McLaren champ debunks favouritism theory with ‘too much at stake’
Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris
Mika Hakkinen has rubbished the notion that McLaren would favour Lando Norris because he’s English and has been with the team longer than Oscar Piastri, adamant there’s “too much at stake” to play around.
McLaren could be crowned double World Champions in Qatar on Sunday, which would mark the team’s first double since Hakkinen won the title in 1998 while David Coulthard helped bring in the team’s trophy.
Conspiracy of McLaren favouritism? ‘I don’t believe that’
Should Norris, who is 24 points ahead of Piastri and Max Verstappen, outscore them both by two points, he will clinch the F1 2025 World title.
But his success won’t be without controversy as McLaren’s papaya regulations and insistence on fair play have led to several testy moments.
Not only was Piastri ordered to give second place back to Norris when a botched pit stop, no fault of the Briton’s, dropped him behind his teammate in Monza, but the don’t-crash-into-your-teammate rule was pushed to the side, or at least the post-race debrief, in Singapore.
That Sunday, Norris banged wheels with Piastri as he barged ahead into Turn 1, leading to Australian questioning: “Are we cool with Lando just barging me out of the way?”
Although Norris was handed “consequences”, those lasted all of one race, or one qualifying session as was rumoured, as Piastri was deemed to have “a degree of responsibility” in the Sprint crash that took both McLaren drivers out of the short race in Singapore. The team went into Mexico with a “clean slate” for both drivers.
Norris went on a charge, taking back-to-back wins in Mexico and Brazil to gain a 24-point lead over his teammate.
More on the F1 2025 title race from PlanetF1.com
👉 How can Lando Norris win the F1 2025 title at the Qatar Grand Prix?
👉 Could McLaren’s Las Vegas DSQ seal Oscar Piastri’s role as No.2?
It has led to accusations of favouritism: McLaren want Norris to win because he’s British, because he’s been there longer, and because Zak Brown likes him.
None of that, insists McLaren’s 1998 and 1999 World Champion Hakkinen, is true.
“I don’t believe that. A Formula 1 team can’t afford to do something like that. There’s too much at stake,” he told Sport Bild.
Instead, he believes Norris has just upped his game in the race to be crowned McLaren’s first World Champion since Lewis Hamilton’s 2008 success.
The Finn said he was “much more convinced that Lando was particularly motivated by the gap to Oscar and the fact that another driver could become the first McLaren World Champion of this era.
“Lando has been with the team since 2019, Oscar only since 2023. He couldn’t let that go.
“It was the same for me,” he continued.
“When I started at McLaren in 1993, we weren’t capable of winning the title. In 1996, David Coulthard became my teammate and basically sat back and enjoyed the ride. I couldn’t have stood it if the newcomer had beaten me. That motivated me to the tips of my toes.”
“Nowadays,” he added, “there’s a lot of talk about one driver being better at handling the car than another. That may be true, but ambition and ego play a bigger role.”
He does, however, accept that Norris having been a McLaren Formula 1 driver for seven years while Piastri has only been with the team for three does play a role. After all, Norris knows the team better than Piastri does.
“I knew the team better,” Hakkinen said. “When you work with the engineers and mechanics for five or six years, you understand each other blindly. Certain things don’t even need to be discussed anymore because it’s just routine.
“Coupled with the motivation to win the world championship – not just for myself, but also for my Formula 1 family – that was my ace in the hole.”
