#there’s a reason he has consecutive F4 F3 and F2 championships

[leclerc-s]

now that people are realizing oscar isn’t like checo or valtteri (willing to be a 2nd driver) they’re shitting on him.

[wtflife01]

as a pretty big lando fan (not one of those ones dw), i was pretty convinced, like most other people, that danny would be competitive with him this season, would beat him in the championship, and would ultimately help mclaren secure p3 in the standings. i was wrong, and did keep hoping for a resurgence. he did have some standout performances, like silverstone (especially as the team wern't convinced that the track would work with the car), spa quali, usa, saudi. not saying monza becuase i feel like that one was significantly down to car performance and team orders (mclaren felt like keeping the order daniel-lando would suit the team better, if they had been left to race, lando would have been more likely to come out on top). i am going to say that daniel's starts and overall race pace is decent, but not all that compared to lando (who can do more than half race distance on used soft tyres), and what's the point in having good race performance without corresponding that to qualifying, especially in a capable car? it doesn't really make sense.

I also feel like taking a whole season to adapt to a car is a bit much, most drivers switching on around mid way through the season (hulk managed to adapt to the rp20 in like 2 days and get p3 in quali), and i do also understand that lando has the added advantage of having grown with the mcl car longer than daniel, but being able to adapt to a car is still a skill for a driver (there's a reason drivers who win different classes of feeder series championships (i.e f4 -> f3 -> f2) consecutively are held so highly)

Daniel is also getting old, and Pato is the most likely replacement for him, should he not perform next season. i don't think it'll be a mid-season replacement. Saying Pato bc he has experience in the f1 car and in single seaters, he's already mclaren, and mclaren don't have any current juniors at that level. i doubt they'll retake vandoorne or de vries, especially with both having found footing in formula e and wec, and being part of merc.

.