McLaren CEO Zak Brown is not nervous about the prospect of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri fighting for the Championship. He insists McLaren are ready for all scenarios in 2025.
Brown: McLaren want both drivers in title fight
At one stage this year, McLaren faced immense criticism for their driver management.
Oscar Piastri’s lap one overtake over Lando Norris in Brazil became a tipping point for the papaya squad.
As the drivers’ title slowly slipped away from Norris, McLaren began to enforce stricter team orders.
Telling Piastri to let Norris pass in the Brazil Sprint Race was the biggest example of McLaren’s new posture.
However, for all the polemics surrounding their driver line-up, a competitive duo did not cost them the title.
Verstappen’s excellence is what ultimately made the difference – whilst a combination of driver and team errors were costly for Norris and McLaren.
The constructors title, however, was secured thanks to the Woking squad’s closely matched duo.
Looking ahead to 2025, Zak Brown only sees the positives of having two competitive drivers:
“They’re great teammates, they’re great team players,” Brown told Sky Sports.
“I think we saw that come through again in Qatar – when we told Lando that he didn’t need to swap positions, and he insisted that he owed his teammate one.
“So those are the type of teammates they are. Of course, come showtime they both want to win – but they race each other cleanly.
“I’m sure it will be a challenge at times. But we’ll just take it one race at a time.
“What we do is treat everyone fairly, equally, transparently, so there’s no surprises.
“So we’ll just see how the season unfolds, and hopefully we have the challenge of two drivers fighting for the same Drivers’ Championship at the last race of the year.”
A big year for Norris and Piastri
Historically, F1 teams have won titles with a clear number 1 and number 2 driver. This formula was generally effective when teams like Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes dominated the field.
However, the playing field is very different heading into 2025.
With Leclerc, Hamilton, Verstappen and Russell amongst McLaren’s rivals for next year, two top drivers are essential.
Red Bull suffered the consequences of having such a one-sided pairing in this season’s constructors battle.
To avoid this fate, Zak Brown and Andrea Stella will hope both their drivers take a step forward.
Qualifying was not a problem for Lando Norris, who took 8 Pole Positions in 2024. He also comfortably got the edge of Piastri teammate in their Saturday head-to-head.
Polishing his race starts and what Norris has described as “certain areas” will be critical next season.
Meanwhile, Piastri had no issue with pulling off aggressive moves to secure victory this year.
His audacious Baku overtake on Leclerc is arguably the Australian’s career highlight.
With that said, the 23-year-old was far too regularly behind Norris in terms of raw one-lap pace.
From this perspective, McLaren have areas for both drivers to improve on for 2025.
It will then be the team’s responsibility to ensure they maximise results every weekend.
