However, due to the cornering angle limitations, Qin Miao's attack didn't yield any rewards this time. Taking a crossover line out of the corner only brought Qin Miao closer behind Verstappen.
Moreover, Verstappen had already exhausted his ERS charge within the DRS zone, and the heavy braking at T1 didn't provide much charge.
He basically used up all the charge while accelerating out of T1.
And Qin Miao? His charge was already at 90% on the 18th lap, and he released a wave on that 2.2 km straight, but didn't use it all. After replenishing some charge at T1 and a bit more while tailing Verstappen through T2, Qin Miao still had 30% charge when he entered the DRS zone of the first timing sector after T2.
This time, Qin Miao went hard, directly darted to the inside line with both DRS and ERS, and opened the rich fuel mode fully.
