I think it was a error into turn 13? that lost 'some' the time to McLaren. Then coming out the final right hander got a bit of wheelspin which compromised the entry to the final turn. (at least thats what was shown on the F1TV analysis).
It's reminiscent of what we saw in the second half of last season, the McLaren has more grip and is better at preserving its tyres. Max can hustle the car for a while to keep up, but then the tyres start dropping and there's no coming back from there. Will be interesting to see a full dry stint and some other tracks to see just how big the gap is.
We haven't had one "big, performance improving" upgrade since Spa 2022. Even then I don't know if the car was upgraded more or Ferrari was downgraded more.
I have a strange feeling that at high speed tracks the issue won't be as pronounced. I expect McLaren advantage to maybe be 3 tenths instead of half a second at say Japan for instance.Cs98 wrote: ↑16 Mar 2025, 08:43It's reminiscent of what we saw in the second half of last season, the McLaren has more grip and is better at preserving its tyres. Max can hustle the car for a while to keep up, but then the tyres start dropping and there's no coming back from there. Will be interesting to see a full dry stint and some other tracks to see just how big the gap is.
The tire management could have been made worse because Red Bull ran low downforce for this race. A least lower than others.