A Wrap Around the Track: McLaren Edition
Photo by McLaren.
McLaren Team
McLaren were the top team this past season with at least one driver on the podium 21 of the 24 races. They won the Construct’s Championship six races before the season ended in Singapore and their driver Lando Norris won the Driver’s Championship. The team overall gets a grade of A-. They had an exceptional season, with an absolutely amazing car and drivers, but there were many bad strategy calls and other race moments that did hold them back.
The car for the 2025 season was the MCL39 with the key focus for design being better aerodynamics. The team did achieve this with the car being especially fast on straightaways and having great pace in long-run testing and races. Being this fast on straight sections of track did help the drivers have the opportunity for more DRS overtakes, but both McLaren drivers prefer to overtake on curves. During the off-season and pre-season testing, the main focus was front and rear-suspension and making the car holistically more aerodynamic with changes to the sidepod design. During the season, to maintain their competitiveness, McLaren had numerous updates to the brake cooling duct, rear-end stability, which was the biggest issue during pre-season testing, and to the floor design. Many of these features were very helpful in making the car more aerodynamic but they also helped the car have better low-speed around corners. The car was very balanced between gaining somewhat high straight speed but also having good low-speed in corners.
But no car is perfect and the MCL39 did have its fair share of struggles. The car was built with a very specific type of track in mind and so it struggled in races with long straights, short corners, and bumpy braking zones. Specifically races like Baku and Monza, the car design that was built for smooth flowing corners struggled with the more stop-and-start type of corners present. The car did very well in hot races, which is where some other teams had issues, but instead the team struggled with tire temperature management in colder races. The front tires caused the most issues, especially in races such as Canada, where the core of the front tires did not warm up properly causing front-axle damage, excessive tire surface temperatures, and leading to a lack of overall car balance.
Every car has its strengths and weaknesses, but in the 2025 season, McLaren’s strengths outweighed its weaknesses and placed them above the other teams.
Lando Norris
Lando Norris was the winner of the Driver’s Championship for the 2025 season. He won his first race in 2024 at the Miami GP after almost 6 years in F1 and then in the 2025 season was the top contender and eventually the winner of the 2025 Driver’s Championship. Norris started off the season with a win and led the championship until the Belgian Grand Prix, losing the lead to his teammate Oscar Piastri. After a mid-season slump, Lando Norris regained the lead in Mexico and held on to that lead for the rest of the season. Norris had an amazing season, but no season is without its lows and losses.
Norris’s season had a total of two DNF’s and one DSQ and his mid-season slump that set him back in the title race consisted of mostly podium finishes but not wins. His first DNF in Canada was due to a failed attempted overtake that Norris took full responsibility for. On lap 66 of 70 Norris overtook his teammate Oscar Piastri on turn 10 but held on to the lead for a very short period of time with Piastri overtaking on the straight. Then on lap 67 of 70, Norris in an attempt to re-take the lead tried to overtake Piastri on the very same straight but ended up going into the grass and losing his front wing—the kind of damage you can’t come back from.
Norris’second DNF, at the Dutch Grand Prix, was due to an oil leak that he noticed when his cockpit started smoking; he was then forced to retire early. His one disqualification was during the Las Vegas GP due to excessive floor damage; both Norris and Piastri were disqualified due to the damage. These are the large race ending incidents that happened but there are always smaller race specific moments that can be just as difficult to watch. During the Saudi Arabian qualifying, Norris ended up in a crash on Turn 5 after going into Turn 2 at full speed and losing control of the car in Turn 4 after running over a curb. Although his qualifying session began strong, this incident caused him to start the race in 10th place and then finish the race in 4th place. Different incidents like this also happened in other races and affected his performance at times. But these losses and struggles are vastly outweighed by Norris’s wins.
Lando Norris was the 2025 Driver’s Championship winner, ending the season with 423 points just two ahead of Max Verstappen, one of two other strong competitors for the 2025 Driver’s Championship. Norris had started off the season amazingly with a win in Australia, starting off in pole position and converting that to a win, which is something he struggled to do in past seasons. There were many races like this that went well for Norris, such as Monaco and Austria, Silverstone, Mexico, and of course, Abu Dhabi. The win in Monaco was a race that put him closer to Oscar Piastri points wise and another win in Austria put him that much closer. These two races were crucial for the championship and could be considered perfect weekends as Norris started in pole position and converted both to wins. Silverstone was a more personal victory as that is his home race but a truly challenging race in the rain with many different race incidents, penalties, quick tire changes, and safety car developments. Mexico was an important race for the championship because that is when Lando Norris gained the lead points wise. Norris showed true dominance during this weekend, qualifying in pole position then going on to win the race by a full 30 seconds. While Norris didn’t win the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix he did get 3rd place, which was what he needed to win the Driver’s Championship. Norris fought against strong defense and offense from both Yuki Tsunoda and Charles Leclerc. Lando Norris was a strong and consistent driver in the 2025 season and will have many eyes on him in the 2026 season and we hope he does well.
Oscar Piastri
Oscar Piastri was one of the contenders for the Driver’s Championship for the 2025 season and is a truly magnificent driver. Piastri was the leader of the Championship for 15 rounds, the longest running of the three main competitors. He started his career as a Formula 1 driver in 2023 and became a championship contender just three years into the league. He ended the season with 410 points and 3rd in the Driver’s Championship. His season had many highs and many opportunities where he showed off his skill as a driver, but no season is without losses.
Piastri started the season on the wrong foot, the season opener in Australia was also his home race and it could have ended in a DNF due to a spin off. But Piastri pushed through and drove the car out of the grass and mud that it was trapped in and went on to place 9th. Piastri was a very consistent driver throughout the season, very rarely placing below 5th.
The Azerbaijan GP was a race both McLaren drivers struggled with, but Piastri did get the short end of the stick. He had qualified ninth after multiple long qualifying sessions but ended up jumping the start which triggered the anti-stall system on his car and pushed him back to last place. Shortly after, he crashed at Turn 6 (pictured above) on lap 1 where most cars are pushed together and the space to turn is very sparse.
Piastri didn’t have any other race ending incidents but did end up getting disqualified along with his teammate Norris after the Las Vegas Grand Prix. The biggest struggle that Oscar Piastri dealt with throughout the season was the different strategy calls from the team that many stated favored Norris over Piastri. Multiple times throughout the season, strange strategy calls were made, like asking the teammates to switch places or not intervening in a high-stakes situation.
Monza was one of the most controversial calls: Norris and Piastri had been right behind each and both had to pit, Piastri came in first, got his tires changed and went out on the track at the same place he was before. But Norris’s pit stop was much slower and he ended up behind Piastri, who was then asked to slow down for Norris to pull ahead, and although he did comply he and many others believe the McLaren was being overly controlling and prevented their drivers from actually racing. Piastri stated that slow pit-stop incidents are “part of racing,” but according to team principal Andrea Stella, “I think that the pitstop situation is not only a matter of fairness; it's a matter of consistency with our principles.” This matter of principles or “Papaya rules,” which are racing rules that are used to protect the drivers and ensure safe racing among teammates at McLaren, has been called into question before because of how controlling it is. Piastri dealt with multiple incidents such as this throughout the season and the McLaren team and the drivers have voiced their opinions on the rules, each going a different direction.
Although Piastri didn’t win the Championship in 2025, his performance was amazing and consistent and his wins are just as important as his struggles. Piastri won 7 of the 24 races in 2025 and was on the podium 16 of the 24 races. He was the most consistent throughout the season except for a short period towards the end where he struggled. Although the season opener and home race in Australia wasn’t a win or a podium, Oscar Piastri really showed who he was as a driver and person during that race when he refused to DNF and drove his car out of the mud and into 9th place. He then went on to win four out of the next five races.
Piastri’s best race was in Spain. He qualified in pole position and went on to win the race. Piastri spent much of the race defending against both Lando Norris and Max Verstappen. Norris lost second place to Verstappen during the start, but then Verstrappen was right behind Piastri for much of the race with Norris behind him. Verstrappen had run a three pit-stop race but due to a safety car being deployed, he ended up switching tires for a fourth time into hard compounds that were difficult to warm up and eventually pushed in back in the line up. Piastri went on to win the race with Norris 2.5 seconds behind him.
Another really good performance from Piastri was during the Miami GP, where he placed second in the Sprint and qualified in fourth position. He then went on to win the race with a 4.5 second gap between him and second place, Lando Norris, and then a 37 second gap between him and George Russell in third place. This race showed the prowess of the McLaren car but also Piastri’s control and overtaking abilities.
A key race for his championship bid was the Saudi Arabian GP, where his win pushed him to the front of the championship. Piastri qualified in 2nd place but after taking the inside line on Turn 1, he was able to overtake Max Verstappen. Verstappen went off track in an attempt to gain back the lead and eventually served a 5-second penalty for this, pushing Piastri back to the lead which he held on to for the rest of the race. Races like these showed Piastri’s ability to defend and flourish under pressure.
Piastri excelled in the 2025 regulations but both he and Norris have been struggling with the 2026 regulations so hopefully this 5-week break will help teams and the FIA to improve the racing ability of the 2026 regulation cars. We hope to see Piastri improve this season and show who he truly is as a driver.
