The McLaren team will cease introducing improvements to their 2025 vehicle, impacting Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris’ ability to challenge Max Verstappen in the Formula 1 driver standings.
Verstappen secured his third victory in four races at the United States Grand Prix, also achieving maximum points during the Austin sprint race, where both Piastri and Norris were sidelined.
This win propels the reigning world champion closer to the top, now trailing Piastri by 40 points with five race weekends remaining. Norris is currently 14 points behind his Australian teammate.
Verstappen’s stellar performance at the Circuit of the Americas strongly suggests that his Red Bull RB21 has become the fastest car in F1, marking a significant improvement for the team. The development phase for the 2025 season is now concluded, with McLaren halting upgrades earlier than Red Bull and Mercedes. Andrea Stella, the McLaren team principal, has confirmed that Piastri and Norris will not receive any new components for the remaining races.
“Regarding new enhancements and parts, there will be no further additions this season,” Stella stated on Sunday night.
Nevertheless, Stella found encouragement in certain aspects observed in Austin. Despite Piastri’s challenges with car confidence, which led to a fifth-place finish, Norris demonstrated considerably stronger race pace, closely matching Verstappen’s leading performance.
Andrea Stella, McLaren
Photo by: Alastair Staley / LAT Images via Getty Images
However, Norris’s chance for victory was compromised when he lost ground to Charles Leclerc at the start, on a track known for its limited overtaking opportunities.
“Considering the overall picture, today’s race is somewhat reassuring. I believe that without having to contend with Charles, an engaging battle in itself, Lando possessed the pace needed to win,” Stella asserted.
“Evidently, he would have needed to overtake on the track, which is always challenging against Max. Moreover, with a single-stop strategy, we might not have had many strategic openings. Nevertheless, in terms of performance, we are confident that the pace was sufficient to contend for the win.”
Norris and McLaren also lacked data from Saturday’s 19-lap sprint race, after Norris was eliminated at the beginning. This absence of data impacted the team’s setup adjustments between the sprint race and Saturday afternoon’s qualifying session.
“The lack of participation in the sprint race put us at a slight disadvantage regarding the setup,” Stella explained. “Looking back, we can already identify additional performance that could have been extracted from the car.”
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– The Autosport.com Team
