How Did I Become an F1 Driver?-Chapter 129 - 95: Maranello (Part 2)

The other party replied with a "received" followed by a smiley face, showing a typical middle-aged chatting style.

Afterward, Qin Miao discussed another matter with Qimeng, which was about having another racing contract on hand. They wondered if having two contracts would affect his future career planning.

Qimeng didn’t really understand these things, but they could ask Zhou Guanyu, since he’s also in this circle and his understanding of these contract matters should be deeper than theirs.

The answer they got from Zhou Guanyu was simple: there’s no impact whatsoever, anyhow, the contract doesn’t bind Qin Miao in any way. Zhou signed this kind of contract before too, and if he didn’t want it, he just made a call to terminate it.

After hanging up the call with Zhou Guanyu, Qimeng decisively made a call to the China GT team, whose name Qin Miao didn’t even remember, and then canceled Qin Miao’s contract.

After this series of operations, it was about time, and the two boarded the plane.

On the plane, Qin Miao, after a long time, checked his attribute stats.

Name: Qin Miao

Age: 18

Overall Rating: 58.4→64.4 (+6)

Endurance: 79→82 (+3)

Mentality: 65→70 (+5)

Stability: 78→80 (+2)

Qualifying Ability: 42→55 (+13)

Start Ability: 59→60 (+1)

Race Long Distance: 50→60 (+10)

Tire Management Ability: 51→55 (+4)

Rain Combat Ability: 21→22 (+1)

Attack Ability: 60→72 (+12)

Defense Ability: 79→88 (+9)

Besides these attribute improvements, Qin Miao also increased the Silverstone proficiency to 160, earning a Purple Lottery.

This high level of proficiency was purely because all of Qin Miao’s racing training days were spent on the Silverstone Circuit, naturally increasing the proficiency on that circuit faster.

As for the Baku Circuit, Qin Miao inadvertently increased his proficiency to 121 while battling with Zhou Guanyu, also earning a Purple Lottery.

Thus, Qin Miao learned that as long as it’s an F1-related Grand Prix circuit, increasing the proficiency grants a Purple Lottery opportunity.

Notably, with Zhou Guanyu as a training partner, Qin Miao’s defense ability, previously stuck at 79 points, made a significant breakthrough to 88 points.

Becoming Qin Miao’s highest-rated attribute, nearly hitting the 90-point threshold.

The most direct feeling from the score improvement was that when they first started practicing attack and defense, Qin Miao could defend against Zhou Guanyu but would inevitably be distracted, dropping speed considerably, and sometimes making mistakes due to pressure.

But after the defense ability increased to 88 points, Qin Miao felt like he suddenly unlocked his potential, defending against Zhou Guanyu’s attacks with ease.

His speed wouldn’t drop much despite someone attacking from behind.

The change manifesting on Zhou Guanyu was that he felt catching up to Qin Miao didn’t change much in difficulty; Qin Miao still wasn’t as good in long-distance rhythm. However, if Zhou failed to attack Qin Miao once, Qin would pull away a long distance, taking Zhou quite some time to close up again for another attack.

Additionally, Qin Miao’s ability to withstand pressure improved greatly; no matter how close Zhou stuck or pressured him, Qin’s driving would remain largely unchanged.

In the last two days of simulator play, Zhou Guanyu complained more than once that Qin Miao’s defense was like a turtle shell.

It’s noteworthy that since Qin knew he would face an exam after going to Maranello, Zhou Guanyu specifically lent his F2 for Qin to drive during the last track day session.

The result... let’s just say it was about the experience.

Since Qin wasn’t familiar with Zhou’s car, and the car was the one Zhou would compete with, Qin didn’t dare to drive too fast, fearing a crash would be not fair to Zhou.

So after feeling the powerful dynamics of the F2 car and experiencing the cornering G-force intensity surpassing that of F3, the session time was more or less over.

As for lap time... with only one session and Qin not pushing, it was naturally quite average.

Even though Renault people were deliberately observing Zhou Guanyu’s friend, they didn’t find any shining points on Qin Miao and thus didn’t pay attention.

Regarding other attributes that broke through the 79-point bottleneck, there were endurance and stability.

Endurance speaks for itself; as long as training with Zhou Guanyu, the training intensity of both Qin and Zhou would essentially double.

Although they ended up exhausted like dead dogs, the maintenance from health potions ensured neither’s body suffered excessive wear due to greatly increased training.

The high-intensity training naturally drastically improved their physical fitness.

Previously in Shanghai, after a few F4 sessions, Qin was so tired he almost couldn’t get out of the car.

But now, after running a day on the F3, he didn’t even sweat through his clothes.

As for the last stability attribute, it was already close to the limit. Qin didn’t feel any bottleneck; it naturally broke through as he kept training.

...

Flight time wasn’t long, and after landing, going through customs, and picking up luggage, the two were quite familiar with the routine.

After leaving the airport, they saw someone holding a sign with "Qin Miao" written in Chinese at the exit.

The person holding the sign was a casually dressed young man, looking about twenty-five or six.

Qin Miao approached with Qimeng, and the person clearly had seen Qin’s photos before and immediately waved at Qin with a smile once he spotted him.

"Mr. Qin Miao? Knowing you were coming today, Mr. Lawson asked me to pick you up once I got your flight info." The person greeted Qin in a familiar manner. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

"I’m Lubos Tran, your Physical Trainer potentially for a year or even longer."

Only now did Qin Miao have time to really observe the person’s appearance: black curly hair, many Italians Qin met had this natural curl, including Binotto and Lawson.

Lubos’ appearance was fairly ordinary, his movements were large and frequent, and his behavior was youthful.

Taller than Qin Miao by a bit, roughly 1.8 meters tall, dressed in the very common short-sleeve shirt and shorts.

"Hello." Qin Miao politely shook hands with him and then introduced Qimeng, "This is my girlfriend, Qimeng."

After getting acquainted, Qin Miao curiously asked, "Where are we going now? Directly to the test?"

"No, no, of course not. The fatigue from traveling can somewhat affect your performance, so today’s itinerary doesn’t include testing. Today’s main trip is to arrange accommodation for you and Ms. Qimeng, then visit Ferrari’s company, factory, and our museum in Maranello." Lubos introduced today’s plan like a tour guide while walking.

Driving from the airport to Ferrari’s headquarters in Maranello took approximately the same time as Qin flying from the UK to Italy.

After two hours of hustle on the plane and another more than an hour’s drive, by the time they reached their destination, Qin felt not too tired but had little interest in viewing the scenery around.

Maranello isn’t a big city; it was not famous before, only world-renowned because it’s Enzo Ferrari’s hometown.

Ferrari’s factory and F1 team headquarters are also situated here.

No skyscrapers around Maranello; most houses are standalone, resembling a foreign countryside.

However, this exotic charm was quite appealing to the foreign duo, Qin and Qimeng.