godlameroso wrote: ↑11 Nov 2019, 18:15
The difference is just over a second which is still a big gap, part of the McLaren's step forward has been Renault's power unit improvement. You can clearly see Sains is much faster than Alonso on the straights. If they want to challenge both will need a step forward next season. To be honest their fight with Renault is plenty motivation to close the gap to the front because in race trim their car seems to be slightly faster than the McLaren. Perhaps if McLaren was comfortably ahead of the midfield it would hamper their development since they'd be feeling less pressure to stay ahead of those behind them.
McLaren and Renault have each other to drive their chassis designs forward because they have a known baseline to work around. The gap between the two comes down to the chassis aero drivers and team, precisely what they need to catch up to the front.
I think it has been a big step forward, Sainz himself noticed the difference in power between this year and last years car, and stated that "the issue with speed this year won't be down to the engine".
But the point I make is about the time remaining to bridge not the time already made up. The time to make up is unlikely to be the engine I think. Especially consider that at least for some part of the year, Honda was likely to be either on a par or behind the Renault. Since the gap to RB has not decreased, I do think that most of the deficit between us and them is car.
As for the difference on the straights, if we can only exit corners slowly with the 2018 car, the straights will be slow, particularly if we are running higher downforce because of the car's poor chassis. Not sure you can compare 2018 to 2019 performance that easily, other than to say 2018 was way slower.
