The 2025 Formula One Dutch Grand Prix will prove to be a turning point in this year’s battle for the drivers’ championship. With Lando Norris already trailing his team mate by nine points it seemed the race in Zandvoort was a must win for the British driver.

Yet it was heartbreak for Lando as with just seven laps remaining a puff of tell tale smoke appeared from the rear of his MCL39. Seconds later the Mercedes power unit gave up the ghost and Norris was out of the race losing 25 points to his team mate.

At the time team boss Andrea Stella was cautious about apportioning blame, saying, “we have some initial indication based on the data, but in fairness, we don’t have full proof of what has happened on Lando’s car, so I would refrain from making any speculation about [whether] it’s a problem on the chassis side or it’s a problem on the engine side.”

 

 

 

McLaren connector failed on Norris car

Analysis by the Woking based team has now revealed it was indeed a McLaren part which failed and not the Mercedes powertrain. It was an oil fitting that connects the Mercedes engine to the radiator on the side which has been deemed to have malfunctioned.

At the time the enormity of the DNF appeared to wash over the pitfall as engineers hung their heads in despair. Having spent the entire season preaching the McLaren way was about “fairness” towards each driver and the “neutrality” of the team in the title race its ironic it was a McLaren team failure which will likely hand Piastri the championship.

The win was the ninth of Piastri’s career and was celebrated by the team in somewhat a subdued fashion given Lando’s DNF. This is something the Australians manager believes is a regular occurrence and when Oscar wins there’s less jubilation than when its Lando.

It may have felt even more of a slight, given this was Piastri’s first grand slam win. He claimed pole position, led every lap of the race and put in the fastest lap to boot. Grand Slam wins are not easy to come by, with Fernando Alonso after more than twenty years in the sport having just five to his name. Yet the pain for Norris and the unintended consequences appeared to trump the joy expressed for their other drivers first time achievement. Oscar became only the 27th driver in F1 history to claim a grand slam and as if to rub salt in the wound, Norris has none as yet.

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Norris must win next five races

This was only Piastri’s second win in the past six race weekends which have been dominated by Norris. Yet the repercussions are huge for this season’s title race, with Lando pretty much out of the running.

Such is the dominance of the McLaren car, most weeks its expected they will bring home a 1-2 in the Grand Prix. If this was the case, Lando needs to win the next five consecutive races to move ahead of his team mate by a single point. And with modern F1 reliability being off the scale, its highly unlikely that Oscar’s MCL39 will return the favour to Norris over the next nine race weekends.

Yet claims are emerging all is not well within the papaya liveried garage, with partisan support for Norris trumping the team’s celebration of Pastri’s achievements. RMC Motori now report the division in McLaren is growing with some “fully behind” Norris to win the 2025 drivers’ title, their first since 2008.

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Norris ‘favoured’ by McLaren engineers

A British driver winning in a British team is said to be the aspiration of many of McLaren’s engineers. Yet team boss Andrea Stella has repeatedly stated the team will act with ‘neutrality’ but this doesn’t exclude some backing Norris whilst others back Piastri.

Further, Norris has been with the team for seven campaigns now whilst new kid Oscar is just in his third with McLaren. The trail and tribulations and near misses Norris experienced before his new team mate arrived, are clearly engrained in those who endured the bad times with their driver with the ill fated 2021 Russian Grand Prix, when Norris should have claimed his maiden F1 victory.

There may be an element of paranoia in Webber’s assessment, given his experience at Red Bull alongside Sebastian Vettel saw him regularly suggest there was partisanship towards his team mate from the management of the team.

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Rosberg/Hamilton forced to switch mechanics

Having been deprived of a well earned victory at the 2013 Malaysian Grand Prix by skulduggery from Vettel, Mark Webber adopted the phrase about himself “not bad for a number two driver.” With the race almost over and instructions from the team to hold station, Vettel engaged a forbidden powerful engine mode and blew past his team mate to take the victory.

Whenever an F1 title is to be decided only between two team mates, its inevitable the engineers will favour one over the other. The situation at McLaren even if biased is nothing compared to the Hamilton/Rosberg garage divide which occurred some ten years ago.

Rosberg revealed since his retirement that Wolff swapped his and Hamilton’s mechanics overnight as the toxic atmosphere in the garage spiralled. With engineers hiding data from their rivals, Rosberg said he and Hamilton suddenly found their “friends” swapped for “enemies” as Mercedes team principal Wolff took action, although it was a measure which worked a treat.

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Neutrality the creed, but emotions run high

With Oscar now firm favourite for the title, it is yet to be seen whether any skulduggery is exposed by those supporting Norris. A slightly altered overlay of comparative lap times, would be enough to deceive the Australian about where his rival is strong around a lap.

An incorrect brake assembly could cause the McLaren driver to DNF, as could a banana in his tail pipe. In fact nefarious activity inside the garage would have been more likely were the title race too close to call and any advantage is a big win for one or the other.

For now, the McLaren ‘fairness’ remains balanced on the fine line between engineering excellence and human emotion. Piastri has the points, the grand slam, and the momentum, but Norris has the history, the loyalty of many inside Woking, and the sympathy that always attaches itself to a driver struck down by cruel luck.

The team insists neutrality is the creed, yet in a garage divided by allegiances and memories, neutrality is about as easy to enforce as a track limits rules in Austria. Engineers are human, and humans have favourites. History tells us these situations rarely remain clean for long.

 

 

 

F1 green agenda leads to cost crisis meeting in Monza

The FIA has set a target for Formula one to become carbon net zero by the year 2030. The irony in this is clear given carbon fibre is now a staple of the teams when building their lightweight chassis.

Mercedes have developed a fleet of trucks for their European travels which used sustainable HVO100 biofuel but in a first this year has developed all electric trucks to haul their kit around the continent. 

Following a trial at the 2025 British Grand Prix, the Mercedes Team transported its W16 race cars to the 2025 Dutch Grand Prix using an all-electric truck. The 673km trip from the team’s base in Brackley to Zandvoort was completed by a Mercedes-Benz Trucks eActros 600…. READ MORE