organic wrote: ↑Mon Nov 25, 2024 9:19 pm
Raleigh wrote: ↑Mon Nov 25, 2024 9:16 pm
Monaco was a wash, Lando 4th and Max 6th. Both behind Ferrari.
Max had a 9 race run (10 minus Monaco) of significant race pace advantage over McLaren and won 7 out of 9 with no real competition from Ferrari or Mercedes.
There is genuinely no way you watched the early part of the season or remember it if you believe this
McLaren were every bit as fast as Ferrari at Monaco. Australia, imola, Canada, spain, Miami these can all be disputed as red bull having a
significant race pace advantage
lol. At Imola and Spain track position won the race for red bull (achieved by a tow in quali and Norris' bad start respectively) and McLaren had the fastest car at Miami - Norris was the fastest on track whenever he had clean air at Miami, setting fastest laps in traffic too. Australia red bull were not faster than Ferrari if we go by the race sims and Ferrari personnel believing they were the fastest, at best red bull were about equal fastest there. Canada things seemed equal between mercedes McLaren and red bull.
Not counting Australia, Max retired lap 4 with brake failure and clearly had brake problems from the start. Definitely not counting Monaco, that was pure Quali position and then extreme tyre management with no overtake chances.
Imola and Spain I will grant, Imola especially Lando had more pace at the end but too late for a real overtake chance.
Canada had a brief challenge but Max had Lando covered comfortably at the end. And then Miami Max had the race well in hand until Lando got the safety car stop and then had better tyres to the end.
So that's 2 races where Lando had pace to challenge but didn't win and exactly zero race pace challenges demonstrated by Ferrari or Mercedes. I stand by the earlier statement, Max never looked like losing any of the first 10 races just by race pace.