TheGiantHogweed wrote:
<snip>
McLaren - I'd have them below Ferrari because it has been so long since I have seen Alonso have the chance to show he is consistently a top driver. This seems really harsh, but I can't be sure how good he is. I think he's right near the top, but I believe Hamilton, Vettel, Ricciardo, Verstappen are probably better than him now. And I think Kimi was better than Vandoorne was last year quite easily. But Vandoorne was improving. However, I thought he had a terrible start. about the first 3rd of the season was really disappointing given thy hype i heard about him. I'd have rated him lower than Ericsson for the first half of the season. He did much improve though and I think he will keep getting better. <snip>
Just on this I think we have to bear in mind for that first third is that he was a rookie driving a very difficult car to drive against someone who happens to thrive in those conditions. Until the intake upgrade in Spain the Honda engine was a mess and the driveability and gearshifts very difficult to master so I'd be inclined to wager Ericsson would be just as, if not more so, all at sea against Alonso in those conditions too. (As would just about everyone else on the grid imo). I can't really think of a worse environment to make your debut in tbh.
From Spain to Malaysia I thought he did very well considering he was a rookie. Then there was some different parts for a couple of GP's and then I think he had a couple of poor ones again but was unlucky in AD. Might be alone but I think if you swap Ocon and Vandoorne it would be Stoff getting rave reviews for hanging with and beating Perez sometimes, while Ocon struggled with the Honda and Alonso's knack for driving difficult cars.
Excerpt from an Autosport+ piece Wuzak just posted on f1technical..
Quote:
"It's fair to say the starting level was almost equivalent from last year - peak power was almost equivalent, but low- rpm power was very down," Hasegawa concedes. "It had huge gaps from something like 9000-10,000rpm - no torque. It's OK on the dyno, but when we used upshift and went from 10,000 to 9000, torque decreased dramatically.
"It will create a big oscillation. The dyno's inertia is huge, so it doesn't create a big problem, but the inertia of the car itself is much less. Such a big torque drop was creating a big oscillation."
This made the car extremely difficult to drive (when it was running) until Honda modified the intake system for May's Spanish Grand Prix, which helped recover the lost bottom-end power and driveability. Until then, the drivers were forced to change gear at odd points. You could hear the graunching sounds as the transmission protested the unusual upshift and clutch settings required to avoid this torque drop.
https://www.autosport.com/f1/feature/78 ... larenhondaSorry for snipping the post, it was a good one with a lot of good points but that jumped out as I'd just read the above on that forum and as someone who's been bleating on about the state of that PU pre Spain and the effect it had on the drivers for a while it was nice to see some confirmation from elsewhere.(I don't have AS+)