P1racenews AI automatic summary:
McLaren wiped the floor with its F1 rivals in 2025, easing to a second successive constructors’ championship, and Lando Norris won the team’s first drivers’ crown since 2008. However, the toughest challenge awaits.
McLaren’s dominant 2025 campaign was one of the most comprehensive championship victories in recent F1 history, rivalling Red Bull from two years earlier, as the team retained the constructors’ title emphatically in Singapore with six rounds left to run. The drivers’ crown was more difficult to come by, with Lando Norris claiming his maiden drivers’ championship with 423 points, prevailing in a season-long intra-team battle and later against Max Verstappen. Norris’ transformation from perennial podium contender to champion reflected years of incremental improvement finally bearing fruit, with seven victories including key wins at Monaco and the British Grand Prix. Despite Piastri’s emergence as a genuine race-winning force with seven victories of his own, falling short of the crown, the Australian’s trajectory indicates he will remain a championship contender for years to come so long as McLaren provides competitive cars. The remarkable success of the driver pairing of Norris and Piastri underscored McLaren’s stellar 2025 season, concluding with 833 points and an unprecedented 34 podiums, surpassing Mercedes’ podium mark from 2019 by one.
