How Did I Become an F1 Driver?

Qin Miao seeing this, could only smile helplessly.

Throwing his luggage into Zhou Guanyu's arms, Qin Miao said casually, "If you want to eat, you better get your attitude right. This bag is yours to carry."

Zhou Guanyu, not bothered, even opened Qin Miao's bag, peeking inside as he curiously asked, "Where's the hot pot base? Did you bring it over?"

Qin Miao casually replied, "Didn't bring it."

Upon hearing Qin Miao's words, Zhou Guanyu's smile froze on his face, and his expression turned cold.

He tossed the bag back to Qin Miao and was ready to leave.

"Seems like you're a dog face..." Qin Miao rubbed his chest, bruised by the laptop in the bag, and complained before leisurely saying, "But Qimeng will come tomorrow; he'll bring the pot and the hot pot base."

"Hey hey hey, Shui bro, I was just joking with you earlier. Don't mind it, we're bros!" Zhou Guanyu quickly came over again, with a fawning smile.

Qin Miao shook his head helplessly.

But at the end of the day, it was Qin Miao being unreasonable. After all, he had promised to treat Zhou Guanyu and Leclerc to hot pot on Thursday, but come Thursday, he hadn't brought the hot pot. He stood both of them up, which was quite embarrassing.

The main reason was that Qin Miao had forgotten his mom had mailed the hot pot base to Vicenza, and he recently got busy with meetings and work.

So when Leclerc arrived, the three searched for a hot pot restaurant on Google Maps to make do.

The restaurant was indeed run by two Chinese people, speaking authentic Cantonese.

But when they really started ordering and eating, the taste was not what they expected, whereas Leclerc, the foreigner, was enjoying it.

The same food grew on domestic soil tastes different from when grown abroad.

So you can't blame the restaurant owner's cooking skills.

Nonetheless, after a hot pot meal, it satiated Zhou Guanyu's craving a bit and satisfied Leclerc's curiosity.

At night, the three left and after returning to the hotel, they played a couple of games together before logging off to sleep.

The next day, F2 practice session in the morning, qualifying session in the afternoon, F1 practice one in the morning, practice two in the afternoon.

For Qin Miao, the weather today was just as unfriendly to him as last week.

Even though the climate was comfortable, with a felt temperature of only 27 degrees, enough to wear long sleeves outside, the entire sky was overcast with drizzling rain.

The Hengelo track is usually dry, having only rained once during a formal F1 race since it started hosting the Grand Prix in 1986.

In this typically dry and cool place, it just happened to rain again today.

Qin Miao was resigned, starting to have thoughts that the heavens were against him, giving him bad luck.

He sighed and headed out.

Arriving at the paddock.

Nothing much to say about the practice session; the morning rain wasn't heavy, just a drizzle, and the track didn't have puddles. By the time F2 cars switched to wet tires and took a few laps, the surface was almost dry.

After Qin Miao went on track, he mainly validated some small techniques he noticed yesterday while walking the track, and saw exactly how certain curbs affected his car. Only after that did he search for a setup that felt comfortable to use.

To be honest, given it's a low-speed track full of bends that make overtaking difficult, the mainstream setup is high downforce.

As he spent the whole session looking for a comfortable driving rhythm and adapting to the slippery track conditions, Qin Miao didn't bother with lap times.

Though he did end up with a somewhat suitable setup by the end of practice, it was definitely not tailored best for the track.

In the afternoon, Qimeng arrived with bags full.

But she didn't disturb Qin Miao's work; she asked for the hotel room key from Qin Miao and went back to the hotel.

Because the team knew Qin Miao's girlfriend was also his manager, they were always sticking together, Prema naturally arranged top-quality accommodation for the big brother of their team.

Though it wasn't an extravagant presidential suite or anything like that.

It wasn't lacking either; it was a family-style hotel room with one bedroom, two living rooms, one bathroom, and a balcony.

So Qin Miao's room had the conditions for cooking hot pot, only limited to using an induction cooker.

Knowing Zhou Guanyu wanted to eat hot pot, and coincidentally, Qin Miao's mom had sent over plenty of hot pot base from home, since he wanted to eat, Qimeng started preparing.

In reality, the food itself wasn't the problem; the real challenge was finding a pot for hot pot since abroad it's impossible to find the type of yin-yang pot Qimeng was looking for.

Qimeng spent a long time searching, and finally found a yin-yang pot in a local Chinese restaurant in Vicenza.

This wasn't an item on their menu; it was what they used when they had hot pot themselves.

Initially, when Qimeng asked them for it, they weren't willing to give it, understandably, as they only had one pot themselves.

Qimeng eventually convinced them she'd only borrow it and paid a deposit of two hundred euros, to rent it from them, and would return it to Vicenza three days later.

It's fair to say Qimeng truly went to great lengths for Qin Miao, Zhou, and Leclerc to enjoy a hot pot meal.