How Did I Become an F1 Driver?

Chapter 1151 - 435: Home Victory

Meanwhile, on Hamilton’s side, after Qin Miao’s late brake, he was completely overtaken by Qin Miao, but managed to take the best exit line on the inside.Thus, Verstappen’s cornering and exit rhythm was once again disrupted by Qin Miao, yet Verstappen didn’t give up and still tried to overtake Qin Miao before Qin Miao completely closed the door, as Verstappen was indeed quite fast at that moment. However, in the end, it proved that Verstappen thought too much; he was directly squeezed off the track.

After returning to a normal rhythm out of the corner, he still ranked in third place.

The Dutch spectators at the scene expressed their disappointment with sighs at the same spot.

Meanwhile, Qin Miao not only completed the overtaking of Hamilton but also held off Verstappen’s attacks.

After overtaking Hamilton and taking the lead, Qin Miao did not rush to speed up and widen the time gap with Hamilton. Instead, he cruised ahead of Hamilton with the same rhythm as before, 0.8 seconds ahead.

It’s not hard to guess what Qin Miao’s intention was; he wanted to provide Hamilton with DRS in front of Hamilton to help Hamilton defend against the chasing Verstappen.

To be honest, Qin Miao’s actions surprised Hamilton, the party involved, as he originally thought that once Qin Miao overtook him, he would surely speed up and leave him behind.

Hamilton’s idea had no basis, but if he were in Qin Miao’s position, Hamilton felt he would definitely do that.

After all, Qin Miao’s car was equipped with new soft tires, so it would be too easy for him to leave Hamilton, who was using medium tires, far behind.

But to his surprise, Qin Miao actually chose to stay.

After losing rhythm this time, Verstappen naturally cursed and swore in the team’s TR.

"Qin Miao! He doesn’t know how to drive at all, squeezed me out again! He deserves a time penalty!"

However, from the FIA’s perspective, although Qin Miao’s dominance over Verstappen in Verstappen’s home country had some impact on F1’s viewership in the Netherlands, there was not really any major problem with Qin Miao’s maneuver, so they could not say much.

Meanwhile, as Verstappen cursed at Qin Miao in the team’s TR, the time gap between him and Hamilton expanded to 1.2 seconds.

Because this time he was genuinely forced off the track by Qin Miao, and his car’s tires went directly onto the grass.

Although Verstappen managed to control his car with his terrifying track instincts without making bigger mistakes, he still lost a lot of time.

In the 69th lap, due to always having Qin Miao’s DRS support, Hamilton’s speed increased a lot in the later stage, so only at this point did Verstappen get within 0.5 seconds of Hamilton in the DRS zone, where he could launch an attack.

In this attack by Verstappen, Qin Miao did not directly intervene or block, and with Hamilton’s speed indeed not being quite enough, even when Verstappen attacked Hamilton, Hamilton managed to hold the T1 inside line, and the outside line ahead was also blocked by Qin Miao slowing down.

But Hamilton was late closing the door, and Verstappen accelerated through the relatively small gap between Qin Miao and Hamilton.

And during T1, he thwarted Hamilton’s counterattack, stabilizing his second place ranking.

The Dutch spectators, who had been gasping in surprise throughout the race, could finally breathe a sigh of relief and cheer loudly for Verstappen’s brilliant overtaking.

Looking at Verstappen overtaking his teammate Hamilton, Qin Miao was also somewhat helpless, wondering why he couldn’t defend just a bit longer, even if only to gain another second or two for him; why did he get overtaken by Verstappen so quickly?

Nevertheless, regardless, after Verstappen overtook Hamilton and countered Hamilton’s retaliation, some time was still delayed.

As Verstappen prepared to start attacking Qin Miao, the time gap between Qin Miao and Verstappen had already widened to 1.7 seconds.

At this point, there were only three laps remaining.

After Verstappen completed the overtaking of Hamilton, Qin Miao began to unleash all of his car’s performance without reservation.

Therefore, Qin Miao is confident not to give Verstappen a chance to attack before the race ends.

Nonetheless, Qin Miao’s concerns seemed somewhat excessive in these last three laps.

What Qin Miao didn’t know was that at this moment, Verstappen’s set of old soft tires had completely lost traction.

After all, he was not Qin Miao, without such an extraordinary ability to manage tires.

Repeated attack attempts had already pushed his tires to the edge of the cliff.

Overtaking Hamilton was entirely due to the help of ERS, DRS, and the slipstream provided by Hamilton. If Hamilton had held off Verstappen’s attack, closing the door in time, then this race’s runner-up would surely have been in Hamilton’s hands.

Unfortunately, there is no if.

Finally, amid the shocked, disappointed, and helpless gaze of the Dutch spectators at the scene, Qin Miao and Verstappen crossed the line 2.4 seconds apart.

Amid the cheers of Qin Miao’s team staff leaning against the pit wall, with Qin Miao’s right hand raised high in celebration, Bing’s excited voice rang out: "Let’s congratulate Chinese driver Qin Miao! Champion! Another race victory secured! This is already the fifth race victory for Qin Miao this season.