2025 Season: Pecking order discussion

[Farnborough]

They appear to be moving slowly (W15 was quite progressive I feel) toward their immediate contemporary teams with W16 fairly subtle evolution.

Hard to read the overall grouping though with information available up to now. General paddock opinion would seem to be consistent in pointing at McL as noted front runners. Very close to finding out now though.

A very sharp front end can be a liability at the extremes if track were to be wet (McL observations) as it really puts a premium on rear grip being available to hold onto that. Reduction in track and tyre performance can make that spectacular OR spectacularly demanding of driver skill, but ultimately need tempering in pace in keeping it on track.

Can't wait to find out who's where though. A much anticipated season is about to begin.

[Seanspeed]

I guess I am still in denial of McLarens success. McLaren was so consistently that team that could never make that next step. Going back to 2021. I thought it was a mistake for Lando Norris to sign with McLaren again. It seemed like he did it to be loyal.

Even the team was in denial of their success last year. That is partly why they made the strategy errors that they did. Zak Brown thought early last year that his biggest problem was going to be VCARB.

As a long time Ferrari fan, nobody likes to see Mclaren succeed and have title-winning machinery more than me. But I dont let those feelings get in the way of how I see things.

Mclaren made some organization changes that clearly worked wonders and they've made seriously big steps every year for the past few years. The consistency of improvement shows it wasn't any one-off and that they truly seem to understand the current regulations the best now. That's usually an advantage that sticks, much like in 2013 when Red Bull had their most dominant year ever in those 2009-2013 era regulations.

[ali623]

This is what Lawrence Baretto from Formula1.com took away from Testing:
https://media.formula1.com/image/upload ... %20Lap%203
https://media.formula1.com/image/upload ... %20Lap%203

Usually, these analysis do not seem that bad.
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/arti ... 3eX8oB7tHp

Decided to do a quick average of each teams qualifying and race pace over the first few weekends to see how this stacked up:

Qualifying

McLaren
Red Bull +0.14
Mercedes +0.3
Ferrari +0.3
Racing Bulls +0.63
Williams +0.84
Haas +0.86
Aston Martin +1.0
Alpine +1.0
Sauber +1.24

Race

McLaren
Red Bull +0.35
Ferrari +0.45
Mercedes +0.55
Williams +1.1
Racing Bulls +1.26
Aston Martin +1.6
Alpine +1.6
Haas +1.8
Sauber +1.8

McLaren (unsurprisngly) are indeed top of both as predicted, but Lawrence's sim had Ferrari second, currently they're joint third on qualifying pace and third in race pace. But Bahrain is a strong track for them usually.

All round, the top teams are closer so far in qualifying than Lawrence's prediction but further off McLaren in race pace. Other than that, Racing Bulls and Williams have been best of the rest, which he sort of got right. Sauber the clear worst, which he didn't.

Generally the midfield are all further behind on race pace than his sim data so far, expect for AM.