How McLaren has achieved what Ron Dennis thought was impossible in F1

Having returned to the F1 summit in 2024, McLaren is rapidly closing in on the Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championship double in F1 2025.

It has been a season of relentless success for McLaren, the team only further achieving what former boss Ron Dennis deemed the impossible. As stated by ex-Ferrari driver Eddie Irvine, Dennis never thought a customer team could become champion, but McLaren are tearing that logic to pieces.

McLaren showing Ron Dennis a customer team can rule F1

While reigning four-time World Champion Max Verstappen upset the odds with a sensational drive to victory at Monza, McLaren is almost certainly heading towards both titles in 2025.

McLaren duo Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris are in combat over the Drivers’ crown, Verstappen 94 points off top spot with eight rounds to go. McLaren’s Constructors’ Championship lead is a whopping 337 points.

Sixteen grands prix have been contested in 2025 and 12 of them have been won by McLaren, including seven one-two finishes.

Such performances, from a team which was operating towards the back of the grid as recently as 2023, have wowed Irvine.

The Irishman won four grands prix in his Formula 1 career, all of those coming with Ferrari during 1999.

“I am amazed at what McLaren have done,” Irvine told Sky F1 at the Italian Grand Prix.

It was pointed out to Irvine that McLaren has done all of this with a Mercedes engine in the back of the car. Irvine said McLaren’s iconic ex-team boss Ron Dennis always thought that was impossible.

Prior to its 2024 Constructors’ Championship win, McLaren’s most recent teams’ title had arrived in 1998.

That was achieved with Mercedes power, but crucially that was a successful works engine alliance back then. It was only in 2010 that Mercedes put a team of its own back on the Formula 1 grid.

“It just shows you it’s possible,” said Irvine. “Ron Dennis never thought that was possible.”

Dennis served as McLaren F1 team principal and co-owner from 1981-2009, in which time the team won seven Constructors’ championships and 10 Drivers’ titles.

His final ties with the organisation were severed in 2017 when he sold his remaining shares in the McLaren Technology Group and McLaren Automotive.

Since 2018, McLaren’s racing activities have been under the control of Zak Brown. The American arrived to find a historic F1 team clinging on for dear life, one which has been restored to championship-winning ways.

A key decision along the way was to promote Andrea Stella to the team principal role, effective from 2023.

“Zak Brown is really 10 out of 10,” Irvine declared. “He’s done an amazing job.”

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Mercedes, meanwhile, has been unable to find a route back into the championship picture since Formula 1’s ground effect regulations arrived in 2022.

Considering the success which McLaren is experiencing with Mercedes power, Toto Wolff, team principal and co-owner of the Mercedes F1 team, recently quipped that this deal was not his wisest move.

Quizzed by Sky Italy on McLaren thriving with the Mercedes engine, Wolff said: “That’s also hard for me to explain.

“Look at where they were three, four years ago, when we signed the deal with them that they were going to use our fast engines for the next few years.

“Then they were 18th and it was easy to make such a decision.

“With the knowledge of today, I don’t know if it was the most intelligent choice in my life to make that deal with them [laughs].

“They have it really well together in terms of engineering and that’s why they perform so insanely well, especially in hot conditions.”

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