McLaren-CEO ZAK Brown has confirmed that his team will not change the approach in the 2025 Formula 1 title fight with Oscar Piatri and Lando Norris-despite the threat from the four-time world champion Max Verstappen.
Verstappen travels to the Grand Prix of Singapore with two wins in a row in Monza and Baku. His catch -up is reinforced by a seventh place from Norris and a failure of Piatri after an accident in Azerbaijan.
Verstappen is now 44 points behind Norris in the driver’s ranking and 69 points behind the current leader Piatri – with seven outstanding races.
McLaren wants to continue “as before”
But instead of defending a clear number one driver, McLaren Piatri and Norris continue to fight freely for the championship. So far, this approach has ensured gripping duels – but also has the risk of bringing Verstappen back into play.
“I think you have to keep an eye on Max,” said Brown near Bloomberg. “But we just have to continue as before.”
“It looks very good for the constructor title. We could have already baged the matter in Baku, but we’d rather not talk about Baku. Hopefully we’ll make it in Singapore.”
Brown explains the McLaren posture
“We want our two drivers – and Max, although we prefer to get him out of it – fight for the championship and both get the same opportunities and the same material. May the better win. That is our goal,” explains Brown.
McLaren prefers to “intervene as little as possible,” continued the company boss. “But sometimes you can’t get around it-Lando had a technical problem, or things can happen through safety car phases.”
“But basically our goal is to set up Lando and Oscar so that they fight for the championship to Abu Dhabi – and then the best should win.”
McLaren is the favorite on both World Cup titles
So far, McLaren had experienced a dominant season. In Singapore, the team has the chance to secure the constructor title, as it currently has 333 points ahead of Mercedes in second place.
In the driver’s ranking, there are theoretically two other title candidates in addition to Piatri, Norris and Verstappen: Mercedes driver George Russell and Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc only have arithmetic chances on winning the World Cup. Realistic is already an outsider as a third party.