Chapter 387: Chapter 184: Brothers Racing
After exiting T15, Verstappen was slightly opened up, and Qin Miao noticed that Verstappen was biting about 0.6 seconds behind him, a distance just enough for Verstappen to use DRS and ERS along with the slipstream to gain enough relative speed on the upcoming straight.
The two of them arrived at the start-finish straight one after the other, and after passing the DRS detection zone, Verstappen opened his DRS.
In front, Qin Miao also went full throttle, coupled with maximum ERS deployment.
But despite this, Verstappen behind him still pursued Qin Miao at an extremely terrifying closing speed.
The moment Qin Miao noticed this, he began weaving left and right, but despite this, the DRS advantage of the Red Bull was just too significant, and even if Qin Miao weaved, Verstappen could easily keep up with Qin Miao’s weaving rhythm.
So just after crossing the finish line, Verstappen was 0.1 seconds behind Qin Miao, pulling to the outside line.
And seeing Qin Miao, who was at a loss, merely guarding the inside hoping to out-brake him, Verstappen’s mouth, covered by the padded headrest, couldn’t help but curl into a smug arc.
No matter how strong your defensive skills are, Qin Miao, in the face of my absolute strength, you still have to obediently meet the fate of being overtaken by me.
But as he lined up with Qin Miao, Verstappen noticed a somewhat significant drop in his car’s speed until he realized that today’s start-finish straight was facing headwind, no wonder his DRS effect was so good today.
Even though the DRS effect had noticeably weakened, Verstappen’s speed was still faster than Qin Miao.
After covering two-thirds of the start-finish straight, Verstappen completed lining up on the outside against Qin Miao, and as they reached the braking point, three-quarters of his RB16B was ahead of Qin Miao, effectively completing the overtake.
But at this moment, Verstappen suddenly felt that the Mercedes car behind him was particularly eye-catching, always unintentionally capturing his attention, subconsciously wanting to focus more on the car behind.
Indeed, the moment Verstappen overtook him, Qin Miao used a skill on Verstappen.
Only, the current pressure level on Verstappen was just 1%, so its effect on him wasn’t very significant.
But that 1% was not without any impact.
On this corner, where Qin Miao late braked, Verstappen would take a crossover line, if Qin Miao took a normal entry, Verstappen would enter early to block Qin Miao’s entry line.
And to Verstappen, Qin Miao seemed to be in a desperate struggle before being overtaken, choosing to brake late and adjusting his braking balance to the rear, turning left during braking, sticking closely to Verstappen’s car.
The two cars thus entered the corner wheel-to-wheel.
Qin Miao did this with no other intention but to rely on his front wheels being in front of Verstappen’s rear wheels, forcing his way to a wider entry line and then pushing hard through the apex.
Exiting T1, the apex wasn’t filled, while under Verstappen’s normal racing line, he wouldn’t take the apex either, so this time Qin Miao squeezing behind Verstappen into the turn could only count as a wheel-to-wheel entry without any violation.
After the corner, Qin Miao obviously squeezed Verstappen’s corner exit space, but conveniently left enough track width on the outside for Verstappen so he wouldn’t go off the track.
If Red Bull were to protest, the race director couldn’t fault Qin Miao’s squeezing of Verstappen after reviewing the footage.
However, Verstappen unexpectedly chose to brake, avoiding Qin Miao’s squeeze because he was faster exiting the corner than Qin Miao, and maintaining his speed might’ve caused the rear wheels to lose grip.
Thus, Verstappen’s attack was deemed a failure.
As for how much Verstappen’s choice was influenced by Qin Miao’s skill was unknown.
In any case, after defending against Verstappen’s attack, Qin Miao’s skill lock on Verstappen was lifted, because the skill limit only allowed locking onto the driver in front of him, and after unlocking, it entered a long 20-minute cooldown.