McLaren heads into the 2025 season as the team with the target on their back, having finished last year with the quickest car on the grid.
The MCL38 enabled Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri to regularly finish on the podium and win races, with their consistency earning McLaren their first Constructors’ Championship since 1998.
The team finished the year with six wins at a mix of tracks including Miami, Hungary, Baku, and Abu Dhabi. This year’s car is set to be an evolution of the MCL38, given the teams are now shifting focus to their 2026 machines after being given the greenlight to work on them in January.
For McLaren, this season represents an opportunity to improve on their fortunes and challenge for the Drivers’ Championship after Norris came close last year.
If the team does emerge as the quickest in the first few races, it is expected that both drivers will want to challenge for wins. Team principal Andrea Stella has outlined what his ‘dream’ scenario is when speaking to Sky Sports.
Andrea Stella wants intra-team battle at McLaren
McLaren employed ‘Papaya Rules’ team orders to keep their drivers in check last year, after Piastri was starting to take points away from Norris in the title battle with Max Verstappen.
Martin Brundle believes Norris will be the main title contender in 2025, so he will want to ensure that he does not get involved in too many battles with Piastri.
The last time F1 had two teammates fighting for a title was during Mercedes’s dominance, when Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg both fought for the championship between 2014 and 2016.
Piastri has said that he intends for any intra-team battle to be ‘respectful’ if it becomes the case, while Stella has said that it would be his ‘ideal’ scenario.
“In terms of taking points off each other, if that happens and these points are because one is P1 or P2, it’s the ideal scenario,” said Stella.
“That’s a dream scenario, obviously the reality is that this won’t unfold that easy, but for me the responsibility is to give them a fast enough car that becomes an internal competition.”
Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri have first taste of 2025 car at Silverstone
Both drivers had their first taste of the MCL39 at Silverstone as part of a filming day, enabling the team to shakedown their 2025 challenger.
It was the first car to break cover and adorned a special camo livery, as the team is required to wait until the F1 75 event in London to fully unveil their car.
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Both drivers ran in the morning, with teams permitted to complete up to 200km for filming purposes which equates to around 33 laps of the track.
Norris offered some encouraging words and branded the livery ‘fun’ as it drew attention to the team, while Piastri also outlined his goals for the season.
