2025 McLaren F1 Team

[PikeStance]

We won, but we lost! Four 1-2's in a row, but it kinda sucks! I honestly only found out in 2025 that some folks have a preference in which driver wins. Me, I'm just counting the poles, wins and 1-2 finishes! From the way it played out, I feel Lando's side were racing Leclerc and Russell for P2, I'm still surprised how little ground Oscar made with the undercut attempt. I thought he'd be at least on Leclerc's gearbox if not ahead, but Leclerc was quite comfortably ahead. Anybody have any info on his Outlap after his first pitstop?

Yeah, I do not get it either. Drivers are a means to an end. If you want McLaren 1-2, why on Earth would you care which driver is 1 or 2? All the marbles are in the WCC, the WDC gives you nothing but bragging rights.

Serious question, if your "favorite driver" leaves the team, what do you do? You follow him, or do you adopt a new driver? If the latter, why bother having a "favorite" driver? The craziness happens with training camp in the NFL. You have these jokers who have become fans of certain rookies. They argued with great zest for them, and 75% of them will be out of the league in two or three years. This is the same irrationality. I pull for whoever makes us a better team.

[PikeStance]

People are confusing arguments. No one stated that a one-stop was a "Hail Mary" approach to the race. Norris was out of contention for the win. Given the circumstances, the one-stop was a "Hail Mary" for Norris to be back in contention for the race win. A two-stopper was limited to third at best.
Will this end the red herring argument? Who knows, but there it is.

[Watto]

Yep. I don't know how you can be critical of Lando/McLaren for this. Oscar was given the option to one stop at least twice once before the pit stop once after the first stop. He didn't commit to either.

Going by radio too Landos plan A minus 5 laps almost when Charles game in so that forced them to bring in Oscar to protect from the undercut otherwise it drrrf Lando was going to undercut. I don't think their original intent at that stage was to to bring Oscar in but can see why - hindsight sure you could argue.. Lando stayed out I think even then it was more likely a chance to finish 2nd. But credit to Lando he made it work.

I suspect roles reversed Oscar would have done the same in Landos position

Had say Charles can not Ferrari'ed itself, and CL won. People would have argued why didn't they split strategies to try and beat Charles who Oscar wasn't really making any inroads into

[Avocado]

Serious question, if your "favorite driver" leaves the team, what do you do?

Come on, is this your first time watching sports? There are two types of people. Some support the team, and some support the driver. Whichever team that driver goes to, they support that team at that moment. Isn't it logical? I've always been a McLaren fan and I've always supported the drivers who raced for them.

[WardenOfTheNorth]

Turning the page on this silly fake argument/debate.....looks like we are on track to win the WCC at Monza. Will be similar to the Schumi-dominance days in terms of how early in the season the WCC is won.
Ferrari will not be pleased (even if it is their best chance to get a win this season)

I thought CotA was the earliest they can win it??

[Macklaren]

Turning the page on this silly fake argument/debate.....looks like we are on track to win the WCC at Monza. Will be similar to the Schumi-dominance days in terms of how early in the season the WCC is won.
Ferrari will not be pleased (even if it is their best chance to get a win this season)

I thought CotA was the earliest they can win it??

Ah I forgot about the sprints. It will be Baku not Monza

[FittingMechanics]

Monza I think is not possible (theoretically), Baku is doable but I don't have the numbers ready.

[geogate]

wasnt happy at all with the attitude from Piastry that with 11 races to finish, he was only interested in finishing above Norris rather than going for the win. There are 1000+ people putting that race car together. They arnt doing that for his personal glory

[geogate]

mistake post

[thestig84]

wasnt happy at all with the attitude from Piastry that with 11 races to finish, he was only interested in finishing above Norris rather than going for the win. There are 1000+ people putting that race car together. They arnt doing that for his personal glory

I agree, I was surprised to hear this and surprised not many have picked up on it. I feel like it was first sign that he (and his side of garage) might be feeling a bit of pressure. No doubt the media would be very different and jump on it if Norris said it. It is fairly obvious that winning means beating your respective teammate, thats all both side of the garage need to focus on and the rest takes care of itself. Was a bit of a poor question to ask O.P really.

[mwillems]

And it was asked more than once. I do feel that the pitwall is perhaps the weaker (but not weak) part of the operation. They will do well with the RB guy next year.

Hopefully the engineers and designers can continue to be the class of the field next year.

The Merc engine sounds promising and Wolff seems bullish, but we don't really know anything concrete yet.

[SB15]

And it was asked more than once. I do feel that the pitwall is perhaps the weaker (but not weak) part of the operation. They will do well with the RB guy next year.

Hopefully the engineers and designers can continue to be the class of the field next year.

The Merc engine sounds promising and Wolff seems bullish, but we don't really know anything concrete yet.

It's going to be very interesting between the Mclaren and Mercedes, I might even bring up Aston Martin because they're an outlier that everyone is downplaying, so I'd watch out for them.

[BMMR61]

And it was asked more than once. I do feel that the pitwall is perhaps the weaker (but not weak) part of the operation. They will do well with the RB guy next year.

Hopefully the engineers and designers can continue to be the class of the field next year.

The Merc engine sounds promising and Wolff seems bullish, but we don't really know anything concrete yet.

I do agree. Our growing dominance since Canada has covered up for weak strategic thinking.

I couldn't understand OP/Stallard's weak attempt at the undercut. It was so early (about one quarter race distance!) as to leave few options open, especially when Charles easily covered Oscar for another frustrated stint. Oscar's times on the new rubber were barely an improvement on the times before the pitstop. The "optimal" two-stop race prescribed by Pirelli was, I believe, fairly marginal and the spread of drivers going for either option was predicted. Remember also that this "optimal" is adversely affected if held up behind another car. The team should have been aware that a split strategy by any of the teams was on the cards.

Secondly, the track temperatures were lower than expected and very low by Budapest standards. With the MCL39's renowned ability to look after it's tyres this quality could/should have been exploited in pushing Leclerc beyond the tyres' endurance.

Overall though, all the ideas of Oscar somehow being screwed over are wide of the mark. There were various factors, especially Leclerc's lead, at play to make Oscar's race suboptimal. Overall the strategy was less idiotic than what resulted in last year's entirely unnecessary undercut, but still not very clever. It seems like the final piece to the McLaren puzzle won't be in place until Will Courtenay, ex-RedBull, cleans up the strategy team next year.

[CjC]

I’ve been waiting for this.

Race pace:



As I said after the race, Landos pace was electric for a 1 stopper.

We should be applauding Lando for being the second quickest driver on average race pace he made the one stopper work

[Slahinki]

wasnt happy at all with the attitude from Piastry that with 11 races to finish, he was only interested in finishing above Norris rather than going for the win. There are 1000+ people putting that race car together. They arnt doing that for his personal glory

If he's happy going for P2, even when the win is well within reach, just to make sure he's ahead of Norris, that's honestly a rather big problem, in my opinion. If the lead driver in the race isn't happy going for the win, I wouldn't mind enforcing team orders to allow the chasing driver to have a go at it.

McLaren drivers should be racing to win races for McLaren, if that's not their priority they can go elsewhere.