As pre-season Formula One testing drew to a close, the conclusion amongst observers was pretty unanimous. McLaren were the class of the 2025 F1 field. Yet the results from testing are notoriously difficult to judge, given that certain teams did no qualifying simulations and others chose not to perform full tanks race simulations.
Yet come the Australian Grand Prix last weekend, the analysts were proved correct and the MCL39 is the car to catch this season. George Russell despondently noted that the papaya liveried cars had “such an advantage” that “they can stop development now and go fully on 2026”.
Although this is unlikely given in season F1 upgrades often deliver between one to two seconds of improved pace for the teams across the ten months of racing around the globe.
McLaren’s lead difficult to judge
The wet race in Melbourne made it difficult to asses exactly how quick the McLaren cars really are, but prior to the Fernando Alonso crash about half way through the race, Lando Norris was around 15 seconds ahead of Max Verstappen.
When it came to switching to dry tyres, McLaren opted for the hard tyre while Max preferred the medium and the gap then stabilised before the safety car was deployed to deal with the huge amount of shredded carbon fibre being strewn across the track from the Aston Martin drivers’ crash.
So it may be that McLaren’s advantage was exaggerated when using the notoriously unpredictable intermediate rain tyre and so a predicted thirty second lead in an uneventful dry race from start to the chequered flag would not necessarily have been the result.
Come this weekend in China there will be a shift amongst the rankings of the top teams as certain car design philosophies have faired better than others over the years in Shanghai. Mercedes have the most wins at the Chinese circuit with six, but then they were mostly delivered when the team had a significant advantage over the rest of the F1 field. Ferrari have four wins to their name in Shanghai, whilst McLaren and Red Bull have three apiece.
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Verstappen pessimism qualified
Lewis Hamilton claimed two of the McLaren wins in China in 2008 and 2011 but these followed Hamilton ruining his world championship hopes in 2007, by missing the entrance to the pit lane and parking his car in the gravel trap.
Yet when an F1 team builds an uber dominant car as Red Bull did in 2023, the circuit specific characteristics have less of an impact on the pecking order and if Max Verstappen is to be believed, this year’s McLaren car is further ahead of the field than was Verstappen’s record breaking RB19.
“The gap they have this year on everybody is bigger than Red Bull has ever had,” he told The Race in Shanghai, adding the MCL39’s advantage is “definitely bigger” than the RB19 that won all but one race in 2023.
Yet Verstappen’s pessimism is qualified as he added “its impossible to say” whether over the season the MCL39 will be stronger than the all conquering Red Bull of 2023.
Red Bull good in “high speed”
“They’re super strong,” Verstappen said of McLaren. “I have a lot of respect for what they have done already last year and now they’re very fast. Very all-round, good everywhere. That is just a fact now, how big the gap is or whatever [it] is difficult to say.”
Having not driven the MCL39 Max suggested it would be impossible to say at this stage of the season whether the McLaren team can come somewhere near to emulating Red Bulls success in 2023 but in terms of all round performance the world champion believes his Red Bull currently is lacking.
Speaking to assembled media in China, the Red Bull driver had this to say: “I just want to focus on our own car. We just try to work from there, because that’s the only thing that we can control anyway.
“That’s what I prefer to focus on and hopefully, step by step, we can find some more performance. I think in general, what we have seen so far, high-speed has not really been weak, so it is quite good.
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“It is more the rest of it, where we are not all-round enough. That is what we have to work on. Here, there are not that many high-speed corners, but there are a lot of unknowns with the tarmac – it’s new. So it’s very hard to say where we will be,” Verstappen concluded.
In a smog free sunny morning in Shanghai, George Russell doubled down on his assessment that McLaren have little to do developing their car this year despite Norris having chastised him saying, “that’s not the mentality to have.”
Yet Russell continued his gloomy assessment of how far the Woking based F1 team are ahead of the field stating: “I think their car is definitely capable of winning every race and their car should win every race, but I don’t think they will win every race this year,” said the Mercedes driver.
Russell concurred with Max Verstappen when he said: “I think the gap they have on everybody this year is bigger than Red Bull has ever had. But when Max was in that car [in 2023], he was pretty reliable every single lap, he did every single run in Q3 or throughout qualifying, it was never really a question. So, hopefully we can be there to capitalise like we were at the weekend – because that should have been a 1-2 for those guys.”
Russell questions the quality of McLaren drivers
George appears to be suggesting that Verstappen drove almost a perfect year in 2023, but questions whether the McLaren duo can emulate that this season. Given both Norris and Piastri had sizeable “offs” in Melbourne, with Piastri losing the team a 1-2 as he remained stuck in the grass, there may be something in Russell’s observation.
Lando Norris gave some advice to Mercedes and Russell claiming: “George has been talking a lot lately. It seems like they think the season’s over already before it’s even started. And I said that it was probably the wrong mentality to have last weekend already. I don’t know, just seems a bit odd,” said the championship leader.
“They should probably just focus more as a team rather than talking as much as they are. But it doesn’t change anything. Like, yeah, thank you – it’s a compliment. We’re doing an amazing job. We’re doing a better job than them.”
Norris went on to state that both Ferrari and Red Bull are doing a better job than Mercedes, which sparked wild rumours in the paddock that he and George Russell have had a falling out. “They can say what [they want],” added Lando. “I’m happy when George says these things because it means that they’re probably a little bit worried.”
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Shanghai has been resurfaced
Yet Russell’s point in Melbourne remains a possible. Should the Woking based F1 outfit score heavily before the beginning of the European season, it will be tempting for their rivals to switch their resources to the 2026 car which is to be designed under a completely different set of FIA regulations.
The other side of the coin to this talk of McLaren dominance this year is the fact that there was little useful data to take from the wet Australian Grand Prix. Yet McLaren arrived in China last year, with Lando Norris claiming the team did not have a “very good car.” Despite this Norris went on to claim second place from Verstappen but took the chequered flag almost 14 seconds behind the Red Bull driver.
The Shanghai circuit has been relaid for 2025 following the difficulties the team’s found last year with setting up the cars for the considerable bumps around the track layout. In general Mercedes delivered better weekend performances in 2024 when there are less bumps to consider, so the repave should in some way help their car this weekend.
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Russell “demotivating the entire Mercedes team”
Indeed Russell’s negativity has come in for some criticism as Elio de Angelis posted: “I for one would not like to have a driver in my team who regularly writes off the complete season and hands over the championship after one of 24 races. McLaren is the best example of what you can achieve while a season in terms of development.
“Red Bull was also dominant in the beginning of ’24 and things turned out differently in the course of time. To me Russell lacks a positive mindset and is thereby demotivating the entire Mercedes team,” he concluded.
With the Chinese Grand Prix weekend being a Sprint format, the F1 teams have just one hour to figure out the best setup for their cars before Sprint qualifying takes place on Friday afternoon. That said the change in regulations for Sprint weekends which allows the cars to be taken out of parc ferme before Grand Prix qualifying, will mean the Sprint itself will be something of a test run for setups the teams and drivers will adopt for the Grand Prix on Sunday.
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Hadjar “mental illness” nonsense rebuffed
If there was ever a sign that Formula One now has its woke brigade, the response to Isack Hadjar’s criticism from Dr. Helmut Marko was it. The French-Algerian rookie had a nightmare start to his F1 career in Australia as he crashed out oil the second corner of the formation lap.
Hadjar had delivered a decent weekend’s performance prior to this qualifying just outside the top ten, the best of the 2025 new full time kids on the block. In practice one Isack was quicker than his experienced team mate Yuki Tsunoda and just hours later on Friday afternoon the pair out in lap times leaving them 6th and 5th respectively.
The Racing Bulls driver missed out on a place in Q3 by just 6000ths of a second to Carlos Sainz in the Williams, but come the wet weather on Sunday and Hadjar out before the race begun. He was later seen in the pit lane sobbing his heart out for the world to see and Anthony Hamilton decided to offer some comfort….
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I dont think it was Elio de Angelis saying this about George Russell, given that he died 39 years ago in a Brabham.
Considering I can find no other reference to this statement from beyond the grave, other than this website, one would be reasoned to conclude that it never happened
Standard form for round here really