Emag wrote: ↑08 Oct 2023, 21:40
Looking at post race interviews, Leclerc acknowledged that they did not expect McLaren to be as strong as they were here. With kind of a shocked face when prompted by the interviewer regarding McLaren's pace he said "McLaren is very strong".
Post race, even though he finished behind Russell, he asked for the gap to McLaren. When his engineer told him it was over 30s, his response was "Oh my god".
Ferrari is a bit too far to catch at this point, but still, it feels good to be acknowledged by a team which started last year as the favorite for the championship, and also this year, has been completely out of reach for the better part of the season for McLaren.
Remember that Leclerc/Sainz were saying after Japan that they will be worried if McLaren is as fast in Qatar as it was in Japan. They felt it was track specific and that Ferrari will bounce back. I guess they are worried now.
I think the car made a big jump in Singapore - they probably have second best car on all tracks now.
mwillems wrote: ↑08 Oct 2023, 22:14
mwillems wrote: ↑08 Oct 2023, 22:11
Interesting fact.
Since Italy, we have gained 104 points in the constructors to Red Bulls 74 and Since Italy
we are the number 1 constructor in points gain.
Think on that for a while.
Low speed upgrade my arse!
Makes you wonder if Mclaren will bring the end to Checo's RB career.
This is what I was thinking earlier this season. Red Bull had such a dominant season that Perez being weak did not put Verstappen under pressure - he had such a gap each race he could easily win alone. If McLaren or other team can be in the ballpark at the start of next season, they could put Verstappen under pressure by being able to run two different strategies. Red Bull may need to do some hard thinking whether to replace Perez after the season or maybe have a backup plan if the season starts without a big advantage for them.