It would be interesting to also look at McLaren versus their midfield rivals to try to understand where the strengths and weaknesses are against them… Won’t try to go into too much detail and highlight what seems to be the key aspects against each:
“All Laps will be their best attempt in Q2, since it would be the most representative and of course the faster driver of each team”
McLaren vs Alpine:
There is not a big discrepancy in regards to drag between both Teams, in the main straight and with DRS both Teams had the same top speed, the Alpine seemed to have had a better exit out the last corner in their fast lap since they are ahead of McLaren by 5 Km/h at the start of their flying lap, but by the end of the straight they both have the same speed… Without DRS, the Alpine does show less drag and achieves 3 km/h more top speed (297 vs 294).
The Alpine does have better cornering speed than the MCL60, achieving a higher minimum speed, but it is in 2 corners where the lap goes in favor to Alpine, T4 and T14 are where the 4 tenths difference between them is created with the McLaren faster in the middle sector by a tenth.
The MCL60 also brakes later than the A523 throughout the lap, throttle application is fairly similar with both
McLaren vs Alfa Romeo:
This time we have Bottas vs Lando, pretty evenly match with Lando beating Bottas by less than a tenth at the end of the lap, but if my assumption that Lando made mistakes in both T2 and T14 is correct, the gap would have about 4 tenth since Lando loses a 0.15 in the run to T4 and 0.25 in the T14.
Looking at the Telemetry it was interesting to note that there is a drag deficit against the Alfa Romeo, with the difference in top speed negligible between both teams in both the main straight with DRS and in the last straight without it.
In regards to cornering speed, the MCL60 has an advantage, but mainly due to Lando having more entry speed than Bottas, this may be more a function of driving style than the car itself, since Bottas seems to favor an slow in - fast out approach… While Lando brakes later in every corner, Bottas recovers most of the time lost on corner exit which seems to indicate great traction from the Alfa Romeo since throttle application isn’t that similar between the two.
Once again, the MCL60 has an edge in the middle sector, creating enough delta to keep the lead even when losing a quarter of the second in the last corner:
McLaren vs Haas:
Hulk had a fantastic lap in Q2 (faster than his fastest lap in Q3), the Haas actually ending Q2 more than half a second faster than the McLaren… But the gap isn’t created on the straights… Even though the Haas is slightly faster than the McLaren, it is only 2 km/h faster in both the Main Straight and the run to T14, for example the Haas gains half a tenth in the last straight due to drag difference (and maybe a bit more power from the Ferrari engine).
We can see once again how much impact T2 had, Lando was up 0.14 exiting T1 and ends up 0.09 behind before T4… Losing roughly 2 and a half tenths that section alone… But the gap is really created in the approach to T9 - T10 where Hulk edges Lando by 3 and a half tenths in the short run from T8 to T10
McLaren (or Lando) once again show better braking performance, braking later into almost every corner with similar cornering speed from both with exception of T10 and T14. With throttle application fairly similar between them.
McLaren vs Aston Martin:
Even though the AMR (especially in the hands of Alonso) was in a different league in Bahrain, thought looking at their telemetry would be interesting!
Keeping the same format, let’s look at Top Speed / Drag for both cars (on the same engine)… Contrary to popular believe the MCL60 isn’t much draggier than the AMR23… Alonso edged Lando by only 1 km/h in both the main straight and the run to T14, so with and without DRS both cars carry a similar amount of drag!
So, where do the massive 7 tenths difference between them comes from?… Its grip, by the time they reach T4 Alonso is up by 0.14 seconds on Lando and actually between T4 and T8, Lando has the edge through the fast S’s section of the track… But Alonso pulls (similar to Hulk) 3 tenths on Lando in just the run from T8 and braking into T10… The gap is maintained until T13 where a better exit nets Alonso another tenth on Lando and seals the deal in T14 pulling another 2 tenths on Lando.
My take and maybe a TL/DR: McLaren isn’t the draggy car everyone makes it to be, if it has a deficit against it’s rivals is relatively small and not the reason for the lack of performance in Bahrain