This is exactly what we saw 2 weeks ago at COTA. He was faster than Piastri, Leclerc and even Norris in sprint, who was struggling with front gaining. Only Sainz was clearly faster than Max but lost too much race time in fights and behind others.
I think they can simply run their bib lower in the sprint. In the race they would simply wear it too much. Marko said they bumps kill them as they need to run the front high due to these.FittingMechanics wrote: ↑02 Nov 2024, 22:59I think it is clear that the sweetspot is small for Red Bull so they can nail one stint but have issues balancing it for the whole race.
I think we saw a different COTA race. I had zero confidence in a Verstappen win for the race. It's looking a lot better now but we'll never know because the race, if any, will be very wet. So I will leave it at that.avantman wrote: ↑02 Nov 2024, 22:57This is exactly what we saw 2 weeks ago at COTA. He was faster than Piastri, Leclerc and even Norris in sprint, who was struggling with front gaining. Only Sainz was clearly faster than Max but lost too much race time in fights and behind others.
and yeah you are right, of course Lando would've been faster than Piastri in clear air today. There is a high chance Mclaren will adjust setup after the sprint as they did at COTA. Race is completely different story anyways because all year, the biggest advantage Mclaren have on hard tires. On first stints they all run on medium tire Max looked somewhat competitive (that's why it is also better in sprints all year), but it all changes on harder tire. and the longer the race goes the bigger the advantage of Mclaren gets. It was the same at COTA, in Mexico, Austria, Imola....all year basically. And actually, this is incredibly reminiscent of 2021 season, but it was Mercedes back then.
In your mind, everything is going very well, but... Having received clean air, Lando immediately moved away from Oscar by 0.8 seconds, in just a couple of corners. And Oscar was faster than Verstappen on the straights, in the DRS zone.ispano6 wrote: ↑02 Nov 2024, 22:45I don't know, but I was watching the sprint race, and McLaren's could not pull away from Max. Looked like he had better regen/deploy or battery store than Ferrari, possibly over McLaren as well. We will see with 5 place grid penalty but Max was not sliding like Lando was and Max would have passed Piastri and Lando after a few more laps. The race is 71 and will be a DRS tug-o-war.
Not yet determined
I agree, that whould make the most sense, but how will the starting grid be determined, Sprint race finish or FP1?