Are way different, what we usually know as 'punch' is the ability of accelerating out from stand still or going out strong of a hairpin, where you almost stop the car. This involves a clean acceleration and a strong 2nd gear engagement to continue accelerating up to the next turn.

Others can talk about punch about how wild is the clutch engaging and the engine holding the torque to keep the clutch engaged and accelerating the car, as much longer is the gearing (lower numerically ratio), the more torque needed to accelerate the car.

When an engine is overloaded, it needs more fuel, develops more heat and is subjected to more wear on their moving parts, due to the excess of force needed to move all the car.

Usually I adjust the gearing to get a clean acceleration and get the top speed at about the 75 or 80% of the lenght at the backstraight and adjust the clutch depending track and grip conditions. 2nd gear shifting and how strong is related to the shifting point, depends on the available power and your gearing and where and how much you want to shift into 2nd during all the track. Many times we mix all the parameters and are very related between them

If the track is grippy and supports a wild clutch engagement probably I'll use a very hairy clutch adjustment (Xtra hard spring, lightened weights, soft shoe) but isn't the normal conditions. Car is very delicate to pull of the hairpins, due to the brute power delivery. This puts too a lot of stress on all moving parts of your car, so more wear and tear (spurs, belts, dogbones, CVD's... you name it).

Probably much people will get better results using a slightly shorter ratio that permits your engine scream a little higher with a slightly better acceleration, is worthless to have a gearing capable of getting >60Mph only after 200 foot of launch, is much better have only 55Mph but after 130foot with a shorter 2nd gear.