Well this isnt too much of a surprise in these regulations and these cars if we think about it deeper. There’s basically no such thing as high speed corners, not only because all corners became way slower this year due to downforce, but also because drivers have been forced to under drive in those, a computer program does most of the job for them harvesting energy in those high speed zones, drivers cannot push their cars fully to their limit and showcase the difference between them. Already last year we saw quite clear signs on segeral occasions Kimi was faster than George in low speed corners. George would often be faster in high speed, high speed braking zones and so on, to even things out, or even maintain his advantage on most normal tracks full of such zones.
So this year low and medium speed corners is all that’s left for drivers to make a difference. And of course naturally in race trim every corner becomes even slower, much slower, which also benefits Kimi, which is why he definitely looks more competitive vs Russell in race trim vs Quali trim where they’ve been still equal this year, given Russell technical issues in China (which we should discount), it’s a draw, 3-3 at the moment head to head score-wise.

