Ben1980 wrote: ↑29 Oct 2023, 01:11
mwillems wrote: ↑29 Oct 2023, 00:59
Ben1980 wrote: ↑29 Oct 2023, 00:39
As you can see from his qualifying results, with around 70% top 2 rows since Austrua, his qualifying is pretty good. Bar Max, he's probably been the most consisten over those 11 qualifying sessions.
We've had some good Qualy results. That doesn't mean that in two of those Qualy he didn't have two big blunders which in a big season would costs big points? It doesn't mean that in those weekends that he qualified a few places further back than he should, but still top 4 or 5, that it didn't ruin his chances of fighting with Max for the win?
Those numbers look great in the context of this year, but they won't in the context of next year if the car is a little closer to RB than it is now. And not in the context of having the second fastest car Since Austria this year. Whilst the race finishes have got us back up to where we should be, the Qualy hasn't always helped. And dropping huge places by not setting a lap in Q3 or not getting out of Q1 will be massive next year if we are fighting for the title.
You can call all the mistakes acceptable if you want and say that it is fine because of X, Y or Z, but in the reality he is here to bring the title to Mclaren, and he is getting the fourth highest Salary on the grid to do it. And after 5 years I want to see more consistency in getting the best out of the car in Q. I don't want to temper those expectations, I don't want to think like Williams, we are aiming for championships.
I'm only looking at the context of this year, in fact only looking at post Austria. Its pointless guessing it on next year or the year after.
He's qualifying results since Austria have been remarkably consistent.
Next year, they may not be, or they may be, or we may not have a car to get top 2 rows.
Has he been perfect, nope. Has he been very good, yep.
But the point being made time and again is that this is OK this year, but is not OK for next year, and I made that point in our previous discussions. If you choose to ignore that I can't really say much more to you, because this year was never the context put forward, if you want to ignore the risks for next year then that is your choice of course.
Regarding not having a car for the top two rows..
1) We had a car second only to Max for a while now (In the main), not even the second RB driver could touch us by and large, and we couldn't Max the potential in Q. In race we are much closer, but not in Q.
2) We can't say not doing a great job in Q next year might be OK because the car might not be that great. I want him to get the most out of the car consistently, whether the most is 5th or 1st.
I would like to think this will suddenly stop and everything will improve, but in terms of bringing a title to this team, these Qualy performances will not be a positive in that effort.
Lando is great, I have no qualms with his racing, but we are a title chasing team, and title chasing teams need to deliver the best for the majority of the season with the smallest number of mistakes. "Bleeding Papaya" is not a reason for it to be otherwise in my view, but I'm sure others may feel different. Like I say, if we get to the heat of a title battle and this happens, I expect a lot more frustration that we hear now and I understand why in the context of this year people are less concerned.
