less than at the start of the race, resulting in a significant increase in the durability of Qin Miao’s soft tires.

According to the team’s calculations, Qin Miao’s new set of soft tires could last for 25 laps in the latter part of the race, but considering the excessive wear on the soft tires in Qin Miao’s first stint, the team called him in four laps later than planned this time.

Meanwhile, Leclerc also pitted on the same lap as Qin Miao.

Unlike Qin Miao, who switched to soft tires, Leclerc switched to hard tires after his pit stop.

Next, Leclerc had to start fully pursuing the driver ahead.

After Leclerc came out, Verstappen was ahead of him, and Qin Miao was behind.

After Qin Miao came out, he was right in front of Perez by 2 seconds.

However, when the race reached lap 51, Sainz also pitted, and now there was only a Red Bull driven by Verstappen ahead of Leclerc.

As for Qin Miao, he was a full second faster per lap than Leclerc, who was on new hard tires.

The time gap between him and Leclerc was only 6 seconds, now reduced to 5 seconds.

However, Leclerc’s new hard tires were catching up to Verstappen’s old hard tires faster than Qin Miao was catching up to Leclerc.

After all, the distance between them wasn’t great.

So, on lap 53, Leclerc caught up to Verstappen and started his move.

Meanwhile, Qin Miao was still 3 seconds behind Leclerc.

However, during this time, Qin Miao managed to claim the fastest lap.

Of course, when Qin Miao reached the back of the two on lap 55, he didn’t try to take advantage.

Mainly because Leclerc, the old fox, had learned quite a bit from Qin Miao. He didn’t leave Qin Miao any opportunities to take advantage, always taking the inside line whenever he attacked Verstappen.