But at this point, Qin Miao still had no intention of pitting. With the aid of his skills and his deliberate tire-conserving driving style, the average wear of Qin Miao's set of soft tires was only 31%, and he hadn't even reached the grip cliff point.
The cliff point, as the name suggests, has a strong correlation between tire wear and tire grip.
As the tires wear out, the tire grip gradually decreases, but this decline is very gradual.
Once the tire wear reaches a certain point, the rate of grip decline will suddenly accelerate. This point is the tire's cliff point.
On lap twenty-six, Zhou Guanyu's car encountered a gearbox issue coming out of T1, though not to the extent of stopping on the track. He couldn't shift to a higher gear, which significantly reduced his speed.
On lap twenty-seven, Zhou Guanyu pitted for repairs. When he re-entered the track, he had fallen to the back of the pack, just ahead of Qin Miao.
