runningmanz wrote: ↑01 Jun 2022, 16:29
SmallSoldier wrote: ↑01 Jun 2022, 15:59
djos wrote: ↑01 Jun 2022, 11:45
Monza last year was 100% merit and he out performed Lando across the weekend.
Monza is definitely a highlight for Dan’s McLaren tenure… But, he wasn’t “commanding” as Emag presented it, it’s not like if he was miles ahead of Lando, they arguably were pretty equal with the caveat that Daniel wasn’t going full out and Lando wasn’t attacking him either, so a pretty even performance from both of them.
Sorry but Dan was clearly better than Lando that weekend. Lando has beaten Dan quite a lot but you can't take away that Monza weekend from Dan.
Dan and Max pulled a gap on Lando to about 5 secs early on in the race. By lap 23 it was almost 10 seconds. Lando only got close to Dan after Lewis and Max crashed and the safety car came out. Also when Dan was told to push he pulled a gap again on Lando and set the fastest lap of the race on the last lap also without a tow proving he had pace in hand. You can have a go at Dan about other races, but in Monza he was clearly the better driver of the two over the weekend.
I’m not taking it away from him, but I don’t think that there was a big performance gap between them, was he the “better driver” that weekend, surely the result shows he was, but one weekend doesn’t erase a season of disappointment, nor does it negates the fact that Lando has performed better and more consistent than him for the Team… The reality is that the fact that you feel compelled to defend Daniel after almost every single weekend says it all about his performance so far in McLaren… Blaming the car, the Team, the asphalt on a race track, the temperature, the humidity on that particular race and everything else we can think of to justify his lack of performance is very telling that fanatism is trampling logic.
I don’t think McLaren fans want Daniel to fail, the Team needs him to succeed, the fans want him to succeed and he is been given every opportunity and support to make it happen… For me, I don’t care who is the better driver, as long as they both deliver and are close to each other, but been said that, is it that hard to accept that Lando might be better than him? What if he is?
Let’s hope he gets his mojo / speed back, if he does it will be great… but if he doesn’t, at some point in time decisions will have to be made since the Team needs someone that will deliver consistently and if he isn’t the driver that can do so, everyone needs to move on.