However, what Qin Miao didn't know was that while Mercedes was celebrating and feeling confident about Sunday's race, Toto had dialed the FIA's phone number.
Before Toto left his seat, the screen in front of him showed the public telemetry data of Verstappen's car during the time when Gasly's tire blew, causing a yellow flag.
It was pretty much showing data like throttle depth and braking force.
And Verstappen's telemetry data showed that during the yellow flag, Verstappen didn't even slow down, let alone ease the throttle off his car.
...
In the end, most drivers didn't complete their final flying lap in Q3 due to these two yellow flags, and the drivers behind never managed to improve their times.
Thus, the Q3 standings were frozen as follows.
1: Hamilton
2: Verstappen
3: Qin Miao
4: Gasly
5: Alonso
6: Norris
7: Sainz
8: Tsunoda
9: O'Kang
10: Vettel
...
