Chapter 250 - 139: Messages from the Paddock (6K, Bonus 15/24)

Words : 858 Updated : Sep 27th, 2025

There’s nothing much to say about this. Qin Miao has not missed any post-race interviews so far, so even though he hasn’t received specific training for interviews, he knows exactly what to say and what not to say during the process.After the interview, the three of them went up to the podium together. Normally, during this process, the director would show some highlights like the exciting overtakes during the race. But this time, the director focused on the three of them walking up to the podium. At that moment, they caught Qin Miao and Zhou Guanyu childishly hooking each other’s shoulders, pushing and shoving each other as they climbed the stairs, arm over shoulder. "They really get along well." This was yet another time that Fei remarked on the good relationship between the two young men. There wasn’t much to say about the following process: national anthem, receiving the awards, and spraying champagne. During the champagne spraying stage, neither Qin Miao nor Zhou Guanyu spared each other. In the past, Qin Miao would still have about two-thirds of the champagne left in the bottle after this segment. But this time, Qin Miao poured all of it onto Zhou Guanyu, not a single drop left, all on Zhou Guanyu’s head. The brand new Pirelli champion cap was soaked through. Qin Miao wasn’t much better off; the front and back of his clothes were completely wet. The front was sprayed by Zhou Guanyu, and the back was drenched by Mazepin and Frankie. Anyway, the British Grand Prix ended here. The rankings and scores for this race are as follows: Qin Miao +25 Zhou Guanyu +20 Mazepin +15 Tsunoda +12 Long Jia De +10 Ilott +8 Dretraz +6 Drogovich +4 Ticktum +2 Mick +1 Zhou Guanyu’s twenty points were because he pitted on lap 21 for a set of soft tires, and with the light fuel load and the terrifying grip of the soft tires, he snatched the fastest lap from Qin Miao. If I remember correctly, this is already the second fastest lap Zhou Guanyu took from Qin Miao. Qin Miao only found out about this after the race, and he didn’t mind. It was just two points and didn’t affect the final result much. What made Qin Miao most pleased was his teammate Mick Schumacher’s poor performance today, only managing to secure one point. Although strictly speaking, Qin Miao and Mick aren’t really enemies, they just find each other unpleasant. But they do share the identity of being teammates. In a racing team, a teammate is basically no different from an enemy. After all, you and your teammate’s car setups are roughly the same, making comparisons intentional or not inevitable. But since the first F2 race of the 2020 season, Qin Miao has completely dominated Mick, undefeated, and can say he has thoroughly trounced his teammate Mick Schumacher. Even so, Qin Miao doesn’t mind seeing his teammate in trouble. After this race, Zhou Guanyu finished second and moved up to second place in the rankings, surpassing his teammate Ilott by one point. However, compared to Qin Miao’s 150 points, Zhou Guanyu’s 59 points seem insignificant. After the race, a brief meeting was held, and then the team disbanded, everyone going their separate ways. Just like yesterday, Qin Miao remained indifferent to Ferrari’s invitation and went straight to Zhou Guanyu’s house after the race, continuing to practice. Qin Miao’s repeated rejections also made Ferrari notice something unusual. Refusing Ferrari’s invitation for the first time could be understood, as anyone might have urgent matters. But Qin Miao repeatedly declining Ferrari’s invitations made even a dense and bureaucratic Ferrari realize something was off with Qin Miao. Without much thinking, they knew why Qin Miao was behaving this way, but Binotto was helpless when he noticed Qin Miao’s somewhat immature conduct. He could actually see the talent in Qin Miao, so after signing a driver contract with Qin Miao, as long as Qin Miao’s first-year performance wasn’t too poor, he would offer Qin Miao another contract, giving him enough time to grow. But he didn’t expect that once the Ferrari top brass found out about Qin Miao’s lacking Rain Combat Ability, they immediately lost confidence in him and started contacting people at McLaren, trying to sign the current McLaren driver Sainz. Binotto doesn’t deny Sainz’s ability, but in his view, Qin Miao’s talent surpasses Sainz. But unfortunately, Qin Miao isn’t from Europe, America, or Russia; he’s from China. It’s not that being from China is bad, but in a predominantly European paddock, it’s hard to gain recognition and easy to face subtle racism. The Ferrari top management’s distrust of Qin Miao’s strength is a kind of discrimination. Binotto had long known that Ferrari’s top executives might look for another driver to replace Vettel’s position, but he believed that with Qin Miao’s strength, that position would inevitably belong to Qin Miao in the end. So he didn’t put too much into this matter. Binotto subconsciously believed that even if Qin Miao received this news, he could remain calm and keep a cool head, continuing to complete his duties with an ordinary mindset.

Chapter 250 - 139: Messages from the Paddock (6K, Bonus 15/24)

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