If Verstappen were to continue gaining on the McLaren drivers at the same rate, he would claim a fifth consecutive championship in Abu Dhabi.<\/p>\n
The situation is remarkably similar to the 2007 season, in which McLaren drivers Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso ended the year on equal points after fighting a bitter internal campaign. Ferrari\u2019s Kimi R\u00e4ikk\u00f6nen was able to capitalise on the feud by pinching the title lead and the championship at the final round in Brazil.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a risk to which McLaren management has been alive all season, but speaking on F1\u2019s Beyond the Grid podcast, McLaren CEO Zak Brown doubled down on his team\u2019s position against picking a winner.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re well aware of 2007,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019d rather go, \u2018We did the best we can and our drivers tied on points and the other guy beat us by one\u2019 than the alternative, which is telling one of our drivers right now, when they\u2019re one point away from each other, \u2018I know you have a dream to win the world championship, but we flipped a coin and you don\u2019t get to do it this year\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cForget it. That\u2019s not how we go racing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe best way to win the constructors is to finish first and second in the [drivers] championship, and the best way to win the drivers championship is to have two drivers going for the drivers championship.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the event 2007 happens again, I\u2019d rather have that outcome than all the other outcomes by playing favourites. We won\u2019t do it. We\u2019re racers. We\u2019re going racing.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Brown said his team wasn\u2019t thinking about the risk of losing the drivers championship to the resurgent Verstappen, with belief high that the team can lock out the title on its own.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got two drivers who want to win the world championship,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re playing offence; we\u2019re not playing defence.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to make sure if we don\u2019t win, he beats us, we don\u2019t beat ourselves. That\u2019s important.\u201d<\/p>\n
PIT TALK PODCAST: Oscar Piastri will be looking to bounce back and retake the title lead at this weekend\u2019s Sao Paulo Grand Prix, but if the online conspiracies are to be believed, the Australian won\u2019t have a chance. What\u2019s true and what\u2019s false in Piastri\u2019s drop from title leader to championship chaser?<\/p>\n
McLAREN DENIES NORRIS BIAS<\/p>\n
McLaren deploying team orders while both its drivers were still in contention for the championship would undermine the team\u2019s painstaking attempts to guarantee equality throughout the season, sometimes to significant controversy.<\/p>\n
The so-called \u2018papaya rules\u2019 \u2014 a phrase coined internally last year but rarely used publicly in 2025 \u2014 have seen the pit wall intervene several times in on-track battles, from calling off racing at the first race in Australia to having Piastri and Norris swap places after a slow pit stop in Italy.<\/p>\n
Norris was also briefly subject to what was supposed to be a season-long handicap for causing a collision for a first-lap incident in Singapore, only for Piastri\u2019s culpability in having both cars retire on the first lap of the sprint in Austin to cancel it out.<\/p>\n
That both drivers have been kept on a short leash, largely without argument, has been in equal parts impressive and contentious, with some arguing it amounts to meddling in the title fight.<\/p>\n
But Brown said McLaren was ignoring its critics, arguing that it was for the good of the team that it kept a firm handle on its drivers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are so focused on ourselves and doing the right thing and the commitment we\u2019ve made to the racing team,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the reason why you see such a great relationship between Lando and Oscar is they know they have equal opportunity to win the world championship.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re transparent. We\u2019re fair. We communicate. We\u2019re not perfect, but we\u2019re racers, and they know that.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s all this noise around, but we don\u2019t let that noise come inside the [McLaren Technology Centre].\u201d<\/p>\n
‘Obvious’ Oscar admits to driving change | 02:42<\/p>\n
Some have accused McLaren of revealing a preference for Norris\u2019s title campaign through the execution of its internal racing rules, but team principal Andrea Stella rebuffed accusations of bias as being misinformed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you are in my role, it\u2019s like when you have two sons and somebody says, \u2018Which one is your preferred son?\u2019 They are my two sons, how can you say which one is the preferred one?<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes when I hear or read some comments of this kind, I find them really very superficial.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that sometimes people don\u2019t really understand what it means to have two drivers that are with you together on this journey in Formula 1. I just feel very grateful to both.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stella defended his team\u2019s approach to applying its racing rules to the battle between its two drivers, insisting that it would set McLaren up for future championship battles without risking the animosity that has frequently torn apart teams with two equally matched title contenders.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are here to race,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are going to accept the discomfort that this causes when you approach racing like we do.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are some practical rules that you need to have \u2014 \u2018don\u2019t crush into each other\u2019, but apart from that, there\u2019s not much more than this.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe let them race. We want to see them racing with fairness. We want to see them racing with respect for the brand.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do hope and we are working very hard to make sure that the drivers champion drives a papaya car, and if that\u2019s the case, there\u2019s only going to be one.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor us it\u2019s important that the other one will think that there\u2019s been sportsmanship, there\u2019s been fairness, there\u2019s been equality.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Max is the champion at the end of the year, for us, the important thing is that we can say we have done our best \u2014 and we have done our best according to the way we go racing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Max wins this year, we say we\u2019re going to win next year. We\u2019re going to be there, and we are going to be there united as we are.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithin this framework we have the conditions to win even in the future. We are protecting the present. We are protecting the future. They know that they are going to have these opportunities in the future, because the future doesn\u2019t stop at the end of 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cMcLaren wants to win in 26, in 27, in 28, and the conditions to do so, we create them now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McLaren would rather lose the drivers championship to Max Verstappen than enforce team orders to guarantee either Lando…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265548,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[944,2095,13273,1724,64,14017,63,689,11308,2791,155224,21763,21779,16177,2057,817,845,676,155225,813,816,2328,1737,823,825,2184,23956,2041,2067,677,155226,102396,2119,2114,121617,942,11298,2812,3595,85,31283,13773,3370,43345,155227,21760,21784,2614,12000,2086],"class_list":["post-265547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-abu-dhabi","tag-america","tag-andrea-stella","tag-asia","tag-au","tag-austin","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-brazil","tag-central-america","tag-championship-chaser","tag-championship-lead","tag-drivers-championship","tag-drivers-title","tag-europe","tag-f1","tag-fernando-alonso","tag-final-round","tag-first-lap-incident","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-italy","tag-lando-norris","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-verstappen","tag-mexico","tag-mexico-city","tag-north-america","tag-northern-america","tag-oceania","tag-papaya-car","tag-papaya-rules","tag-pit-talk","tag-pit-wall","tag-racing-rules","tag-singapore","tag-south-america","tag-south-eastern-asia","tag-southern-europe","tag-sports","tag-team-orders","tag-team-principal","tag-texas","tag-title-contenders","tag-title-equation","tag-title-fight","tag-title-lead","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-western-asia","tag-world-championship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}