Why McLaren boss Zak Brown is convinced that his team will have to prevail against Ferrari in the 2025 Formula One season
Two Grands Prix, two victories: after the start of the 2025 Formula 1 season, McLaren is the favorite to win the 2025 World Cup. But which of the chasing pack is most likely to become a threat to the team around Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri?
McLaren boss Zak Brown has a clear opinion: “I suspect that Ferrari will be our biggest challenge over the season – because of their driver pairing [with Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton]. But to be honest, ”I don’t want to commit myself too much. We take everyone seriously.”
George Russell in the Mercedes is also doing a “fantastic” job, says Brown. “Besides, I think Andrea Kimi Antonelli will only get stronger. He’s a rookie and will have some outstanding weekends, but also one or two events where he’ll learn a lot.”
This starting position currently puts Mercedes in second place in the World Championship behind McLaren. Behind them comes Red Bull, but so far as a one-car team with points only from Max Verstappen. His new teammate Liam Lawson has yet to record a top-10 finish. Or as Brown puts it: “Red Bull is obviously struggling with the driver situation.”
Therefore, from his point of view, “the best thing to do is to count on Lewis and Charles to be at the front every weekend,” says Brown, although Ferrari has scored less than half the points Red Bull has scored so far after two Grands Prix.
McLaren’s lead is “one to two tenths of a second”
So it looks “quite good” for McLaren on paper, says team principal Andrea Stella on Sky. He believes that his team currently has a lead of one to two tenths of a second per lap with the McLaren MCL39 – “which is not much,” says Stella.
“This just shows that we need to keep improving the car. That’s the message to the whole team: we’re not resting on our laurels. We want to keep developing the car, our processes and everything around it.”
Because Formula 1 is currently in an ‘incredible state,’ says Stella. ”Four teams can win any race. That keeps things exciting.” But that also increases the pressure on the individual racing teams.
That’s why team boss Stella doesn’t respond to comments that McLaren is more dominant than Red Bull ever was. He considers such comments “distractions that we don’t take seriously,” says Stella. “We only look at the numbers. That’s the only thing that matters. And we’re certainly not getting carried away.”
How McLaren plans to handle the team rivalry
Especially as McLaren may face a team rivalry for the World Championship title in the drivers’ championship: Norris and Piastri have each won one race and could still face each other as the season progresses.
Stella is not worried, however: “They both have the core values to support the team. For me, the key thing is that these core values are healthy and in line with our principles.”
McLaren is “very lucky” with Piastri and Norris, because both “naturally” stand for these values, says Stella. He sees this “only as an advantage because it increases the performance of the whole team”.
What if there is friction anyway?
“Of course,” there may be ‘situations’ between the McLaren drivers in 2025, says Stella, without being more specific. ‘But I am equally sure that we will learn from them and continue to grow as we protect the interests of the team.’ As in 2024 with the so-called papaya rules, the in-house guidelines for dealing with teammates on the racetrack.
Will this theory survive the test of real-world practice? According to Stella, a Formula One team can only try to prepare for certain scenarios as well as possible. “It would be arrogant to say, ‘Now we’re ready’ or ‘We were already ready’. You’re always learning.”
Because potential points of friction between drivers are “very complex and never the same,” explains Stella. His credo: “You just have to keep learning – just as you do with performance, with reliability, with processes. And the same applies to managing a team.”
