The first two races of the 2025 world championship have both gone to McLaren. A success for Norris in Australia and the most recent in China for Oscar Piastri, also fresh from his very first pole position in qualifying. In short, everything seems to predict a long papaya domination, but will it really be like that? Will the regulation change planned for next year play in their favor? Let's try to analyze, together, a rather complex context.
McLaren: is the world championship in its hands? the team is covering its tracks
McLaren's performance is on everyone's lips. Probably also due to the admirable evolutionary journey that the team, under the direction of Andrea Stella, has undertaken from the 2023 Austrian GP to last year's constructors' championship victory. A success that had been missing since 1998, that is, since the days of Coulthard, Hakkinen and the iconic West-designed livery. In short, the Woking team is updating some points of its palmares, such as the return to victory in Australia and China, which had been missing since the XNUMXs. And yet, despite the paddock talking about papaya's undisputed dominance, the team's protagonists are themselves trying to ease expectations. During the Chinese weekend, the first to propose a different narrative was Norris himself, who described his MCL39 as too difficult to drive, so much so that it leads him to make quite frequent errors.
Furthermore also Andrea Stella partly downplayed McLaren's potential. The engineer from Orvieto stressed that, in his opinion, there is not really that much difference between his cars and their opponents, both in the race and in qualifying. According to Stella, therefore, the success achieved on Sunday was the result of work that began on Friday and that evolved to the result obtained in the race, namely a splendid one-two. An effort that proves the non-existence of an unchallenged domination. McLaren's strong points, however, are still clearly visible. One, it seems, is precisely that of having a solid team, capable of adapting the car to the various pitfalls that different tracks and situations can present, just as happened in China.
The others are of course of a technical nature. In Australia, the opponents were amazed by the excellent management of the intermediate tyres, which made so much of a difference in the battle between the McLarens and Verstappen. Furthermore, the tests had already shown how strong the MCL39 was in cornering. Ivan Capelli reiterated this several times during the long live broadcasts in Bahrain and, above all, also at the start of the championship. In fact, the McLaren, when set up correctly, manages to be very strong in the centre of the corner, that is, when the driver switches from the braking phase to the acceleration phase. This means that the car has an excellent balance, which makes it stable in its movements. Finally, on Sunday in Shanghai, the Woking team proved to be superior in terms of race pace on dry surfaces in clean air conditions. During the sprint race, however, it suffered more in traffic.
The comparison with the absolute dominance of the hybrid era, in which the pilots also made the difference
McLaren is ahead, there is no doubt about it. It remains to be seen by how much, even if the advantage with which Piastres e Norris they finished their race did not seem so clear. The only unknown is the strategy: in fact, the two papaya cars could have purposely chosen not to push so as not to over-stress their tyres, given that the race, according to the predictions, should have included at least two stops, instead of just one. In short, the picture seems far from clear. We will have to wait for Suzuka, an important track, for further clarifications. At the moment, however, we cannot speak of domination McLaren, but of a technical advantage, although slightly larger than what was seen at the end of 2024.
The absence of an unchallenged McLaren domination is even more evident if you compare Sunday's race with those of 2014, 2016 and 2024. A comparison that harks back to the two most striking dominances of the turbo hybrid era: that of Mercedes and that of Red Bull. In the 2014 Chinese GP, Hamilton triumphed, ahead of his teammate Rosberg and with a 23-second advantage over Alonso, who came in third. On the same track in 2016, Rosberg won, with a 37-second advantage over Vettel's Ferrari. The Shanghai track returned only last year, at the end of the Red Bull and Verstappen domination. The latter won both in the sprint, starting fourth and winning with a 13-second gap from Hamilton. With the same difference, the Dutchman repeated the feat in the race, this time leaving Lando Norris' McLaren behind him.
In short, when it comes to domination, the numbers are quite different. McLaren, as Andrea Stella has already underlined several times, will have to, like everyone else, continue to work well. The difference will be made by the direction in which they choose to go. In addition to this, compared to the domination of Mercedes and Red Bull, the drivers also count. Often Norris and Piastri, who are new to the fight for the world championship, have shown that they are not perfect. Piastri, in Australia, threw away a race. Norris, in China, sinned several times on the single lap. Instead, both Hamilton on Mercedes and Verstappen on Red Bull have shown brilliant performances, but, above all, they have been consistent in their being perfect. Wanting to make a comic comparison, Hamilton and Verstappen have been a bit like the Viltrumites of the successful series “Invincible”. In essence, completely different from what Piastri and Norris represent today.
Could the 2026 regulation changes affect the current World Cup?
The teams may have learned something from 2024. In recent years, compared to the history of this sport, the championships have become much longer, even reaching 24 races. This, as happened last year, means that the forces in the field can change suddenly, with the succession of the numerous update packages that the teams can choose to install on their cars. In 2024, Red Bull saw itself overtaken by McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari. This year, with such small gaps, history could repeat itself. Although, there is a question mark that could play in favor of the papayas.
In fact, as is well known, completely different single-seaters will debut next year. There will no longer be ground effect, the use of active aerodynamics will be fundamental and the composition of the power units will also be revised. In conclusion, we are talking about changes that will be visibly invasive and on which the teams will have to invest a lot of time and money to interpret them in the best possible way. This type of commitment could limit or stop the teams in advance in the development of the 2025 cars. In fact, even Vasseur, before the winter tests, had partly emphasized this problem, which could be a disadvantage to those who will be forced to chase their opponents from a technical point of view.
We will therefore see if the current differences in the field will crystallize, or if we will witness significant progressions or involutions in performance as happened last year. Finally, as often happens in things in life, even in Formula 1, a sport of speed, the important thing will be to give yourself time and wait. For the teams, for the drivers and for the fans.
