Max Verstappen will love hearing what James Hinchcliffe thinks is McLaren’s ‘priority’ after denying Oscar Piastri swap

Max Verstappen took his first victory of the 2025 campaign in unlikely circumstances in Suzuka, after the Red Bull driver turned around a difficult start to the weekend and sealed pole.

The Dutchman was half a second off the pace set by Oscar Piastri in Friday practice, but Red Bull made a number of changes to his car overnight including reducing the downforce levels.

Verstappen went into qualifying with slightly less wing than teammate Yuki Tsunoda, enabling him to maximise his speed on the straights. McLaren could not match him in this area, with Verstappen going on to set a new lap record which smashed the one previously held by Sebastian Vettel by three tenths.

In the race, he successfully held off Lando Norris in the first couple of corners and maintained a steady 1.5-second gap throughout the 53 laps. McLaren was put in a compromising position at the end of the race after they elected to pit Norris at the same time as Verstappen rather than utilise the clean air.

Piastri had managed his tyres more than Norris and was setting quicker lap times, but despite asking the team to swap, McLaren told both drivers to hold station as they felt Verstappen was not catchable with his straight-line speed.

James Hinchcliffe believes McLaren did not want to swap their drivers due to the potential ramifications it could have later in the season, when speaking on the F1 TV post-race show.

James Hinchcliffe believes McLaren did not want to swap their drivers due to internal politics

Hinchcliffe believes McLaren did not want to swap their drivers due to the potential issues that could arise later in the season, should both still be in contention for the title.

“By not attempting the swap, to me, tells me that they are prioritising the Drivers’ Championship over the Constructors in the sense that by not allowing Oscar the opportunity to get in front of Max which then puts a bigger buffer between him and Lando, Lando earned that second place,” said Hinchcliffe.

“So if the team got involved, all of a sudden that’s a 10-point swing in the Drivers’ Championship and to me, the reason they didn’t want to do that was the politics down the road of trying to sort out points to drivers. It would almost feel like they were prioritising Oscar this early in the campaign over Lando.

“It seems like a bit of a statement that they can afford to sacrifice a few points in the Constructors’ Championship if it means we’re not going to get into a sticky situation with both our drivers.”

McLaren team orders an inevitability with their current pace?

Martin Brundle has previously warned McLaren that both drivers could end up taking points off each other in the early stages of the championship.

This will be beneficial largely to Verstappen, who has now got to within one point of Norris in the title following his win at Suzuka.

McLaren used team orders in the latter stages of 2024 when it was clear that Norris had a shot of challenging Verstappen for the title, with Piastri being told to give up a Sprint race victory in Brazil to help his title chances.

Norris would later repay the favour by giving him the Sprint win at Qatar, albeit after a very late exchange of position.

Given they are the benchmark team, McLaren could find themselves in more awkward positions in the future having also enacted team order in Melbourne between their drivers.