How Did I Become an F1 Driver?

Chapter 1355: Chapter 509: 2023 Winter Testing (6K, Please Update 1/2)_4

At this time, Qin Miao is still running the warm-up lap, occasionally swaying left and right to heat up the tires of his car. After hearing Frankie’s question, Qin Miao responded somewhat speechlessly: "I haven’t even started yet, but as of now, I don’t feel the car is very heavy. Should I try a flying lap?"

"Um... forget it, you better start testing first. Gradually improving lap times will help us gather more data."

"You guys just don’t trust me, right?" Qin Miao has reason to suspect that Frankie doesn’t want him to do a flying lap because he’s afraid he’ll crash the car.

"It’s not that we don’t trust you. After all, it’s impossible not to trust the skills of a two-time world champion. It’s mainly because we’re concerned that some parts of the car might not be set up correctly since it’s a brand new car."

Having been told so much, Qin Miao did not insist and began the tests.

...

For the entire morning, Qin Miao kept running a few laps on the track, then returned to the team garage to make adjustments, continued on the track, and then returned to the team garage for more adjustments, and back on the track again.

This cycle repeated until lunchtime.

After leaving the car, they held a meeting, then had lunch, followed by another meeting, and the afternoon testing commenced.

If nothing unexpected happens, these three days will pass with Qin Miao following this routine.

By the afternoon of the second day, the sun has gradually set, and the track temperature is slightly higher than the temperature on a typical race weekend night.

Under such circumstances, Qin Miao filled up a tank of fuel and used brand new soft tires to run an all-out flying lap.

After completing the flying lap, Qin Miao’s lap speed was quite slow, even slower than his casual practice laps. However, after subtracting the weight of the fuel inside the car, the W14 driven by Qin Miao was 1.3 seconds faster than the W13 during last season’s winter test.

Although it’s undeniable that the W13 was a disaster, the 1.3-second speed improvement over the year is indeed commendable.

Moreover, this is because the W14 is not yet fully developed.

After all, during winter testing, Mercedes can’t reveal the full potential of the W14. What if Red Bull or Ferrari observe the exterior design of our car and figure something out over the next few days? What if they start to research similar strategies?

Wouldn’t the first-mover advantage be gone?

So it’s best to keep these things hidden for as long as possible.

Hiding one more day means opponents take one more day to discover the design features and advantages of our car, they take an extra day to research, performance enhancements are delayed by a day, and we maintain our advantage for an extra day.

Details determine success or failure.

As for why not compare it with W13B’s data... because W13B never raced on Bahrain’s Sakhir Circuit.

With no data, there’s no comparison.

However, it was compared in the simulator, and the W14 was over a second faster in the simulator.

But needless to say, the simulator’s data has some exaggeration.

Soon, the three days of testing came to an end, and throughout the entire winter break, Qin Miao completed just over two hundred laps, with one instance on the second day when he stopped on the track due to the radiator hose bursting.

Countless other minor problems occurred, but fortunately, they were all resolved successfully without major issues.

On the other hand, Hamilton experienced a tire blowout while attempting to test the grip limit of the tires. Fortunately, Old Man’s exceptional driving skills pulled the car back from the brink of losing control, avoiding further damage.

Regarding speed.

During winter testing, the leading driver in the standings was Sainz, while Qin Miao and Hamilton were not ranked highly on this list, taking third and fourth respectively.

But according to statistics, Mercedes’ W14 reached a top speed of 340 kilometers per hour on Bahrain’s Sakhir Circuit.

This top speed is enough to dominate the field.

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