McLaren ‘wary’ as Max Verstappen title admission made

While Oscar Piastri suspects the F1 2025 Drivers’ Championship battle has become a two-horse race, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella is not so sure.

Piastri agreed with the suggestion that Red Bull’s Max Verstappen is no longer in the title picture, but the reigning four-time champion is a threat which Stella continues to keep a close eye on.

Max Verstappen: Still an F1 2025 title contender?

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

The McLaren MCL39 has been the class of the field in F1 2025, but for a time, Verstappen was keeping himself firmly in the conversation to retain his crown. He drove his Red Bull RB21 to victory at Suzuka and Imola.

But, with 10 rounds to go, Verstappen’s chances have dwindled after McLaren pulled off four one-two results in a row.

Going into the Hungarian Grand Prix, Verstappen was 81 points behind McLaren’s Oscar Piastri at the top of the Drivers’ Championship. That was already enough to have Piastri conceding that the title battle is likely now between he and McLaren team-mate Lando Norris only.

“I suppose so,” he said to the suggestion.

“I think every weekend now, or the last few weekends anyway, it’s been Lando and I.

“I expect our competition to still be strong and put up a good fight, especially at certain tracks through the rest of the year, but whether that comes from Max or Ferrari or Mercedes or someone else, maybe, we never really know.

“So, I’m not too concerned about what happens in that. I’m just trying to win each race and extend the lead.

“But I think clearly Lando and I are in the same car, which is the best, and he’s naturally going to be the closest competition.”

Verstappen’s deficit to Piastri has since grown to 97 points.

However, as McLaren team boss Andrea Stella assessed his pair of title contenders, he suggested that the curtain has not fallen on Verstappen’s championship hunt. McLaren remain “wary” of that threat.

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Asked if he believes Norris is under greater pressure to win the title as McLaren’s more experienced driver, Stella replied: “Lando may have a bit more experience in terms of number of races. He started the season in Australia with a strong result, but ultimately, in Australia, Oscar was there with Lando.

“Oscar lost points in Australia just because we had the sudden rain in the final part of the circuit.

“I think one of Oscar’s qualities is to learn very fast, very rapidly. He has demonstrated it in his career, winning pretty much first year in all the junior categories. He has demonstrated it at McLaren.

“Now we have Lando and Oscar driving and operating at very, very similar levels.

“This season, what we have to acknowledge as a team is that we have made some modifications to the launch version of the car that actually affected Lando’s driving style. We made some upgrades which mean that right now some of the settings used by Lando and Oscar are slightly different, but we are pleased that now both drivers can drive to a certain extent in a natural way.

“They can express their talent, and we see that they are very, very close. This makes it a great spectacle for Formula 1, this is what we wanted to achieve as a team, and I think it’s going to be very interesting until the end of the season.

“But, I wouldn’t exclude Max, for instance, being in the game. So, we are very wary.

“We remain concentrated, but we want to put our drivers in a position to sustain their quest until the end of the season.”

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