The car looks a lot better than in Sprint. The car has a clear top speed deficit to Ferrari but is comparable to Red Bull. Otherwise it looks pretty capable. Whichever of Lando or Max ended up in front wouldn't change the fact that the cars are evenly matched here in Q and neither can have any confidence of shrugging off the other.
Max and Lando will fight hard in the race and ultimately the drivers can make the difference again. Hopefully strategy will help us and not hinder. Ferrari, if the general trend remains true, will be strong in the race with low deg and to me at least are slight favourites for the win.
Very important to keep Max behind and make him the buffer to Ferrari and use the clean air to help tyre management.
The car is definately stiff and it causes it to suffer a little bit in the snake, but benefit us in the single rotation sections. With both corners preceding the straights being favourible to Mclaren, it means that passing us won't be easy with our better exits. Mid corners also look very strong. The car does look set up to attack the straights, if not with outright speed due to the downforce we are carrying, being 2-3 kph slower vs Ferrari.
Every reason to be optimistic, looks like a good setup that should protect the lead and the tyres if the snake section doesn't take too much out of them.