It seems that McLaren's leadership, their drivers, and their entire team in Woking (County of Surrey, southwest of London) are doing it again. The McLaren team created a car, the MCL39, that is widely considered to be the current benchmark for F1. It has been praised for its high aerodynamic efficiency and balance. There are even whispers of "tricks", that's how dominant this car is. But the McLaren's edge largely comes down to excellent downforce and a well-tuned set up. Relative to the other teams, it appears their current car is particularly good in managing rear tire temperatures. And the results on track this year speak for themselves. After the British F1 GP this weekend, the McLaren drivers have won 9 of the 12 races so far this season.
McLaren did win the F1 Constructors’ World Championship last year. The Surrey-based team is having another incredibly strong showing in 2025 and their chances of winning a second consecutive F1 Constructors' Championship are looking almost guaranteed at the half way point of the season. Unless the two McLaren drivers start crashing into each other in every race, it is virtually certain that McLaren will win the team title again this year. They are sitting on 460 constructors points and their nearest rivals are Ferrari and Mercedes on 222 and 210 points respectively. In fact, McLaren are so far ahead that most betting sites have stopped taking bets on which F1 team will win this year, as the result seems to be a foregone conclusion at this point.
The Constructors’ Champs might be effectively over, but the Drivers’ Championship is extremely close and is far from decided. The two McLaren drivers of Oscar Piastri (Australia) and Lando Norris (UK) are fighting to see who will take the F1 drivers’ title at the end of the year. It is virtually certain that either Norris or Piastri will be crowned world champion. The will be quite an achievement for either one of them, as they are both still relatively young and neither of them having won it before. Going into last weekend’s race in Silverstone, Piastri had won 5 races in 2025 and Norris 3. But Norris won his home GP on Sunday and now has 4 wins. The gap between them has narrowed to only 8 points, which means every race counts from now on. It is anyone’s guess as to who will win.
The points difference is close, but, to be fair, the Aussie is looking like the stronger of the two drivers. Piastri was actually leading the race this weekend at Silverstone, but he received a 10-second time penalty for a Safety Car infringement, a pretty rare incident for F1. It rained hard during the race and the safety car was deployed more than once. During the second Safety Car period Piastri was deemed by the stewards to have braked erratically before the restart. Specifically, as the Safety Car lights went out on lap 21, signaling the restart, Piastri slowed dramatically. His car went from 218 kph to 52 kph, with 59.2 PSI applied to the brakes. This sudden braking caused Max Verstappen, who was directly behind him, to take evasive action to avoid a collision, even momentarily passing Piastri. The stewards ruled that Piastri's braking was "erratic" and a breach of the sporting regulations, specifically the one which prohibits drivers from braking or driving erratically once the safety car lights are out.
Piastri and McLaren felt the penalty was harsh, especially as the Safety Car was called in relatively late, not giving the leading driver much space to control the restart. However, the penalty was served during a pit stop, which ultimately cost Piastri the lead and the potential win, allowing his British teammate to take victory in the end. Piastri not getting maximum points was his own fault though. Visibility was truly terrible for all of the drivers during the race and what he did, by breaking like that, was extremely dangerous to both himself and the drivers immediately behind him. It remains to be seen whether this lapse of judgement on his part will cost him the world championship title at the end of the year.
The McLaren drivers are actually kind of lucky to be in this position at all. At the last outing at the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal, Piastri and Norris collided with one another during the race, resulting in Norris retiring and Piastri finishing fourth. While Norris took responsibility, incidents like this can impact championship campaigns. McLaren Team Principal, Andrea Stella, acknowledged it was costly and should not have happened, but that the team remains focused on the upcoming races. The internal competition is intense, but the team's management aims to keep it "constructive" he said.
Of course, for McLaren, having the two fastest drivers on track is great as they are certainly going to win the season as a team. But, perhaps now, before these two young men ruin both their chances of individual success, McLaren needs to pick a lead driver. It is a tough call for a team to make, but they have done it before. Choosing one driver over another makes sense if you want your two cars to avoid contact during a race. But this only works if the lead driver is faster on the day. At the start of the season Norris would have been named the lead driver by most people on the McLaren team. But, as Piastri has shown, when he is faster McLaren have yielded and allowed him to pass Norris and given him priority in the pits.
It seems McLaren are taking it race by race now, before making a decision as to which driver gets priority on the track. Norris has been a good team player in the past and seems generally more amenable than Piastri to taking a supporting role, so one would think that the order would be 1) Piastri and 2) Norris for the remainder of the season. But, that was up until Silverstone, and Norris is now within one race of taking the lead from Piastri in the drivers’ title race. Also, McLaren may no longer be protecting their lead driver from a rival team and ensuring that he gets maximum points at each outing. They may figure that their drivers are individually far ahead enough that they can just let them fight it out. It is going to be a tough call for McLaren as they ride the fine line between getting the best out of their drivers, ensuring that their cars finish each race without incident, and making sure they get both the constructors' and drivers' trophies this time around.
The worst thing that can happen for the team is that McLaren’s two drivers ensure 'their own mutual destruction' and another driver like Verstappen steps in and takes the World Championship from both of them. That is kind of what happened last year, because the McLaren drivers split the points between them. This year it could happen again. Verstappen's challenge is not over and he knows it. Max is a formidable competitor and has shown he can win, even without the absolute fastest car. He's currently in third place in the standings and is going to do everything in his power to win again.
Verstappen has 4 world championships under the belt and his archival, Lewis Hamilton, has 8. Believe me, there is nothing Max would not do to win another title this year and close the gap to Hamilton. Verstappen has proved that by the way he is driving this season. He has been unusually aggressive on track lately, even for him. e.g. by repeatedly, at high speed, diving up the inside on corners right beside other cars, but with no realistic chance of actually making the corner at that speed. And it appears now that Verstappen’s off track choices are equally dramatic. There has been a lot of talk about him potentially leaving Red Bull sometime soon. If he does leave his only realistic choice is Mercedes - and they would welcome him with open arms. Something has to change at Red Bull if they want to keep Max.
Whether Verstappen is in a Red Bull or a Mercedes won’t matter to Piastri and Norris though, they still have to beat him to win the title. And, they also have to do something that may be even harder for them both - they have to stay clear of each other.
