How Did I Become an F1 Driver?-Chapter 906 - 358: Better to Divert Than Block

Moreover, it's not just the broken gearbox issue of the Alfa Romeo car, even the programming of the gearbox has problems.

The engine couldn't even reach the necessary RPMs, so naturally, there's no mention of acceleration during the starting of the race.

It's just fortunate that encountering this situation were first-year rookie Zhou Guanyu and Bottas, who hasn't raced in a year.

During this period, both of them are quite patient, focused mainly on being able to return to F1/becoming F1 drivers, that's enough for them.

If it were Kimi at this moment, it's likely he would curse everyone from the head of Alfa Romeo's gearbox department to the cleaning lady over the team radio.

Luckily, the race has just started, and Zhou Guanyu's position was fairly forward, so he didn't lose too many positions and wasn't left too far behind by the pack.

Once the engine RPMs rose again, Zhou Guanyu closely followed Ricardo.

And before he had even completed the first lap, he overtook Ricardo ahead of him, advancing himself to 19th.

Among the drivers who started ahead, Qin Miao focused most of his attention on Magelsen behind him. Although both Qin Miao and many spectators were surprised to see a Haas in this position, Qin Miao never takes any opponent lightly once on the track.

So even though this Haas seemed easy to bully, Qin Miao kept his guard up, and over the next period of time, he periodically checked the gap between him and the opponent.

But soon enough, time proved Qin Miao's concerns unnecessary. Just halfway through the second lap, the gap between Qin Miao and Magelsen widened by 0.3 seconds.

During the second lap, Zhou Guanyu relied on the performance of his car to forcefully overtake Norris on the outside line at Turn 1.

Indeed, Zhou Guanyu just dealt with Norris directly.

While Norris started with medium tires, he still attempted to defend against Zhou Guanyu's attack, but despite Norris's deliberate defense, Zhou Guanyu successfully overtook him, indicating Zhou Guanyu's offensive capability is quite commendable.

In the third lap, Zhou Guanyu dealt with Stroll ahead of him, rising to 17th place.

It seems that the starting mistake did not affect Zhou Guanyu's mentality at all, it even fired up a flame in Zhou Guanyu's heart, making him faster and faster, almost catching up with his teammate Bottas.

Meanwhile, Qin Miao at the front entered a long-range cruising state.

And Qin Miao felt that once entering the ground-effect era, the difficulty of following a car also reduced significantly.

Though during the pre-race team meeting, the aerodynamic department's chief mentioned: "This season, due to the introduction of ground-effect regulations, the turbulence generated by the car ahead will be much less compared to last season, making it easier to follow, and overtaking much easier."

Initially, Qin Miao didn't pay too much attention to this remark, but when the race started, he truly felt that when following the car ahead into the corner this season, the downforce of his car hardly suffered any loss.

The speed while entering and exiting corners could be maintained relatively well to attack the drivers ahead.

Clearly, the FIA's rule changes for this season indeed achieved their goal.

In the sixth lap, Zhou Guanyu overtook Hockenheim, climbing another position to 15th.

As for Qin Miao, originally stretched away by his teammate Hamilton due to tire issues, after six laps, the gap between Qin Miao and Hamilton widened to 2.1 seconds.

However, when the race reached the ninth lap, Hamilton's soft tire advantage gradually wore off, enabling Qin Miao to catch up to Hamilton's pace.

Nonetheless, neither the audience nor the commentators, nor even the onsite director focused their attention on Qin Miao at this time.

Because in these few laps, Zhou Guanyu's performance of moving from the backfield all the way to 14th was more captivating, now closely behind Albon, starting to attack. The director fixed the camera on Zhou Guanyu, giving Zhou ample screen time.

And Zhou Guanyu did not disappoint, overtaking Albon ahead of him on the starting straight in the tenth lap.

But once the footage of Zhou Guanyu overtaking Albon ended, the director immediately switched the camera to Qin Miao.

Since in the DRS zone behind Qin Miao, a Red Bull was merely 0.7 seconds behind.

After losing rhythm at the start, Perez stabilized his condition on the track, first overtaking Magelsen, and now finally catching up to Qin Miao, getting ready to make a move.

The two Mercedes drivers on the track had to admit that, both in qualifying and in race lap speed, Red Bull is indeed faster than Mercedes this season.

So, Qin Miao, known for his defense skills, felt immense pressure seeing Perez behind him.

On one hand, defending on the Bahrain circuit is quite challenging, and on the other hand, the Red Bull car is a second faster per lap than the Mercedes, and Qin Miao is on medium tires, making following easier this season.

To put it plainly, facing Perez's attack left Qin Miao without any room for resistance.

Therefore, even someone as strong as Qin Miao couldn't guarantee he could block Perez behind him like he blocked Verstappen last season.