This forum contains threads to discuss teams themselves. Anything not technical about the cars, including restructuring, performances etc belongs here.
The season really begins from here.
You always learn more from mistakes, difficult races.
On a positive note, net loss in the WDC and WCC minimal (sans Ferrari in the WCC, and Max in the WDC)
Do you think that the car might not be as dominant as the pundits make it out to be?
Maybe, maybe not.
All this conjecture has been based off two days of testing, and a mixed weather event which is still essentially a test.
These guys use to run thousands of miles before the season ever began, before testing limits. It’s possible Mclaren has a dominate car, it’s also possible they hit the ground running quicker but as new drivers, new drivers / staff to teams, teams understand their cars better, etc. the gap should close. With the testing limits, it’ll be several weekends worth of mileage before you can really shake it out.
Do you think that the car might not be as dominant as the pundits make it out to be?
It's not dominant from what I see. A dominant car would have carved through the field.
The car is the most aero balanced with the best tyre deg I would say and that's it. It's just not a monster like old Merc, and Redbulls of the past.
I think its better like this. A championship where our drivers have to fight instead of domination. That is how real champions are made. Onwards to qualifying. We can bounce back.
Lando seemed not to have more Pace, whereas Oscar looked good if not great, though his tyres had gone after getting past Max whereas Lewis was able to manage his nicely . Lando's issues could be to do with dirty air but Oscar was fine last week behind Lando and he was able to battle with Max for several laps here before getting past. I suspect Lando's little DRS train was the hindrance here. The Mercedes is overall faster than many thought it would be, this week and last, and is a harder car to get past, especially if it also has DRS. Had Antonelli got past Tsunoda then I imagine so would Lando and then Lando would have attacked Antonelli. But it feels like 6th was the best Lando might have had in him today in any case.
A mistake from Lando to put his wheel on the grass and lose places, disappointing but again, it is only sprint.
I still have a feeling that Lando doesn't have quite the right setup, but we'll see how it goes, no excuses now at Qualifying.
A well done to Oscar, he's having a decent weekend and would have had Pole if not for the SQ3 strategy but otherwise it seems like he had little chance of the win so he maxed his points today. Hopefully our boys can fight for Pole shortly.
It's guesswork on my part for setup, probably wishful thinking for Lando, I think sprint just all went wrong for him. But saying the car isn't fast here wouldn't be correct because we can see it has the one lap pace and was good enough for pole and we can see that Oscar had pace today. But if you want to be champion, these are the kinds of mistakes you move past very quickly and he has this chance now with Q. If he gets Pole he'll go a long way to making people forget the sprint.
