mwillems wrote: ↑01 Jul 2023, 06:57
SmallSoldier wrote: ↑01 Jul 2023, 01:22
Let’s take this weekend with a grain of salt and not build too high expectations… This is a circuit that McLaren was expecting to have good performance regardless of the new package… The half a second between Piastri and Norris isn’t far off from other qualifying sessions and even though the upgrades may have had an effect, based on everything we’ve seeing so far this season a big part of the Delta is driver related.
On the other hand, the Team worked hard to get this package to the track and it’s following design cues that clearly work and there is nothing wrong with that, I’m actually happy that ego’s are not getting in the way and they have enough humility to copy what is proven to generate performance… Hopefully a bit of McLaren’s DNA has been mixed in and they can extract a bit more
I was thinking yesterday about throwing some cautionary tales in around seeing the platform at other tracks, this is just one qualy section and the fact that this track was always going to suit the car... but you've been that guy so thanks
But even though I agree in sentiment it is worth pointing out that half a second is generally bigger than the Delta between the Mclaren drivers, especially recently, and that at such a fast track with low lap times as Austria half a second is bigger than it sounds.
So it does seem with one small amount of evidence that the car could be a lot faster. But personally I think we need the "pinch test" to make sure that this wasn't circumstantial because its also possible that everything came together to make it look this way.
If the gap is consistently big after this weekend then the package works here, then we see about Silverstone etc
But I have to say it does look good for us right now and maybe, juuuuuust maybe, Mika wasn't smoking crack....
I would love for Mika to be spot on and that great things are coming for the Team… It’s just painful when we build expectations and then we have to go through several weeks of moaning, complaining and trolling… Which sometimes makes this space unbearable… I was told by someone at the team, that they expect good things, but that they are waiting for the whole package to be completed and still waiting to see if they can get the performance on track that they expect (it was that vague, lol).