McLaren boss says team could have done better in China – With two weekends of the 2025 Formula One season now complete, McLaren look the favourites to take the constructors’ championship. As far as the drivers title is concerned it may not be the walk in there park the papaya liveried team hoped for.
The McLaren 1-2 in China may have been the result everyone expected in the Grand Prix, but the weekend was not plain sailing for the Woking based team.
Sprint qualifying was a mess for the world champions, with Lando Norris managing only P6 and he was over half a second slower than pole sitter Lewis Hamilton. Oscar Piastri was pipped to second on the grid by Max Verstappen and the Aussie appeared to suggest the team’s strategy for Sprint qualifying was questionable.
“Honestly, I think we did a good job of trying to tame it [the MCL39] for Sprint Quali, just maybe got the run plan a bit wrong. It’s been an interesting challenge, the grip’s been a lot better than last season which is nice, but I think there’s some things we can do better tomorrow,” said the Aussie.
Come the race on Saturday morning things didn’t improve for McLaren with Lando Norris flunking his lines at the start – being swallowed up by his closest rivals – and dropping on lap one to P9. Norris would later recover to P8 and claim the final point on offer.
Piastri initially fell back from Verstappen, but made a move on the world champion stick in the closing stages of the Sprint yet he was not able to close the seven second gap to Hamilton due to his fading tyres.
With two sets of soft tyres available to both McLaren drivers in Grand Prix qualifying, the team changed their run plan from the same Sprint session, where the drivers were instructed to do push laps and then cool the tyres before going again. Now both Piastri and Norris could focus on two separate runs with their new softs, something which appeared to suit the MCL39 better.
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Piastri laid down a record breaking lap at the Shanghai circuit on his first run in Q3 with Norris slotting in behind him. Yet on the final efforts to claim pole Piastri went even quicker but Norris made mistakes and was pipped to second by the flying George Russell.
As Lewis Hamilton had demonstrated a day earlier, the clean air from being at the front of there field was invaluable in China, he and Norris who passed Russell on lap one were on the whole comfortable out front before Norris developed brake problems in the closing stages of the Grand Prix.
The McLaren driver did enough to hold of the late charging George Russell, but the Mercedes driver reckoned “another half a lap” and he would have passed Norris for second place.
All in all a good weekend for McLaren who now lead the team championship with 78 points. Mercedes are second with 57 points and Max Verstappen/Red Bull are third with 37 points. Ferrari who were expected to be key challengers to McLaren this season are left down in P5 level with Williams on 17 points after their disastrous double disqualification of the drivers in the Chinese Grand Prix.
McLaren boss sets the bar high
Yet McLaren team boss Andreas Stella was not exactly ‘over the moon’ in his post race interviews. He told Sky F1 he felt the team should have scored more points on what should have been a dominant weekend.
“I’m very happy to come away from the 2025 Chinese Grand Prix with a 1-2, the 50th in McLaren’s history. Oscar has been very impressive throughout the weekend, securing a well-deserved Pole and victory at a circuit he found tricky just 12 months ago,” said the Italian.
“On Lando’s side, he showed very strong pace throughout the race. We were managing an issue towards the end of the race which added some tension, but both Lando and the team managed the situation well and were able to bring home the 1-2,” Stella said.
“Overall, there are several learnings for us to take away from this weekend. We would have liked to have scored more points in the Sprint, but we must recognise how competitive the field is, and I’m pleased with how the team reacted as we transitioned into Qualifying and the Grand Prix, learning from the Sprint and making improvements which made today’s result possible,” concluded the McLaren team principal.
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McLaren drivers take points from each other
The result of McLaren’s start to the 2025 F1 season leaves them riding high in the constructions’ championship. Yet as a number of F1 observers predicted before the season opener in Melbourne, the McLaren pair will be taking points from each other in their pursuit of the drivers’ F1 title.
Norris leads the drivers’ tale currently with 44 points, then come Max Verstappen (36), George Russell (35) and Oscar Piastri 34 having thrown away 17 points in his home race down under. Without the error in Melbourne, Piastri would now be leading through drivers championship despite Lando Norris win in Melbourne.
Given that Red Bull appear to have the most difficult car of the front four teams, Max Verstappen has clearly benefitted from the McLaren drivers taking points from each other. Whether this becomes an issue only time will tell, but for now McLaren insist they have two number one drivers – both with the opportunity to chase championship glory.
Ferrari shot themselves in the foot
As Andreas Stella noticed, the field at the front is tight this year, as evidenced by the less than a tenth of a second between Piastri and Russell in GP qualifying in China. Piastri was just ten seconds clear of his nearest non-McLaren rival in third at the chequered flag, much less of a cushion than Red Bull enjoyed at the start of 2024.
Ferrari did suffer a body blow as their drivers were excluded from the race in China with a loss of eighteen points which would have put them on the heels of Red Bull Racing. Yet McLaren are not the dominant force expected after two race weekends this and with Japan up next Norris will be wary of the iconic circuit which is front end grip limited again – something Andreas Stella says doesn’t suit his driving style.
Norris struggled in Suzuka last year, coming home a distant fifth just under 30 seconds behind the winner Max Verstappen.
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Hamilton “leaks” poor Ferrari decision which caused Ferrari DSQ
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times in Shanghai for Lewis Hamilton. On Saturday morning the seven times world champion took the chequered flag for the first time for Ferrari this season.
His win in the Sprint was duly celebrated, but the team took the decision to change the setup on his and Charles Leclerc’s SF-25 cars before Grand Prix qualifying. The result was underwhelming as Hamilton and his team mate then qualified 5th and 6th respectively.
At the start of the Grand Prix, Leclerc took a run down the inside of Lewis and clipped his right rear tyre causing a price of the Ferrari’s from wing endplate to fly off losing the Monegasque driver “20 to 30 points of downforce.”…. READ MORE
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