McLaren has once again doubled down on its refusal to favour either Lando Norris or Oscar Piastri in the 2025 Formula 1 title fight - even if it results in a repeat of 2007.
Norris leads the championship by one point over Piastri with four rounds remaining, but Red Bull driver Max Verstappen remains a threat as he is third and 36 points off the top.
Although Red Bull has placed its full support in its four-time world champion given Yuki Tsunoda’s poor results, McLaren is refusing to favour a driver, which some worry might cost it.
Their concern is that it could lead to a repeat of 2007, when McLaren drivers Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton bitterly fought for the title - only for outsider Kimi Raikkonen to snatch it for Ferrari at the Brazil finale.
McLaren has previously said it will only favour a driver if one is mathematically ruled out of contention, and CEO Zak Brown confirmed its stance remains on F1’s Beyond the Grid podcast.
When asked what his response would be if Verstappen claims a fifth consecutive title, Brown replied: “I shake his hand and say, ‘job well done’. I want to make sure if we don’t win, he beats us. We don’t beat ourselves - that’s important.
“We’re well aware of 2007. Two drivers tied on points, one gets in the front. But we’ve got two drivers who want to win the world championship. We’re playing offence; we’re not playing defence.
“I’d rather go, ‘we did the best we can on our drivers tied in points and the other beat us by one’, than the alternative which is telling one of our drivers right now, when they’re one point away from each other, ‘I know you have a dream to win the world championship but we flipped the coin and you don’t get to do it this year’. Forget it!
“That’s not how we go racing. In the event that 2007 happens again, I’d rather have that outcome than all the other outcomes by playing favourites - we won’t do it.”
Those thoughts were echoed by McLaren team principal Andrea Stella, who reckons it’s crucial that the squad sticks to its ethos having already won the constructors’ title.
“If Max is the champion at the end of the year, for us, the important thing is that we can say we have done our best and we have done our best according to the way we go racing,” he said.
“And if Max wins this year, we say we’re going to win next year, we’re going to be there and we are going to be united as we are.”
McLaren has placed huge emphasis on a family feel and that is why Stella thinks it would be impossible to favour either of its drivers, who are both chasing their maiden championship.
"So when you are in my role, it’s like when you have two sons and somebody says, 'which one is your preferred son?' Yeah, but they are my two sons, how can you say which one is the preferred one?" added Stella.
"Sometimes when I hear or read some comments of this kind, I find them really very superficial and just like, I think sometimes people don’t really understand what it means to have two drivers that are with you together in this journey in Formula 1. I just feel very grateful to both."
Motorsport says
There have been several times this year where one could criticise McLaren for how it has handled the championship fight. The recent ‘repercussion’ nonsense comes straight to mind, as does asking Piastri to let Norris overtake in Monza as a result of the Briton’s slow pitstop - something which has happened a few times in 2025.
Both drivers have often left points on the table as well, Azerbaijan, Canada, Imola and even Austin, for example, which has presented the opportunity for Verstappen to do the unthinkable. There’s even the argument to say that Norris nor Piastri have been amongst the three best performers this year, given the impressive drives of George Russell and Charles Leclerc on top of Verstappen’s heroics.
However, one area that McLaren can be credited for is how it has managed to keep an amicable atmosphere despite its drivers fighting for the title. That’s something it failed to do in 2007, as well as back in the day with Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost, while, more recently, Mercedes struggled when Hamilton and Nico Rosberg were team-mates.
So why suddenly change all of that now? It makes little sense to chuck away its principals just for the final four rounds, especially when there should be enough of a buffer to Verstappen to get the job done.
Yes, Verstappen is a genuine threat, but Mexico showed that McLaren is over its recent slump and it would take an almighty collapse for the Dutchman to win another championship.
Verstappen also has the luxury of a much inferior team-mate, while the McLaren boys are very evenly matched. One can't help but think that the situation would be similar if Ferrari was in McLaren's shoes.
So, there’ll be criticisms no matter what McLaren decides, but suddenly favouring a driver sets the wrong precedent for next year and beyond.
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