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A wonderful race for McLaren fans! I'm very happy for the team. High racing pace, quite good pit stops. Due to our speed, we got to where we wanted to go, consistently. mwillems turned out to be more accurate in his predictions. Well done!
I'm glad that Lando and Oscar were able to ride at a high pace during the race. This means the car can save its tires.
Where are my Rubles
I'm even more pleased for Carlos, without his medical issues he'd be leading the drivers championship.
I think that RB won't have it all their way at Suzuka and I think that we will have a shot at beating Ferrari there.
I didn't watch the race. It reads like we lost on strategy but I'm not sure how true it is but we weren't far behind the Ferraris at the finish.
Overall the strategy was fine. The pace was also high, I would say we were driving almost on par with the Ferrari. I agree, I'm happy for Carlos too. There are no rubles, but you hold on!
I am happy with today race. We were on par with Ferrari for almost entire race. Sainz was on fire today but Leclerc was on sights for Lando at least. Ok, is a track where McLaren is feeling good, but let's be positive. Good things are coming. And I know one day this year will se P1 on Lando or Oscar race result
Leclerc gambled with a super early stop lap 9 stop (and Piastri pitted on the same lap). Lando stayed out just like Sainz. Unfortunately Leclerc cleared non stoppers quickly and immediately undercut Lando. On the second pitstop, McLaren made a call to Lando to pit and on the same lap Leclerc is called in - after which Lando does the opposite (usual way to deal with this). This second stop was quite early for Lando and would have put him in traffic. Leclerc was also quite lucky in that he ended up just ahead of traffic so he had time to bring his tyres in.
There was not much to do except hope for a miracle, get Lando in on Lap 9 or 8 which was much earlier than predicted, or to go alternate strategy with a long first stint.
In the end, Lando was catching up to Leclerc but didn't get closer than 2 seconds. On team radio he was frustrated that Leclerc was lucky with several backmarkers giving him DRS in a good spot while Lando caught up at bad points of the track. But that is life.
Let's take away the positives from the race, the car was good on tires, the car had pace similar to Ferrari (for example Lando was reducing gap to Sainz in the last stint where Sainz reported issues with tires). Big unknown is how good the pace would be to VER.
And to finish it off, team and drivers were united and maximized our pace by having Oscar wave Lando through when Lando caught up to him. That is how you go about things, you are a team and if the second driver has better pace you should let him through. We will see if there will be outcry about team orders this time around but maybe not as Piastri didn't show pace to follow Lando after that.
I've seem some nonsense regarding the strategy. Saying not aggressive enough, which doesn't really mean anything. Even saying should have been on medium at the end. There was a reason no one was on mediums.
Not sure what gaps existed, but we are potentially a bit more limited with undercuts as we struggle more to get past our competitors, so the undercuts may not always be that tempting for us and the team may have thought that with this in mind, the safer chance of keeping higher up the grid was to stay out at that first stop.
Undercutting definitely has its risks in a car that struggles to overtake... still, splitting the strategy a again at the first stop was in itself showing a desire to see what works and take a chance, a little bit more aggressive in strategy rather than passive... if indeed there was traffic.
I havent seen the race and I now regretted it. 3-4 for Mclaren and a podium already which could have been higher due to unlucky circumstances. Onwards to Japan and the first upgrade. We dont seem to be that far from first victory.
I havent seen the race and I now regretted it. 3-4 for Mclaren and a podium already which could have been higher due to unlucky circumstances. Onwards to Japan and the first upgrade. We dont seem to be that far from first victory.
Errrr no we got a podium because of lucky circumstances and Leclerc got past us due to a well executed strategy, nothing unlucky about that.
I dont disagree but I heard we could have released Lando on clear air instead of traffic. We could have managed 2nd. Still Im ok even with 3-4. Ive seen the standings and its safe to say considering Perez is below average if we repeat last years upgrades we might have a chance at the Constructors because as you can see mechanical problems do exist.
Well done, Lando wanted to try for fastest lap in the end, but the crash did not let him. Strategy was fine, sometimes it comes out like it did today. P2 was achievable which is certainly nice.
Just hoping McLaren will be able to take the win soon when such opportunity presents itself.
They have had a relatively big gap to Ferrari the first two races. That gap was not the same here so that's encouraging. It's down to the first round of big upgrades now and whose will be more effective.
I've seem some nonsense regarding the strategy. Saying not aggressive enough, which doesn't really mean anything. Even saying should have been on medium at the end. There was a reason no one was on mediums.
Plus we had no mediums. Pretty much the whole grid had one medium and two hards.
