continuum16 wrote: ↑05 Mar 2023, 20:41
I would agree that there is a lot of sensationalism going on here. Is it an overreaction? Maybe but if you look objectively it’s very difficult to find a lot of positives, although there are a few. Here’s what I took away from this race:
Just like 2022, the team had a Bahrain test compromised by a problem with something in the brake assembly. In quali, 1 driver eliminated in Q1, the other eliminated in Q2. Then in the race, the team had further problems which resulted in Lando reverting to essentially a test plan with a bunch of short stints on a variety of compounds. In terms of result there is very little to no progress in 12 months.
Pace-wise it’s not clear if problems with Lando’s car resulted in further pace issues, but the car was relatively on par with the lower-end points scorers. I do think that “keeping up with the Stroll/Russell/Sainz battle” is a bit of an illusion owing to fresh rubber on Lando’s car.
In 2022 they improved markedly in the next few races, so it remains to be seen if they can repeat the feat again. It is possible, for sure. It is not guaranteed.
I don’t want to be all doom-and-gloom, because there were some better signs of pace compared to 2022, but if anyone finds the performance from Bahrain acceptable then I would have serious questions.
You cannot just afford to write off 1, 2, 4 or however many races every year if you want to be a top team. I don’t think that’s a controversial statement. So if McLaren wants to be a top team, it must be unacceptable. If the goal is not to be a top team, then there are more questions to be asked because returning to the top has always been the stated ambition.
I can appreciate a post like this, it’s objective.
I do think that we need to separate things and also clearly define others… We need to be able to separate the clear issues from testing to performance / race pace… The issues at testing aren’t good, we all agree with that, but they hav eno bearing in analyzing performance… In addition, the issues at testing weren’t related to the brakes (even though been in the front corner of the car makes one relate them to previous season), they were related to been to aggressive trying to save some weight on the front tire brows.
It’s going to be very hard to analyze pace because Lando was out of sync with the grid due to the pneumatic issues that required additional pit stops… But I do feel that is encouraging that Lando was able to hang with the Sainz, Alonso, Hamilton train for as long as he did… That wasn’t possible last season.
It is the first race of the season, a lot of season ahead to keep finding performance and we know that at least there is something in the pipeline and that the current pace isn’t an issue related to a correlation problem or other fundamental issue, simply is a car that lacked development in winter… The car showed some pace so at least I saw no indication that the team is at the back of the grid and when looked at it objectively, it had to fight for P5 (from a WCC stand point) in it’s current form.
There is no argument that they are not where we want them to be (winning), but the “sky is falling” is a bit too much… Worst team? No… Slowest team? No… Now, if people had expectations for them to be fighting the top 3 or the Championship, it might be better to simply skip the season, because it will be full of disappointment for them.
