At this point the gap between Verstappen and Alonso had already been stretched to 1.8 seconds.
And the gap between Qin Miao and Verstappen had grown to 2.7 seconds.
To be honest, sometimes Qin Miao also felt that the performance gap between the Mercedes and Red Bull cars versus the midfield pack was a bit too big.
It's only been a few laps since the race started, and the gaps are already this large.
After completing the overtake on the Young Master, Qin Miao began steadily closing the gap to Alonso.
Qin Miao only caught up to Alonso at the end of lap 12.
Qin Miao was well aware of Alonso's defensive ability; in fact not just Alonso—once an F1 driver is a certain age, their defensive craft is rarely weak.
After all, defending against the car behind is more about experience than pure technique most of the time.
So Qin Miao knew Alonso wasn't as easy to handle as Stroll; if he wanted to pass Alonso, he had to use the speed advantage from DRS in the DRS zones.
