2025 McLaren F1 Team

[Quantum]

I think you forget Max has never had to fight a team mate for WDC. We have to go back to 2016 for the last time this happened

Lando won this championship with 18 podiums… 7 wins, 8 seconds, & 3 thirds, and that could have have been 2 more seconds without the DNF & the DSQ which were both out of his control

A performance ANY champion would be proud of

100%

It's not spoken about often enough. Max has serenity and total focus on him within the team. Design direction, set up, feedback, strategy, updates and I daresay a massive disparity in budget allocation goes toward car numero uno at Red Bull. It's permissible within the rules, not a criticism before anyone feels the need to attack.
Neither Lando or Piastri has that advantage.

Nor do they have a sister team repeatedly playing strategic games for the the Mothership.

[mwillems]

What was said is that he won't ever be a great champion like some of the recent multiple WDCs. As someone else mentioned, he is a Jenson Button style driver. Very talented but not in the mix with the big boys. Maybe that will change, we will see.

He's definitely had his moments I certainly wouldn't put him in the category of, or to Russell (ever).

That definitely just sounds like a personal grudge to be honest.

It's ironic finding myself in a position push back on this, but Lando Norris beat George Russell in the 2023 championship while driving a worse car. There are also arguments to be made that Lando's speed and tire management are superior to Russell. Lando also drove better in the last 6 races than Russell despite more pressure. So this claim of yours isn't the banked statement that you think it is imo. It deserves scrutiny. I personally think Russ is a tad overrated.

Also on the subject of ranking F1 WDCs, I think that discussion is a bit of forest from the trees. Lando Norris is the 35th (?) F1 WDC, ever. It's an exclusive club. There could be a ranking of WDCs, but it's only an academic exercise.

Now that Lando Norris is there, I hope that the defending champ does a good job of defending it next year where other champions are unable. We can't hand out WDCs willy nilly. It lowers the prestige. Better for the next championships to be shared amongst the existing champions than to have a run of randoms taking the trophy. The run of different champions from 2007 - 2010 was embarrassing. Passing around the title like a P word that can't be used here... When it happens like that, it's no longer a championship. It's a participation trophy.

That post you refer to in comparing to Russell was about their personalities, it came directly after a long virtiolic message about Lando's personality. It wasn't a comparison to Russell in ability. He's had some moments where he sounded quite entitled, but nothing compared to some other drivers. He's a really lovely guy who doesn't always phrase things that well, I suspect it isn't always intended to sound the way it did.

Regarding WDCs, the comments are about the number of mistakes made by Lando when chasing Oscar, general overdriving or struggling with adaptability this year. He clearly has had continued issues with judgement/mentality. I think in the final third of this season Lando has brought it home, but over the season, he's been strong but patchy, and just as importantly, he seems to need the car to suit him to be able to drive well, which is a Button trait.

[Darth-Piekus]

Perhaps all he needed was his first title and we might see a different Lando next year.

[mwillems]

Congratulations to both Lando and McLaren… What a season!

Both Titles and a history making year…

I guess at least the debate on whether Lando is championship material or not can be binned now

Looking forward to 2026… Let’s hope they keep the momentum going

What was said is that he won't ever be a great champion like some of the recent multiple WDCs. As someone else mentioned, he is a Jenson Button style driver. Very talented but not in the mix with the big boys. Maybe that will change, we will see.

He's had a good season though and he deserves it, but he sure as hell made it very difficult for himself at the start with a lack of adaptation, hitting Oscar and also the wall. Once the car was adapted for him, he really started to do well.

Moving the goal post a bit… So subjective when it comes to defining someone as a “Great Champion”… The reality is that most Champions, including those that you and many consider “Great” were so with the best car in the grid and that masks a lot of weaknesses and flaws… We’ve watch Lewis, one of the greatest in the sport, struggle more than anyone could imagine at Ferrari, similar with Vettel or even Schumacher during his 3 year stint with Mercedes and it will be interesting to see Verstappen next year if he doesn’t have a fast car, the car still matters… And I believe Lando actually had a great season, because in my opinion, the McLaren wasn’t as fast as everyone made it to be and the Red Bull wasn’t the tractor that RB fans and the media (for clicks and engagement) made it out to be.

Whether Lando will be considered in the same list as Senna, Schumacher, Hamilton, Verstappen… time will tell, nevertheless the fact is that he proved that you can show vulnerability (not just hide behind a mask in front of the media), be aware and openly discuss your struggles and still succeed… Good for him for doing so and in the way, showing that contrary to what most expected, he didn’t falter under pressure (and the end of the season was quiet the pressure cooker with a charging and in-form Max, DSQ’s and an ever shrinking point gap).

And regarding “adaptation”… Not sure where that is coming from, the car wasn’t allowing him to maximize it, apparently due to lack of feedback, but F1 has always showed that in order to be really fast, the driver has to trust the car and it’s hard to trust a car if the feedback isn’t there… Not really sure if that is a “driver” problem since once the team implemented fixes to bring that feeling back, he seemed to perform at his best, great for the team to acknowledge and implement the necessary changes.

Time to celebrate and enjoy something that hasn’t happen for almost 2 decades… First driver not in a Mercedes or a RedBull to win it too.

Happy holidays to everyone around here

It's not moving the goalposts, I know what I said. I said if he wins the WDC he's not going to be considered a strong champion were the exact words. I've substituted the word strong for great, fair enough, but it's synonymous. I appreciate that you like the guy and want to support him, but as mentioned in the reply above, the volume of mistakes under pressure and the inability to drive a car that didn't suit him do not bode well and as much as someone wants to be a cheerleader for Lando, he has more experience (seven seasons) but is only slightly ahead of Oscar, who is on his third season.

Lando seems to need a car to suit, Oscar needs the track to suit, Oscar took advantage of Lando's poor early season form but luckily for him, in his bad patch the car was still streets ahead, when Oscar had his bad patch others had caught the Mclaren up and Lando's better performances counted more.

While I don't see a strong argument for Lando being an especially strong driver this year, it’s undeniable he finished well, which was great to see.

[mzso]

People have no idea what real dominance looks like but I wouldn't blame them if their whole F1 history is the last 5 years. The current Mclaren was nowhere near the dominance of the MP4-1 from 1984, the MP4-4 of 1988 which lost only 1 race by sheer luck, the MP4-13 of Hakkinen and Coulthard who lapped the whole field in Melbourne 1998, the Mercedes of 2014-2020 who lapped almost everyone and of course the RB of 2022 and 2023 who lost one race. All those time periods have one thing in common. Best car, good drivers and best execution. 2025 was leagues away from that performance. The car was good, not best to be able to lap the whole field, top drivers but terrible execution as they stopped development very early while the opposition continued and childish mistakes which the drivers paid for it without having any fault as their performances were excellent.

The mp4-13 definitley doesn't belong in this list. It was dominant in one race only. Where two thirds of drivers DNF-ed, including Schumacher.

[FittingMechanics]

If we want to talk about mistakes we have to be honest that the "GOAT" made some mistakes this year as well.

Deliberately crashing into Russell that got him +10s penalty that lost him lose 9 points.
Spinning on safety car restart in Silverstone - finished P5 and probably lost at least 5 points.

There were probably more but these stand out.

People make mistakes, even Max Verstappen. Ofcourse Lando made some mistakes, had some bad luck (same as Verstappen and Piastri). It's the nature of having a super long 24 race season.

[mzso]

What could be the reason that Max did not have to fight a team mate ...

Maybe it's the fact that he didn't have a competent one since Ricciardo?

[mwillems]

If we want to talk about mistakes we have to be honest that the "GOAT" made some mistakes this year as well.

Deliberately crashing into Russell that got him +10s penalty that lost him lose 9 points.
Spinning on safety car restart in Silverstone - finished P5 and probably lost at least 5 points.

There were probably more but these stand out.

People make mistakes, even Max Verstappen. Ofcourse Lando made some mistakes, had some bad luck (same as Verstappen and Piastri). It's the nature of having a super long 24 race season.

Oh yeah, Max made mistakes, but was still better than our boys - though I will be clear, I do think that the car suits him and he can drive it very well, I don't think it is all Max as some of the RB fans like to portray. That doesn't bother me though, as I've said before. I'm happy with our boys, though if we get into a tight fight next year and these margins count more, then it changes things, but they have time to improve and as I've said before, I feel that Oscars peak will exceed Lando, not that that counts for anything today.

[mwillems]

What could be the reason that Max did not have to fight a team mate ...

Maybe it's the fact that he didn't have competent one since Ricciardo?

Perez was quite good, I suspect he had some slight decline but also the car became hard for him to handle but he was good for a while.

It's not a coincidence that these young drivers look very strong in the sister car. I think the car was always very very strong when it could be handled, but you needed to be a top driver and probably quite an experienced driver to handle it.

You might compare it to a wild mustang, huge amounts of raw speed, very hard to handle.

Luckily for the WCC a second driver wasn't able to make a dent on Mclaren in the WCC, but it did help Max in the WDC, being the focal point of the team.

[mzso]

What could be the reason that Max did not have to fight a team mate ...

Maybe it's the fact that he didn't have competent one since Ricciardo?

Perez was quite good, I suspect he had some slight decline but also the car became hard for him to handle but he was good for a while.

It's not a coincidence that these young drivers look very strong in the sister car. I think the car was always very very strong when it could be handled, but you needed to be a top driver and probably quite an experienced driver to handle it.

You might compare it to a wild mustang, huge amounts of raw speed, very hard to handle.

Luckily for the WCC a second driver wasn't able to make a dent on Mclaren in the WCC, but it did help Max in the WDC, being the focal point of the team.

He was okay for like 5-6 races. One would expect a good driver to adapt to a car in a while. Like Sainz did this year. But it didn't happen.

I don't know, maybe the car has some deranged character that only Verstappen has adapted to drive, so far. (Well, probably ever now. Next year's car is unlikely to be similar.)

[Darth-Piekus]

The mp4-13 definitley doesn't belong in this list. It was dominant in one race only. Where two thirds of drivers DNF-ed, including Schumacher.

The third driver who was Villeneuve ended one lap behind and generally that year it is written that Andrian Newey's design beat the Michael.

[Darth-Piekus]

Oh yeah, Max made mistakes, but was still better than our boys - though I will be clear, I do think that the car suits him and he can drive it very well, I don't think it is all Max as some of the RB fans like to portray. That doesn't bother me though, as I've said before. I'm happy with our boys, though if we get into a tight fight next year and these margins count more, then it changes things, but they have time to improve and as I've said before, I feel that Oscars peak will exceed Lando, not that that counts for anything today.

Better is a matter of opinion. He does have favoritism and is allowed to be aggressive. Our boys cant do that. I would prefer to make a comparison when every driver is treated the same way.

[mwillems]

Oh yeah, Max made mistakes, but was still better than our boys - though I will be clear, I do think that the car suits him and he can drive it very well, I don't think it is all Max as some of the RB fans like to portray. That doesn't bother me though, as I've said before. I'm happy with our boys, though if we get into a tight fight next year and these margins count more, then it changes things, but they have time to improve and as I've said before, I feel that Oscars peak will exceed Lando, not that that counts for anything today.

Better is a matter of opinion. He does have favoritism and is allowed to be aggressive. Our boys cant do that. I would prefer to make a comparison when every driver is treated the same way.

Unfortunately I don't think it is that subjective, we definitely made a lot of errors.
Luckily, there was usually another Mclaren driver to mop up and for the first half of the season, a poor race would still likely get a podium.

Like I said before, When Lando had his issues at the start of the season, the car was still substantially better and so he still got big points. Fortunately Lando came good when it counted and unfortunately for Oscar, he struggled when other cars continued to develop and catch up, and we drew a line on the 25 car.

[mzso]

The mp4-13 definitley doesn't belong in this list. It was dominant in one race only. Where two thirds of drivers DNF-ed, including Schumacher.

The third driver who was Villeneuve ended one lap behind and generally that year it is written that Andrian Newey's design beat the Michael.

It was rather balanced in the rest of the year. It was more Like Häkkinen who defeated Schumacher.

[chrisc90]

I’d still think that McLaren have the favouritism edge to Lando.

I saw this posted on one comment thread on Social media so not 100% sure on the accuracy