2025 McLaren F1 Team

[F1NAC]

I feel most sorry for Oscar as he nailed the entire weekend trying to turn the championship around. He had been in a league of his own, doing everything he had to. Many are talking about Lando, but it was Oscar that lost out most yesterday. Realistically his championship is over by no fault of his own.

For Lando I do blame him. He should had followed Max into the pits.

Don’t get me wrong, i don’t want to defend this team in any way, but you can’t also ignore that dip in form after zandvoort.. if he loses the title it is mostly because of lack of his form in 2nd half. From 104+ to - 6 ( correct me if I’m wrong) behind Verstappen.

What are we talking about?

The only think that separates him from Norris that he has more that killer instinct when needed. But he will regret his performance in 2nd half

[Ben1980]

I feel most sorry for Oscar as he nailed the entire weekend trying to turn the championship around. He had been in a league of his own, doing everything he had to. Many are talking about Lando, but it was Oscar that lost out most yesterday. Realistically his championship is over by no fault of his own.

For Lando I do blame him. He should had followed Max into the pits.

Don’t get me wrong, i don’t want to defend this team in any way, but you can’t also ignore that dip in form after zandvoort.. if he loses the title it is mostly because of lack of his form in 2nd half. From 104+ to - 6 ( correct me if I’m wrong) behind Verstappen.

What are we talking about?

The only think that separates him from Norris that he has more that killer instinct when needed. But he will regret his performance in 2nd half

Oscar should have wrapped this up by now. 34points ahead, and the car more than capable of top 3 in the vast majority of tge races, as shown. He had it on a platter.

Lando underperformed at the start and still has his issues, but I'm not sure he ever had it in his hands until the end, and even then he's not blamed for Vegas and he's lost 2 points in Qatar through the team.

[SilviuAgo]

Just a reminder ))

[Gillian]

I feel most sorry for Oscar as he nailed the entire weekend trying to turn the championship around. He had been in a league of his own, doing everything he had to. Many are talking about Lando, but it was Oscar that lost out most yesterday. Realistically his championship is over by no fault of his own.

For Lando I do blame him. He should had followed Max into the pits.

Don’t get me wrong, i don’t want to defend this team in any way, but you can’t also ignore that dip in form after zandvoort.. if he loses the title it is mostly because of lack of his form in 2nd half. From 104+ to - 6 ( correct me if I’m wrong) behind Verstappen.

What are we talking about?

The only think that separates him from Norris that he has more that killer instinct when needed. But he will regret his performance in 2nd half

Indeed Piastri is better in w2w racing than Norris, more decisive it seems. He also seems to have more pace overall when the track suits him. Norris' pace seems more consistent over a season and he is just slightly faster in general. Norris on a bad day probably is faster than Piastri on a bad day, the former just seems to struggle a bit more when duelling.

Not much in it anyway, I would not say one deserves it more than the other.

And no worries boys, Norris will get a podium, no doubt.

[SilviuAgo]

I feel most sorry for Oscar as he nailed the entire weekend trying to turn the championship around. He had been in a league of his own, doing everything he had to. Many are talking about Lando, but it was Oscar that lost out most yesterday. Realistically his championship is over by no fault of his own.

For Lando I do blame him. He should had followed Max into the pits.

Don’t get me wrong, i don’t want to defend this team in any way, but you can’t also ignore that dip in form after zandvoort.. if he loses the title it is mostly because of lack of his form in 2nd half. From 104+ to - 6 ( correct me if I’m wrong) behind Verstappen.

What are we talking about?

The only think that separates him from Norris that he has more that killer instinct when needed. But he will regret his performance in 2nd half

Oscar should have wrapped this up by now. 34points ahead, and the car more than capable of top 3 in the vast majority of tge races, as shown. He had it on a platter.

Lando underperformed at the start and still has his issues, but I'm not sure he ever had it in his hands until the end, and even then he's not blamed for Vegas and he's lost 2 points in Qatar through the team.

If we look at some of the recent races, famous Monza (the source of Lando booos), Baku (with another magical 6seconds pitstop), Vegas and Qatar, the team screw his drivers like this:
Lando: +3p for Monza (P2 vs P3), -4p for Baku (P7 vs P5) -18p for Vegas (DSQ vs P2) and -3p for Qatar (P4 vs P3)
Oscar: -3p for Monza (P3 vs P2), -12p for Vegas (DSQ vs P4) and -7p for Qatar (P2 vs P1).
So a total of: -22p for Lando and, shocking, -22p for Oscar.

Papaya rules at his top.

[basti313]

That Stella interview - that was pure Sh%%housery. Playing the diplomat, talking about 'learning lessons' etc - pure BS.
ZacBrown was more forthcoming, he plainly said 'we messed up'. So did Norris and so did Piastri. Out of the four of them, Stella was only the guy attempting to 'bring some blame on bad luck'. It was pathetic to watch.

I think that is now a bit of a example, where the strong housekeeping in communication did not work anymore. Last week I highlighted the extremely good and clean communication. This week showed the limits:
- Driver comms suddenly lost their "coding" as things heated up. First they gave a usually coded message on understeer to Lando, once he started discussing they clearly said the tire temp is too high at the front.
- The post race interviews ended up being a set of phrases really without any useful information. Just waste of time.

Yeah I think they were expecting a few at least not to pit. Even 3-4 cars might have been enough to hold Max up.

I think that claim is nonsense. The crash was right behind Had. Everyone behind Had did not play any role to this, as everyone would have been out of a SC pit window for Oscar, Max and Lando. Oscar should even have stayed in front of Had, maybe Alo if they stayed out.

Same for the claim, that double stacking would have been a risk...there was a 2sec gap between all cars till Alo/Rus, which were close to each other, and Lando had a perfect 4sec gap to Oscar.

Stella seemed to indicate they were hoping for another safety car too which I think is a very dangerous game to play and...well so it happens they lost out.

I think also this does not make any sense. A very early SC after the first one would have just caused mayhem. Imagine a crash at the restart without red flag and 5 extra laps under SC....in the end they were only saved by the Alo train and with just two more SC laps that would not have worked out. Maybe in a 10lap fram before their first stop and 5 laps before the second stop a SC would have helped.

Gave up a pretty simple 1-2 - maybe Max with his pace could have undercut Lando. But Oscar was in a world of his in the race.

Seeing the Alo train: Oscar would have been gone, so P1 for Oscar. But Max could in any case have pitted once he cleared the Alo train. I do not see a chance for an undercut.

[matt_b]

I feel most sorry for Oscar as he nailed the entire weekend trying to turn the championship around. He had been in a league of his own, doing everything he had to. Many are talking about Lando, but it was Oscar that lost out most yesterday. Realistically his championship is over by no fault of his own.

For Lando I do blame him. He should had followed Max into the pits.

It was brutal for Oscar because he was about to take 10 points off Lando and 7 off Max, but where was this Oscar between Baku and Las Vegas? Yesterday was like the Pre-Baku Oscar but where was he for those 6 races. Its almost as confusing as McLaren not pitting on Lap 7 yesterday. Those races were so costly, not a single podium in that car between those races

[search]

I think that claim is nonsense. The crash was right behind Had. Everyone behind Had did not play any role to this, as everyone would have been out of a SC pit window for Oscar, Max and Lando. Oscar should even have stayed in front of Had, maybe Alo if they stayed out.

Verstappen from 2nd initially dropped behind* Ocon - 13th before everyone pitted - so this is not correct.

Nonetheless, pitting would have been the right call, of course, and an easy decision like this ("What do we do in case of an early SC?") should have been determined before the race already.

*edit: checking again, it was quite a large gas as well, so more cars could have gone though

[chrisc90]

There’s been many times when McLaren haven’t led the strategy calls for the race or been aggressive enough.

Most of the time they just follow what red bull has done if it’s not going a bit longer to extend the tyre stint life to have a shorter one at the end.

Their creativeness lacks a lot IMHO

[FittingMechanics]

Lando only effectively needs to be p4 with Oscar p2/3 in order to get the title.

All Oscar has to do is slow down and let Norris past.

Would be quite a taint on his 1st title for Norris though needing his team mate to get him it by dropping positions.

Straight fight to the death would be the best route with neither title contender backing down.

As tainted as Verstappen titles are with his teammates (and junior teammates in RB) moving away whenever he comes close to them.