McLaren enter the 2025 Formula 1 season as reigning constructors’ champions for the first time since 1999.
On that occasion, McLaren also had Mika Hakkinen racing them after winning the drivers’ championship, a feat neither of their current racers could replicate last season.
Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri both won the first Grand Prix of their Formula 1 careers in 2024, but couldn’t compete with Max Verstappen.
The Dutchman opened up enough of a lead in the standings at the start of the year to clinch his fourth consecutive championship, but it was clear by the end of the campaign that McLaren had the fastest car.
All eyes were on pre-season testing in Bahrain to see whether McLaren had kicked on or if any of their rivals had taken a step forward over the winter.
McLaren have made some interesting design choices while Ferrari have been more conservative with their changes, aside from redesigning their front suspension.
After three days of running at the Bahrain International Circuit, new Williams driver Carlos Sainz set the fastest time, but that doesn’t tell the whole story.
Many people in the paddock believe McLaren have the fastest car and journalist Ronald Vording – speaking on the James Allen on F1 Podcast – spotted something on Norris’ onboard camera that might worry the team’s rivals even more.
Lando Norris onboard testing footage highlights ‘extremely impressive’ McLaren F1 car
Vording was reporting on what he had heard in Bahrain during the three days of testing and explained: “I had a little walk through the paddock and basically everybody pointed to McLaren.
“It didn’t even matter which team you went to, everyone pointed to McLaren as being the clear favourites, which is of course not based on single lap times, but especially the long run they did on Thursday, the one that Lando put in was extremely impressive.
“Not only the times but more how easy it seemed to come for them.
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“If you look at the onboard and how stable the car looked, that’s extremely impressive. I mean Lando himself said the car is still a little bit too pointy, so a bit too sharp at the front and a bit too loose at the rear, but we put it to Andrea Stella and he said, well, it’s nothing fundamental, it’s something we can balance out with setup or even track specific conditions.
“I had a chat with a couple of people at Red Bull, they also felt that McLaren is the team to beat, at least for the early races of the season.
“They said, we don’t know if we are two-tenths behind, three-tenths behind or five-tenths behind.
“But I feel like McLaren favourites. After that, we have a group of three with Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari.”
Martin Brundle tells Lando Norris who his biggest 2025 F1 title rival is
Norris will be desperate to go one better than last year in the drivers’ championship as he’ll realise that he may never have a better opportunity to win a Formula 1 title.
With the regulations changing next season, there’s every chance that McLaren might not be in a similar position to dominate from 2026 onwards.
Norris has suggested he’s not thinking about winning the title but it won’t take many more positive results before he’s dreaming about adding his name to the list of the sport’s champions.
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Martin Brundle has told Norris who his closest rival will be this season and has surprisingly not named his teammate Piastri.
The Australian will hope that he can prove plenty of people wrong who think Norris is McLaren’s best hope of toppling Verstappen.
