How Did I Become an F1 Driver?

Chapter 1170 - 442: Qin Miao’s Half Home Field (8K, Yesterday’s Owed - ) (Part 2)

Qin Miao also nodded and then switched to another topic: "By the way, has Geely set up its entire F1 department now?""Not yet, the current plan is not to make changes to the team’s overall framework after the acquisition is completed, but to invest and recruit people under the current team’s framework, slowly replacing the team’s internal key personnel later, but most likely not domestically but rather poaching from other teams."

"By the way, if it’s convenient, could you give me some phone numbers of the Mercedes team executives? I want to see if I can poach a few." Liu Xinyue said seemingly jokingly.

Qin Miao quickly waved his hand: "President Liu, just spare me. I usually contact them via email and rarely make phone calls, plus their emails are public. If you really want to find them, you can completely contact them via email, no need to go through me."

"Hahaha." Liu Xinyue slapped his own head and said: "Look at me, having a drink with world champions today, got a little too tipsy and almost killed the conversation..."

Qin Miao also chuckled along, using Liu Xinyue’s comments to brush off the topic.

After finishing the meal, Qin Miao bid farewell after taking a group photo with Barber and the others.

Of course, Qin Miao couldn’t really freeload off the Geely staff for this meal; Barber had already paid the bill before leaving.

After all, Qin Miao only knew these people, not familiar enough to freeload without psychological burden; he mainly just wanted to find out about Geely’s recent activities and progress during the meal and resolve some inner questions.

After the meal, Qin Miao directly went to the airport with Barber and returned to the UK that night.

After separating at the airport, Qin Miao returned to his familiar home.

The next day, Qin Miao woke up at 7 AM, and after freshening up, he started exercising.

During the exercise, Qin Miao usually turns on his phone or tablet to listen to the latest news from the paddock.

Geely seems not only in contact with Aston Martin but also with Williams and Haas now.

Qin Miao scratched his head, is this preparing to kill three enemies with two peaches?

Scratching his head, Geely appears open with Qin Miao about the acquisition, but remains tight-lipped about key details; Qin Miao doesn’t have many good ways regarding this.

Might as well stop focusing on it; judging by Geely’s attitude now, they’re bound to enter the fray sooner or later, so wait until everything settles then.

Besides this, what makes Qin Miao happiest is having a three-week break.

This break is mainly because a big fur incident happened at home disciplining kids, so the Sochi Grand Prix was canceled.

But the 2022 schedule was set in 2021 and can’t be changed now.

So naturally, this period led to an extra week, considered as an unexpected autumn break.

However, unlike the summer break, during this three-week period, all teams can carry out normal development and design work on the cars.

Consequently, Mercedes will apply considerable upgrades to the cars before the Singapore Grand Prix.

What’s most exciting for Hamilton is that this week the team will bring new cockpit position adjustments.

Meanwhile, there will be new front nose cones and side pod intake designs.

This counts as Mercedes’s most significant and last upgrade for the 2022 season.

But nobody knows how effective these upgrades will be; at least in wind tunnel and CFD simulations, the current aerodynamic efficiency of the car is slightly better than the current half-developed W13.

Indeed, only a little better; this design mainly addresses Hamilton’s requirements, adjusting the cockpit position, changing the car’s center of gravity and characteristics when cornering.

Consider it a turnaround in the car development path.

Under such drastic changes, the car’s performance improvement is really unexpected, normally such big changes should decrease the car’s performance.

Moreover, besides this little point astonishing the team’s development staff, there’s another unexpected matter.

It’s that the speed of this upgrade’s rollout is surprisingly fast.

Originally, the rollout time for this upgrade was estimated around the US Grand Prix.

But in reality, this upgrade sped up by two Grand Prix, about half a month ahead.

Moreover, not just this point; many of the team’s recent upgrades are like this, at least rolling out a week earlier than expected.

Key point is this kind of upgrade is particularly effective; at minimum performance meets design specifications, never falling short of design expectations.

Of course, with Mercedes upgrading here, Red Bull will certainly fit more upgrades on the cars during these three weeks too.

Now all the data comes from wind tunnel and CFD results, and the real effect will depend on the car’s performance at the Marina Bay track in October.

Of course, this week the team also made some upgrades targeting driver comfort for the Marina Bay track.

The temperature during races at Marina Bay track has always been high with lots of humidity.

Plus it’s a street race, the track sides are blocked by guardrails, even at night there’s little wind blowing onto the track, making the Marina Bay track very stuffy.