There were high hopes in the Woking based team that in Shanghai, they would be able to demonstrate their progression by making it into Q2. Sadly for McLaren fans, this didn’t happen.
However, the team are making significant progress with each race weekend outing of the year.
On Malaysia, Jenson Button was 2.366 slower than the Q1 session pace setter and 0.599 seconds behind Sergio Perez who was the last man to make it into P2.
Here in Shanghai, once again Jenson was the quicker of the two McLaren cars. Now just 1.774 seconds behind the Q3 pace setter and a mere 0.225 back from Daniel Kvyat, who scrapped through to the second qualifying session.
On qualifying pace alone, McLaren have improved by a second since the season opener in Melbourne where they were over 2.7 seconds down on the best Q1 time.
Given the current rate of progression, the Woking team could be making Q3 possibly as early as the start of the European season begins in Spain.
Just one question….
Does this analysis also factors in the tyre compound used?
Had the Mercs used the option like every other team in Q1, the statistics would have been different. There are so many different factors that will ultimately affect this comparison. I however believe that the best and easiest comparison is to that of Kvyat’s 0.225 margin.
I’m not exactly a McLaren fan, but… i want them to ‘get well soon’ lol
Thank you guys…. As much as this place can be chaos and full of contra opinions, at least they are mostly based of the TJ team and commenters paying proper bloody attention! The Sky idiots all seemed to think McLaren were somewhere inbetween nowhere and even worse off, purely because they didn’t actually get into that Q2 group. The fact that they looked able to, which was patently not the case in Australia or Malaysia, and the fact that they were mere tenths off, and Alonsos lap had a costly mistake coming out of the long turn before the long straight, seems to have escaped them and most the other media.
You’d have to say, given Alonso and Buttons strengths have always seemed to me to be based on race pace, then if that Honda PU can just hold together, we might actually see them fighting properly with the back of the pack tommorow.
I wonder what was wrong with the Seal? Were they trying to get it to balance a beach-ball on its snout? Was it rejecting the Herrings it was being fed?
Or are we in fact talking about a GASKET? The perfectly serviceable name which has been used to describe, er, gaskets, since the beginning of time.
To be honest, McLaren are starting from so far back that they can look like a team making progress all season…
But does this show that Alonso’s Ferrari was better than they said? he who would drive a cardboard box in to championship points doesn’t look like he could actually pull it of… he whos considered the best of his era should kick buttons backside. Or am I wrong?
If a car is the limiting factor… And that car is below the ability of both drivers – then no.
No he shouldn’t beat button or no you are not wrong? 😂
No. Definitely no. Hope that helps!
A lot.
If you look at it from the perspective that they only qualified ahead of Manor then it’s hard to say that is real progress. Here’s hoping they make it took the end of the race.
i think ive got the solution ron! 🙂
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