2025 McLaren F1 Team

[mwillems]

There's a trend with Piastri's 1st stint in Japan, Bahrain and Jeddah. Losing pace towards the end, more than others.

I think he needs to get better at the art of dropping back and saving his tires for much of the first stint. He seems to need to want to close up

Norris never starts to struggle like this in dirty air. Norris manages to drive forever in dirty air. In Bahrain, Piastri was in clean air, but then I remember that he radioed to the team that he was struggling at the end of the first stint.

I'm wondering if Piastri's tire management had also been masked by the cooler circumstances of the first races. If that's true, then it will swing back to Norris in the summer months. I guess if you look really hard, you can see it in the first stint in Australia too. I think Norris still manages the tires better, but Norris makes things too complicated with qualifying and the racecraft to really punish Piastri.

I think his driving style does energise the tyres a little more. And there is probably a tenth more in the car than he can extract. But it's worth noting that following cars is harder this year than last, there is more dirty air. Being 30 plus laps around 1.2s from Max will have hurt the tyres.


At the end of the race, if you get a chance to watch again, you'll see Oscar was impeded by some traffic and opened his gap again once through it.

[mwillems]

Oscar totally owned the line at the first corner and showed no fear of Max in the line to turn 2, with Max being the dtiver who had to bail.

That was a strong ballsy move.

It's exactly the type of move to take away that "let me go or we crash". Max knows both Norris and Piastri can be WDC this year. Crashing with either one would increase the gap to the other one.

To be fair, if we look at it in isolation, if Max held it on the track on outside and they had a crash, Piastri would be at fault as he was the car overtaking. But Max can't do that because he will lose points to Lando. So he abuses the penalty system and clear air to get the best for him. So let's use that against Max, fight him hard willing to crash so he can't abuse the system as he usually tries.

What annoys me is that both Max and Horner know they did it on purpose. They know that by keeping the clear air they gained more than they lost with the penalty but they are faking outrage.

Exactly. I said as much to Farnborough before the race. This is not a binary championship so it is less likely to make hard binary choices.


I'm sure Max is outraged to be fair. I'm not going to say it was harsh, but you can see some stewards not giving it. I'm not sure if Max could have made the corner or not but he went across the corner like he was on the racing line.

[FittingMechanics]

Oscar totally owned the line at the first corner and showed no fear of Max in the line to turn 2, with Max being the dtiver who had to bail.

That was a strong ballsy move.

It's exactly the type of move to take away that "let me go or we crash". Max knows both Norris and Piastri can be WDC this year. Crashing with either one would increase the gap to the other one.

To be fair, if we look at it in isolation, if Max held it on the track on outside and they had a crash, Piastri would be at fault as he was the car overtaking. But Max can't do that because he will lose points to Lando. So he abuses the penalty system and clear air to get the best for him. So let's use that against Max, fight him hard willing to crash so he can't abuse the system as he usually tries.

What annoys me is that both Max and Horner know they did it on purpose. They know that by keeping the clear air they gained more than they lost with the penalty but they are faking outrage.

Exactly. I said as much to Farnborough before the race. This is not a binary championship so it is less likely to make hard binary choices.


I'm sure Max is outraged to be fair. I'm not going to say it was harsh, but you can see some stewards not giving it. I'm not sure if Max could have made the corner or not but he went across the corner like he was on the racing line.

If this happened once we could say he made a genuine attempt to make the corner but reality is this is one of signature Max moves and usually he keeps the inside, let's off his brakes and then forces the other car off.

He knows what he is doing. It is 100% intentional.

Norris struggled to counter it last year finally managed to figure it out in the latter part. Piastri did it well here.

[mwillems]

I've no doubt it was on purpose, just don't think it was tbe worst Max move.

"Norris struggled to counter it last year finally managed to figure it out in the latter part. Piastri did it well here"

It's a 4 way championship, Max cannot be as robust as he was last year. In a binary championship where you are ahead, letting both cars be damaged and not yielding a place is advantageous as you keep the championship lead and take away another race that could have closed the gap.

Now you have Lando and George ready to capitalise if you drop points, so Max' options are narrowed.

[Ben1980]

I'm not really sure Max did much wrong in the building up, and he did gain an advantage by going off. So, not really seeing an issue.

He also probably did the right thing by not giving the place back. And hoping something works out.

I think he wins though if Oscar didn't get the good start on him.

[Slahinki]

Oscar totally owned the line at the first corner and showed no fear of Max in the line to turn 2, with Max being the dtiver who had to bail.

That was a strong ballsy move.

It's exactly the type of move to take away that "let me go or we crash". Max knows both Norris and Piastri can be WDC this year. Crashing with either one would increase the gap to the other one.

To be fair, if we look at it in isolation, if Max held it on the track on outside and they had a crash, Piastri would be at fault as he was the car overtaking. But Max can't do that because he will lose points to Lando. So he abuses the penalty system and clear air to get the best for him. So let's use that against Max, fight him hard willing to crash so he can't abuse the system as he usually tries.

What annoys me is that both Max and Horner know they did it on purpose. They know that by keeping the clear air they gained more than they lost with the penalty but they are faking outrage.

The whole of that team comes off as whingy brats once something doesn't go their way. It's easily the least likeable team currently on the grid, and has been for a long, long, time.

[De Wet]

Nice one by Osc and a good recovery by Lando. LEC had super strong race, so not realistic to get on podium.
Oscar finishing only 2.7s ahead of VER in "dominant" Mcl car, can't wait for all the explanations how did that happen.

Well its great news for the season. No one wants to see Mclaren dominate. Hopefully our worst fears have been put to bed.

What do you mean? I know people who would not mind Mclaren domination you keep on promising, myself included.
I can't wait until we see that 0.7s a lap advantage folks keep on bringing up. Horner did not forget to bring up 1.1s FP3 pace advange twice during the interview prerace on the grid, perhaps that's where these rumors come from amongst others.

I'm one of them.

[Farnborough]

The press generally like to amp up the rhetoric and push reactions, of course they are looking at themselves and their own perceived importance as bystanders in most sports

There are things like this though

[BMMR61]

With all the discussion about T1 L1, the only controversy should be about Red Bull deciding not to give the position back. It looked like a cynical decision to use track position to leave OP in the dirty air and try to regain the 5 seconds they would lose. It almost worked for them and really the rewards decision would have looked lame if Max were to manage to keep the lead through the pitstops. This cynical sort of play should be sorted out. McLaren gave the position back to Lewis last week when Lando couldn't stay within track limits. Red Bull and Max Verstappen take their winning determination to a level many think is unacceptable. A shame because I like Max the driver and the person, it's just that he can't stop crossing that line.

[Ben1980]

With all the discussion about T1 L1, the only controversy should be about Red Bull deciding not to give the position back. It looked like a cynical decision to use track position to leave OP in the dirty air and try to regain the 5 seconds they would lose. It almost worked for them and really the rewards decision would have looked lame if Max were to manage to keep the lead through the pitstops. This cynical sort of play should be sorted out. McLaren gave the position back to Lewis last week when Lando couldn't stay within track limits. Red Bull and Max Verstappen take their winning determination to a level many think is unacceptable. A shame because I like Max the driver and the person, it's just that he can't stop crossing that line.

It was the correct thing to do, for a team point of view. It was the only way to win after the penalty.

But, with the safety car so soon after the incident, there was not much time to do it anyway.

But, it wasn't wrong to do that.

[rbirules]

With all the discussion about T1 L1, the only controversy should be about Red Bull deciding not to give the position back. It looked like a cynical decision to use track position to leave OP in the dirty air and try to regain the 5 seconds they would lose. It almost worked for them and really the rewards decision would have looked lame if Max were to manage to keep the lead through the pitstops. This cynical sort of play should be sorted out. McLaren gave the position back to Lewis last week when Lando couldn't stay within track limits. Red Bull and Max Verstappen take their winning determination to a level many think is unacceptable. A shame because I like Max the driver and the person, it's just that he can't stop crossing that line.

It was the correct thing to do, for a team point of view. It was the only way to win after the penalty.

But, with the safety car so soon after the incident, there was not much time to do it anyway.

But, it wasn't wrong to do that.

Exactly this, the two incidents are not the same. Lando did not give the place back to Lewis immediately, he gave it back almost exactly one lap later (going into turn 4). Max couldn't have done this because by that point there was a SC and you can't change places under a SC, and then the penalty was given out before the SC ended. Not saying Red Bull/Max would have given the place back even if they had a longer time to consider that option, but they really didn't have much time to do that. Not to mention the SC was brought on by an accident involving their other car so I'm sure that took some of their attention as well.