Finally, after 8 more laps, on the 70th lap, when Sainz's pressure reached 97%, Qin Miao finally caught Sainz's mistake.

At that time, Sainz wanted to slightly widen the distance between himself and Qin Miao behind him. After all, just taking a glance at the rear-view mirror and seeing a Mercedes almost stuck to your car from behind is quite a creepy feeling.

So, after narrowly scraping past the T15 apex barrier, Sainz got slightly ahead of himself by accelerating a bit too early due to tension, which resulted in understeering that made it impossible for the car to straighten going into T16.

Noticing this instantly, Sainz held up against the pressure tailing from Qin Miao behind him and executed an extreme heavy braking that managed to reduce his speed without locking the tires, but this heavy brake meant Sainz couldn't steer anymore, ultimately causing Sainz's front wing to scrape the curb and lift off the ground.

The good news is that because of the braking before the corner, Sainz eventually landed and steadied his car without crashing into the front barrier.

The bad news, however, was that Qin Miao seized the opportunity of Sainz's mistake and overtook him after exiting T16.

"Nice!" Zhou Guanyu, watching the race with Qimeng in the Mercedes team pit box, stood up with all the staff in the Mercedes pit box, cheering loudly.

From the moment Qin Miao got behind Sainz and constantly pressured him within a 0.5-second gap, everyone at Mercedes was filled with anticipation and tension.

If the anticipation is simply for an event, like waiting for your birthday or a game's release.

Over time, this emotion would gradually fade away.

But if you add a layer of tension to this anticipation, then the emotion will resemble strong liquor, becoming more intoxicating the longer you wait.

After a long 15 laps of waiting, they finally got the result they wanted.

So, the joy was like an electric current quickly spreading through their bodies, everyone was thrilled, as if the person dominating the race was not Qin Miao, but themselves.

Toto also smiled at this scene, and even Hamilton's struggle to progress from eighth place didn't seem so unbearable at this moment.

In stark contrast to the joyful cheers at the Mercedes pit box was the Ferrari pit box not far away.

At this moment, silence prevailed in the Ferrari pit box, spreading a sense of solemnity among all of Ferrari's staff.

Ferrari indeed had a miserable race today.

No. 1 driver Leclerc couldn't escape the home race curse, failing to even start the race in Monte Carlo.

And the other driver, Sainz, could have comfortably brought home a second place but was pressured and forced into a mistake by Qin Miao, who has a complicated relationship with Ferrari, thus losing second place.

Considering Qin Miao's formidable defensive skills and the 12 laps remaining in the race.

Everyone at Ferrari felt as if in mourning.

Moreover, it's worth mentioning that after Qin Miao overtook Sainz, the broadcast displayed the lap time comparison between Qin Miao and Verstappen.

Qin Miao was 0.7 seconds faster per lap than Verstappen, and the time gap between them was five seconds at that moment.

Meaning Qin Miao needed only six laps to catch up with Verstappen, but there would only be six laps left until the end of the race once he catches up.

Realizing this, the Mercedes staff, who were just cheering for Qin Miao, sat back down and began to anticipate the finish again.

After Qin Miao completed the overtake on Sainz, the team naturally praised Qin Miao profusely over the TR (Team Radio).

However, Qin Miao didn't pay any attention to Sainz, whom he had already overtaken. Instead, he focused all his attention on Verstappen ahead.

It took Qin Miao a massive effort to overtake Sainz, and now, going to overtake Verstappen, who is superior to Sainz in both skill and talent, Qin Miao wasn't very confident.

But he had to try, after all, trying doesn't cost anything.

However, what Qin Miao didn't expect was that seeing Qin Miao began to accelerate to catch up, Verstappen, who had been driving at a leisurely pace, suddenly increased his speed.

Then the initial closing rate of 0.7 seconds per lap between the two turned into 0.3 seconds per lap.

In this way, Qin Miao wouldn't be able to catch Verstappen even if he ran until the race ended.

Afterward, the race fell into calmness.

Although Qin Miao wasn't able to slice through the competition and even overtake Verstappen as his fans and the Mercedes team staff had hoped.

But starting from twelfth and ultimately chasing down to second was undoubtedly an impressive result.

On the 78th lap, Qin Miao crossed the line behind Verstappen, trailing by 2.7 seconds.

As he crossed the finish line, Qin Miao also saw Reyes and the other crew members leaning against the barrier trackside.

Three seconds behind Qin Miao was Sainz, marking Ferrari's first podium of the year.

Finally, the final standings and point scores for this race were as follows:

P1: Verstappen +25

P2: Qin Miao +19 (fastest lap)

P3: Sainz +14

P4: Norris +12

P5: Perez +10

P6: Vettel +8

P7: Gasly +6

P8: Hamilton +4

P9: Stroll +2

P10: O'Kang +1

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