Hard to tell really… I guess all teams were on the same situation for the GP and it may have helped some more than others in that regard, but impossible to know who may have made more out of the weekend with a little more time to prepare… Been said that, the MCL35M seemed to be well balanced and with good enough pace (comparing to the rest of the midfield and excluding Ferrari)… So I don’t think that with a normal weekend schedule the pace difference would have been that much different.CjC wrote: ↑21 Jul 2021, 21:31Yea I recall you saying you are in America
I’ve had another thought, has the lack of a normal weekend helped Ferrari/ hindered Mclaren?
As we know Mclaren can benefit from having a strong Friday night data analysis and make changes for the Saturday. Where as at Silverstone parc ferme came in to effect after quali on Friday if I’m not mistaken?
The temperatures played a big role in my opinion… Once it was known that it was going to be hot, I read a couple of analysis that seemed to give Ferrari a boost because of it… After watching Mercedes GP Debrief, they mentioned that on the Medium Tires they were overheating those (which would explain why Mercedes also seem to like cooler temperatures more), while Ferrari seemed to have the Mediums in a great operating Window (Leclerc and Sainz were still having personal bests with very old Mediums after most of the field had pitted)… On the Hard Tires though, both Mercedes and Mclaren seemed to have better pace.
My take so far is that Mclaren seems to be able to put more energy on the tires compared to Ferrari, when the temperatures are high, this means that McLaren is forced to make more compromises (setup / pace) to avoid overheating them, while for Ferrari is the opposite, they struggle with energizing their tires, therefore in warmer temperatures they can push them a bit harder without overheating them, while in cooler temperatures they either can’t have them in the right window or are forced to increase downforce levels in an effort to place more energy into them.
At the end though, I would expect Ferrari to now understand better how to manage their tires in cold conditions to avoid situations like France and they will improve, but with limited development potential and the need to focus resources for next year’s car, how much they can overcome it will be the biggest question… The performance pendulum will keep going back and forth, based on track layout, temperatures, etc for the rest of the season… What is helping McLaren and the key for the fight for P3 will be consistency… Been able to execute like at Silverstone, where they had lesser pace than their rivals, but manage to bring an important amount of points and maximize the result on those races where the performance is in their favor (which is something that Ferrari hasn’t really managed to do yet)… McLaren has been great at minimizing the impact on the points from those GP’s were they didn’t had the pace to be comfortably ahead.
