the EDGE wrote: ↑20 Jun 2021, 10:51
Emag wrote: ↑20 Jun 2021, 10:23
MrGapes wrote: ↑20 Jun 2021, 02:44
I honestly think this is a great opportunity for McLaren, this could be a mini championship if you like, the truth is when they do fight for a championship they will be fighting the likes of Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari, this development and on track battle with Ferrari will hopefully push them, and show them what it takes to take on one of the big three in this era.
Relatively speaking, they haven't been able to keep up with Ferrari. They started the season with cars that seemed pretty equal, but Ferrari has managed to get better.
McLaren on the other hand looks like it has stagnated. Not only is Ferrari ahead right now, but other teams have gotten closer as well.
Honestly, a bit disappointed with how the season has progressed so far. Firstly, because they haven't been able to keep up on the development battle, but also because Ricciardo has been a huge letdown.
I never would have thought that Daniel was going to be a downgrade to Carlos. Instead, he has been getting manhandled by Lando this first part of the season.
Obviously, there is a chance he might bounce back later, but the team has lost a lot of points at this point. And with the car getting worse relative to the competition, I fear Daniel will be too late in joining the party.
I think people are panicking over nothing. McLaren's quali pace has been poor all season, I think it has to do with tyres. Others are getting more out of them in quali where as McLaren gets more out of them on Sundays. We new from the testing performance was going to swing throughout the midfield across the season depending on track characteristics , this is what we are seeing. If it wasn't for Lando's penalty in Baku he would probably finished 2nd
Look at the positives... 2 cars in the top 10 again, Daniel closer to Lando, cars closer to top teams than last year, a car thats working to some extent everywhere, big haul of points from the opening rounds,
Has it really been better on Sunday though? Disregarding Bahrain (where Lando was clearly faster than both Ferraris), let's look at the other races.
Imola -> Ferrari were undoubtedly faster in the race. Charles pulled 20 something seconds on Lando in his first stint. They just couldn't overtake Lando on the end because the pace differential wasn't big enough to overtake in that track. Even Lewis had something of a hard time getting by Lando.
Portugal -> Pace was somewhat equal, but Ferrari were struggling hard on the mediums. Leclerc dropped back on his first stint on that tire and Carlos was nowhere in terms of pace on his medium stint,
Spain -> There's really nothing to say here. Ferrari were clearly the faster car. And by some margin as well (at least 0.25 per lap).
Monaco -> Again, the difference wasn't huge, but Ferrari still were clearly faster.
Azerbaijan -> This one is tough to judge because traffic played a big role. But I would say at best they were equal here. Similar to Portugal.
Let's be completely honest with ourselves here. Apart from Bahrain, McLaren never seemed like it was clearly the faster car compared to Ferrari. Even in the races where they did better than Ferrari, the difference was negligible. On the other hand, when Ferrari was better, they had a decent margin.
