Chapter 1204: Chapter 455: The FIA That Never Learns Its Lesson
After reluctantly letting Sainz pass, Qin Miao felt uncomfortable.
Because the spray from Sainz’s car in front was quite heavy. Although Qin Miao’s helmet visor had a special hydrophobic coating, rainwater didn’t stick to it and was quickly blown away by the wind.
But you can’t help it if a car in front is constantly sending water spray toward your car.
Whenever Qin Miao got a bit closer to Sainz, he couldn’t see Sainz driving in the racing line and could only determine Sainz’s position through the car’s rear lights.
Qin Miao sighed helplessly and started to consider whether to find an opportunity to have the team call him into the pit early or perhaps make a very late pit stop.
To use the pit lane and Ferrari’s somewhat abstract pit strategy this season to deal with Ferrari in the pit stop.
Just as Qin Miao was thinking about these things, a series of unexpected incidents occurred on the track.
When Sainz arrived at T12, he hadn’t even reached the braking point for T12, just a slight throttle lift in dry conditions would have sufficed around the bend.
Sainz’s car suddenly lost all grip, the car skidded to the right, finally lost control as it swept across the T12 apex, onto the grass outside, and eventually, under the influence of track curvature, came back onto the track without slowing down, directly crashing into the left wall between T12 and T13, finally stopping on the track.
Qin Miao, who was following Sainz closely, was naturally startled by this sudden accident.
However, Qin Miao timely applied an extra brake to avoid getting caught up in the incident.
During this, Sainz shattered a Rolex advertisement board.
Although the board didn’t hit Qin Miao’s car, the airflow from Qin Miao’s rear diffuser made the board hover in the air a bit longer.
It was then affected by the airflow of a few drivers behind.
Finally, coincidentally, the board landed right on Gasly’s car, which today started from the pit after changing its front wing and suspension settings, taking out the front wing of the small Red Bull as well.
Besides, the yellow flag at the start which forced Qin Miao to abandon the attack on Sainz was due to an incident with Vettel after the start.
At that time, Vettel’s start was very fast, and he made the same choice as Qin Miao to overtake on the outside. The choice wasn’t wrong; he gained four places with it. However, at the T1 braking point, Vettel, braking late for the turn, collided with Alonso’s left front wheel on his right inside line.
Vettel’s car was entering the turn, and all four tires were on the limit of grip. This collision caused Vettel’s car to lose control and crash into the runoff area behind T1.
However, these veteran drivers, in comparison to rookies like Qin Miao, have an enviable skill by many small teams: spinning without crashing.
Even though Vettel’s car lost grip on all four tires due to the collision and shot into the runoff area, his car did not crash during this process and therefore was undamaged.
But the cost was Vettel dropping to last place, even behind Gasly, who started from the pit.
Moreover, Albon’s car retired. He was hit at the start, and the car’s hydraulic system malfunctioned, making braking ineffective with efficiency and precision significantly reduced.
This kind of incident could perhaps allow one to drive back to the pits on a dry track, but in such a wet environment, Albon could only helplessly retire his car at the entrance of Matthew’s pit.
After this car crash and major retirements, the current driver standings on the track are as follows:
1: Verstappen
2: Leclerc
3: Hamilton
4: Qin Miao
5: Perez
6: O’Kang
7: Zhou Guanyu
8: Alonso
9: Ricardo
10: Tsunoda
With so many incidents, the safety car was naturally deployed immediately.
And as the race entered the third lap, the safety car was turned into a red flag.
Because there were so many accidents and incidents on the track under a rainfall amount that the FIA deemed permissible for continuation, and now that the rain had increased, the FIA decided to suspend the race.
Suspending the race now would perhaps just result in some curses from the Japanese fans on-site, but if the race continued and a major accident occurred, the FIA would be criticized for a year.
Even some top executives of the FIA might lose a few due to this accident.
So, the red flag appeared on the track, as expected.
Before this red flag, while the safety car was leading all F1 cars behind it, Gasly emerged from the pit with a new front wing and naturally started chasing the car train led by the safety car ahead of him.
But during this process, a crane had already entered the track to start lifting Sainz’s damaged car.
At this time, Gasly did not slow down; he was chasing the safety car, not cruising under its lead, essentially continuing at race pace.
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