Sprint isn't very reliable metric, as mercedes probably made the car worse given their comments, whereas mclaren made it better for main Q and the race. Anyway I’m not saying he would be fighting them on genuine pace, but he would at least still be there closer than Lewis and Max were to capitalize on their mistakes. as you said Norris was between Merca in sprint only because them fighting and losing time and it was not at all different during the first 30 laps of the p race on Sunday. They were making even more mistakes and losing a lot of racetime, at least 8-10 sec by my estimations.AR3-GP wrote: ↑25 May 2026, 19:43Mclarens had no chance. At the start of the sprint, the Mercs were half a second a lap quicker than Lando while having 6 lap old mediums when Lando had new ones.avantman wrote: ↑25 May 2026, 19:36…Than Ferrari and Red bull, we can not say the same about Mclaren yet, can we?. Would be interesting to see Merc real pace next to Norris in a normal Canadian race - the only driver-car combo that was capable of challenging them or at least come anywhere near with some extra luck, as we saw both in Miami and Canada sprint. Red bull and Ferrari have zero chance even with all the luck.AR3-GP wrote: ↑25 May 2026, 18:32https://i.postimg.cc/DfDymGK8/image.png
Mercedes are in a completely different universe.
Too bad mclaren did their best to prevent Lando from defending his title, as he was the only one capable of making this season somewhat remotely exciting, providing Mclaren next updates work. After Canada he officially has no chance given the points gap. This now feels like 2014 all over again, but with lower quality drivers in Mercedes cockpits.The only reason he got involved in the sprint later on is because the Mercs started fighting really hard and losing time.
https://i.postimg.cc/5NjwhTwr/image.png
Stella also said after the race that he didn't feel that Mclaren could have done much to trouble the Mercs. Mclarens would have been around where Hamilton was. On top of that, they appear to have bungled their first upgrade in a long while. This carries a high penalty with the budget cap and limited development hours. You've sunk cost and resources with no benefit. Even if they go back to the windtunnel and tweak it, they still wasted resources that they could hardly afford to since they have the smallest windtunnel and CFD allocations.
The season is a write off after 5 races. It is what it is.
Without Mclaren and Norris behind them Mercedes drivers can make every mistake in the world, collect two 5 second penalties for track limits (Kimi was in three strikes by the way) and still win with ease having only red bull or ferrari behind . Norris would certainly be much closer than Lewis was and Mclaren with failed upgrades or without is still certainly by far the faster car, especially on a power circuit such as Canada. Canadian Sprint laptime data which you referred to backs that up. Probability of him winning that was of course very low, that would make the race much more exciting and forced mercedes show more of their true pace on the 2nd stint.
