After a 26-year wait, McLaren has returned to dominate the constructors' championship, crowning a constant growth that began two seasons ago. The 2024 title rewarded the work of the Woking team, which built a competitive and reliable car, capable of holding its own against Ferrari and outclassing Red Bull, which fell to third place after a difficult season. With 2025 on the horizon, however, McLaren does not intend to stop. The declared objective is to consolidate its leadership, but without falling into the trap of "too much risk," which has already overwhelmed its rivals from Milton Keynes.
The Thin Line Between Success and Disaster
Red Bull’s 2024 season has been a cautionary tale. The revolutionary RB20, designed to push the limits of the dominant RB19, has failed to deliver, bringing more problems than benefits. The new cooling system, designed to improve aerodynamic efficiency, has proven problematic, causing frequent failures and requiring Max Verstappen to run six combustion engines throughout the year.
“If we had stayed still, the others would have caught up with us, we had to take risks,” Helmut Marko had said at the start of the season, but in Monza Verstappen himself had been critical: “We turned a dominant car into a monster.”
An example that McLaren cannot ignore, but which does not seem to scare Zak Brown, CEO of the English team: “We took risks on the 2025 car. We didn’t take the approach of ‘the car is good, let’s just tweak some details’. Our mentality has changed: we don’t want to just be as good as the others, we want to beat everyone.”
Courage and continuity
Brown's confidence is rooted in the team's solidity over the past two seasons. Every upgrade McLaren has brought to the track has worked perfectly, improving the performance of the cars. On the contrary, Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull have struggled to capitalise on their innovations, often compromising races with developments that have not delivered the desired results.
For Brown, 2025 represents the opportunity to consolidate a new winning cycle: “We can’t afford to be conservative. Until a year ago we were trying to catch up with others, now we are the point of reference. It’s no longer a question of remaining competitive, but of dominating.”
A challenge open until the end
With Ferrari and Red Bull ready to react, and a Mercedes looking for redemption, 2025 promises to be a crucial season. The final year of the regulatory cycle could mark the difference between those who will be able to maintain their leadership and those who, instead, will find themselves chasing with a risky project.
McLaren knows that the line between success and disaster is very thin, but the confidence in the work done and the continuity of recent years remain fixed points on which the Woking team bases its ambitions. The success achieved in 2024 was not the result of chance, but of a development philosophy that focused on innovation, audacity and impeccable organization in the factory and on the track.
A legacy to be confirmed
The constructors' title has brought McLaren back into the Formula 1 elite, but the bar for 2025 is even higher. Repeating that feat will be the real challenge, especially in a context where Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes are ready to close the gap.
2025 will be a crucial year also in terms of the future: the new technical regulations for 2026 will force teams to focus significant resources on the development of new cars, making it essential to start off on the right foot right from the start of the season. McLaren, as happened to Red Bull in 2024, will have to balance design aggressiveness and reliability, avoiding the same mistakes that penalised their rivals from Milton Keynes.
“We learned a lot by watching what happened to others,” Brown concluded. “We know that every step forward involves risks, but we are ready to face them. This is what it takes to stay on top.”
Will the Woking team be able to confirm their position at the top, or will their audacity backfire?
Source statements: FormulaPassion
