Gary Anderson has spotted McLaren’s other advantage over F1 rivals alongside genius brake design, ‘everything snowballs…’

McLaren have taken step after step forward over the past two years to go from plucky backmarkers to championship leaders.

Oscar Piastri started his Formula 1 career with McLaren hoping he could nick the odd point at circuits that suited the team’s car.

Now, the Australian leads the drivers’ championship with teammate Lando Norris sitting right behind him.

It’s a remarkable turnaround considering they’ve managed to find several key developments midway through a set of regulations where Red Bull looked impossible to stop.

Red Bull accused McLaren of wrongdoing as they simply couldn’t believe they were able to improve at the rate that they had.

The FIA considered complaints about McLaren as excessive and after triple-checking their car, they’re confident that it is legal.

McLaren have found a way to keep their brakes cooler than their rivals, and as a result, their tyre management is far superior to the rest of the grid.

On top of this, tech expert Gary Anderson has spotted another advantage McLaren have developed that makes them the team to beat this season.

READ MORE: All you need to know about McLaren F1 Team from team principal to engine

McLaren reducing the heat entering their 2025 F1 car to improve tyre performance

Writing for The Race, Anderson studied the work done by McLaren’s technical staff over the winter to deliver the quickest car on the grid this season.

He believes the design of the brakes limits how hot some of the components get within the brake drum.

This means that instead of figuring out a way to cool down the car, McLaren’s brakes are starting at a lower ambient temperature.

However, Anderson admits this is ‘all just one part of an overall package’, and points to a lack of heat in the system in the first place which could mean that McLaren are using ‘more electrical retardation from the rear axle’ than their rivals.

McLaren’s MCL39 has also been designed to ‘give the rear tyres a more consistent contact patch’, providing Norris and Piastri with more control of the car under braking.

This has allowed the team to control the centre of gravity better than other teams, including Ferrari who are struggling with their ride height, especially after Lewis Hamilton’s disqualification in China.

The combination of the amount of brake cooling McLaren are doing as well as the controlled amount of heat going into their car’s tyres, means that Anderson believes ‘everything snowballs’ into creating a superior machine.

READ MORE: Zak Brown just said something painfully naive about McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris battling for F1 title

McLaren could win both F1 championships for the first time since 1998

Zak Brown’s team won the constructors’ championship last season, but it was too late for Norris or Piastri to catch Max Verstappen.

This year, Verstappen hasn’t been able to build up the same advantage and now McLaren’s pair of drivers have the perfect opportunity to end his dominance.

Red Bull hope the technical directive changes coming at the Spanish Grand Prix will thwart McLaren, but it could impact the team’s rivals as well.

It will limit the amount of flexing each car’s front wing can do, but McLaren’s advantage appears to exist on other parts of the car.

Brown has addressed whether McLaren will use team orders this season if another driver mounts a challenge in the drivers’ championship.

They’ll hope it doesn’t come to that, but Norris is unlikely to sit back and let his less experienced teammate walk away with the title this year.