I hope its ok if I ask what you take away from this race to expect from the next race. I think it was very sexy of lando to be so aggressive with oscar. He was faster and overall the better driver. That first overtake was great but unfortunately the crash ruined everything. Still I respect that he’s being so risky.
Do you worry that this move will make lando become more cautious and less aggressive in the next round?
Also I want to add that this new suspension has definitely been an improvement 😌
My takeaway is that I have cautious optimism about the next few races (this will surprise nobody, I'm sure). Canada was a very sexy race from Lando, I agree, and there were many positives to take away from the weekend, but of course there are significant concerns as well that make it hard for me to say for sure how Austria will go. I had a very good feeling about most of the race, and I think he's very motivated to perform at his highest level, which can be a very good thing for future races, but it can also lead to him overdriving in qualifying, so he needs to get it together and have a clean weekend.
Like, this last weekend was just a bit sloppy at critical times, but I was very pleased by his pace. The McLaren was not as competitive as it has been at other tracks in the past and will be again in the future, so his ceiling was already lower than normal, like he wasn't set up to dominate in the first place. While he had been able to make up several places (thanks in part to Ferrari being Ferrari), Oscar wasn't able to make any inroads on the faster cars ahead, so Canada was a good place for him to fuck up, all things considered. If it's something he needed to get out of his system, that's great. I think he will learn and improve because of it.
As has happened all season, he really was making up for his Saturday performance during the race, and I thought before the crash it was going tremendously well. He seemed in good form, much more comfortable in the car than he'd been in practice and qualifying. He managed the tires quite well. The aggressiveness was also good to see, like he was very much in a racing mindset. I'm taking these positives into the next race. I've rarely seen him in better form, with the exception of the critical mistakes that he has to stop making.
If I recall correctly, he's had some solid results around Austria (Last Lap Lando, you know?), but it's not his best circuit, and I can't help but remember last year when he made contact with Max and retired. Obviously my hope is that he puts a lap together in qualifying, if the upgrades do anything to give him more sensation, and then uses pole position to win the first corner and then continue on to have a clean race without mistakes. He's going to have the car to do it, I think the McLaren will be back at the front again, so his ceiling is going to be P1 again, and the stakes are very high. He knows that, and at times has flourished under pressure, so this needs to be one of those times.
I don't think he's going to be less aggressive in general, but based on his interviews, I suspect that it's going to be a big priority for him not to crash with Oscar. Not to the degree that means he won't attempt to overtake or defend, but it's certainly going to be on his mind. It's frustrating because the wheel-to-wheel racing during the corners was actually really clean and good from both of them, like he made a splendid overtake at the hairpin, and it just was a mistake on the straight that shouldn't have happened. If they're in a position to fight again, I think we will still see Lando try to overtake him, because he's a racing driver and that's what they do, but I'm sure it'll just mean that he prepares his moves with more deliberate care.
Obviously I'm concerned about the widening gap in terms of the championship, a DNF is never good, though I am fractionally heartened by the fact that it wasn't a race Oscar won, and so the damage wasn't as severe as it could have been for his prospects. The DNF is still concerning though, as the reason that he has still been in the fight despite all his mistakes and discomfort this year is that ultimately he gets the car where it deserves to be on a Sunday, aka usually at least P2. If he'd made the move stick on Oscar that trend would've continued getting to P4 at a track suited for other cars, but this was a big dip in his consistency in getting collecting points.
I've given him a lot of grace time at the beginning of the year to figure things out, mostly because the car was so strong that even fucking up didn't have huge consequences, but it does now feel like we're on the edge of the make or break moment for him. These next few races need to demonstrate all he's learned and improved. Canada showed a lot of progress and promise, but he needs to clean it all up, if he's going to be a credible threat for the championship in the second half of the year. I think he's not out of contention at all and there's still a huge number of points left on the table, but it's time for him to get it together.
