Chapter 332: Chapter 166: Bahrain Concludes
Qin Miao smiled and nodded, "Thank you."
After the interview ended, Qin Miao turned and went to the preparation room behind the podium, where he would go up to receive his award in a moment.
After reaching the preparation room, Qin Miao saw that Hamilton was sitting there.
Seeing Qin Miao approaching, Hamilton asked curiously, "Qin Miao, what exactly happened afterward?"
Qin Miao didn’t wonder why Hamilton didn’t know about the team’s instructions given to him. Since Hamilton asked, Qin Miao replied, "Around lap 17, Verstappen pitted, and when he came out, he was behind me. After receiving team orders, I defended against him for five laps. Then when he came out after the second pit stop, he was again behind me. This time, considering the tires were degrading quite seriously, I defended him for only three laps."
After hearing Qin Miao’s words, Hamilton looked at him in surprise, genuinely not expecting Qin Miao to be so strong in defense.
On the Sakhir circuit, which is easy to overtake on, he still managed to defend against Verstappen for so many laps.
You must know that Verstappen is not easy to defend against.
Thinking of this, Hamilton couldn’t help but look up to Qin Miao. How come he never noticed Qin Miao had this kind of talent before?
While the two were chatting and waiting for the awards ceremony to start, the director broadcasted today’s final race standings and point scorings.
P1: Hamilton +25
P2: Verstappen +19
P3: Qin Miao +15
P4: Norris +12
P5: Perez +10
P6: Leclerc +8
P7: Ricardo +6
P8: Sainz +4
P9: Tsunoda +2
P10: Stroll +1
Unfortunately, for Mercedes, the fastest lap in this race was taken by Red Bull.
After resting for a while in the preparation room, Qin Miao, under the introduction of the on-site host, walked out of the lounge and onto his first career podium.
After Qin Miao stood in place, the second to go on stage was Verstappen, followed by Hamilton.
Then Hamilton’s engineer; after everyone came up, Qin Miao removed his cap and listened to the two British national anthems, then the award and celebration segment began.
A man wearing a white headscarf, with a large gold chain around his neck, dressed in a black robe, awarded the trophies to Qin Miao and the others.
The trophies for the top three at the Bahrain Grand Prix looked exactly the same, except Qin Miao’s trophy was a bit smaller, two sizes smaller than Hamilton’s and one size smaller than Verstappen’s.
After receiving the trophy, the usual award ceremony music began. Qin Miao poured half of his champagne on Hamilton’s head and splashed quite a bit on Verstappen.
Hamilton wasn’t polite to Qin Miao either, using half of a large bottle of champagne on Qin Miao, and the rest on his track engineer.
After a simple celebration, Hamilton pulled Qin Miao, Verstappen, and his track engineer together on stage for one last celebration, posing for a few pictures taken by the reporters below. With that, the podium segment concluded.
After returning backstage, Qin Miao took his belongings and headed back to the team’s garage.
When he returned to the garage, Toto, smiling from ear to ear, was eager to hug Qin Miao to celebrate today’s superb performance on the track.
But Qin Miao suddenly played a trick, shaking the champagne in his hand abruptly, and a stream of white liquid shot out from the bottle, hitting Toto.
Toto could only helplessly raise his hands to block the stream of champagne coming from Qin Miao’s hand.
After a bit of playful fun, Qin Miao handed the remaining champagne to his crew members. This victory wasn’t just his own; it was also earned by his crew, so the joy of victory should be shared with them.
"Well done, kid," Toto said, patting Qin Miao strongly on the shoulder in his wet clothes.
Qin Miao smiled and said, "It was just a simple thing to do. But by the way, Toto, about my prize money for this race?"
"Of course, prize money of 160,000 US Dollars, not a penny less, and your performance on the track today has also gained the Board’s approval."
Qin Miao was puzzled; what did the board have to do with the prize money?
Seeing Qin Miao a bit confused, Toto explained, "It means your position is basically stable. As long as you don’t make any major mistakes in the upcoming races, you’ll be able to secure the No. 2 driver seat at Mercedes for this season."