Scott Mitchell-Malm

then Mercedes ultimate potential has come down.

The potential is, sorry, I'll rephrase that.

The ultimate potential is still the same because they've got the same engine, but accessing that potential, Mercedes has been better than that.

So Mercedes performance level should come down a little bit more.

We're talking probably fractions of a percent here than McLaren's.

And on top of that,

we've had the chance for McLaren to really get on top of that car deficit or start to get on top of that car deficit as well.

So when you consider that Oscar Piastri could have won the race in Japan without a safety car, and both Mercedes and McLaren personnel think he would have done as well, can't guarantee it, but Russell said it, Piastri's fairly confident, he would have had a crack as well.

Why can't McLaren win in Miami on merit?

And just to even frame it like that, given where we started in Australia, is another reason why it's so intriguing to get there.

I would say that actually maybe Miami is a good weekend in which we might actually have a chance of just enjoying it for what it is rather than worrying about it in the context of what we've seen so far.

And, you know, I've been critical of the qualifying spectacle quite a lot.

I was happier with what I saw in China, both in qualifying and in the race there.

And I think this will be a better version of China.

I'll be surprised if it isn't.

I think it will be the most normal qualifying we see all season.

I think it might also be the most normal Grand Prix that we see as well, largely thanks to the reasons Ben mentioned, rather than the rule changes, because it should just be a better track for it.

And then when you have those rule tweaks on top of that, it might nudge Miami into the realms of being about as normal, or, you know, I say normal for anyone not really sort of understanding what I mean by that, kind of like conventional, like pre-2026 in terms of the way a lap,

kind of plays out driving normally basically yeah i think so because yeah you're right you're not going to eliminate the fact that clipping still exists there are there is an argument as well that in some places clipping will be worse because you've got less energy to deploy so that's just naturally when the battery can't sustain um power in the k and getting all the goodness out of the mgk

But you've also got this addition now where, and correct me if I'm wrong, Ed, that this is definitely different to the past because we're going to have this kind of boost limit in certain places where you're only going to be able to deploy 150 kilowatts, for example, in a place where if you wanted to, you could have deployed more.