2025 F1 Season Team Preview: McLaren

With the Formula 1, 2025 season fast approaching, McLaren are all set to defend the constructors championship for the first time since the year 1999. The Woking-based squad has put together a remarkable turnaround from where it was during the Honda partnership. This team is now right at the top and we could not have made such a prediction a few years ago.

In 2024, this team rose to the top and won the constructors championship while coming home second in the drivers championship. With the same driver line-up and more or less the same team, what can we expect from the team in 2025? Let's take a look at our team preview for the season.

Biggest Strength

Well, the thing that appears to be working perfectly for McLaren at this stage is the team's ability to build a car that works brilliantly in all conditions. The team has cracked these regulations perfectly, and when that happens, it's hard to see teams falling out of that sweet spot.

In the last two seasons, after the early blip in 2023, McLaren made sure that every upgrade the team puts on the car, works. That has been the approach, and unlike every other team, the Woking-based squad has found a way to make this work.

Heading into the 2025 F1 season, the ace up the sleeve for McLaren is the fact that this team knows how to develop the car in these tricky regulations. It's more or less expected that the team would have a strong car ready for 2025, something its rivals can't claim.

Biggest weakness

In 2024, it did come across that when it was the drivers championship, the ruthlessness was missing from the team. McLaren did not pull the trigger on team orders until the damage had already been done. There was nervousness about how to manage race strategies in general.

Then, when the title was ultimately lost to Max Verstappen, Andrea Stella claimed that the drivers championship was something the team was not really focused on anyway. In F1, everyone remembers the drivers championship, and heading into 2025, the team cannot have a laidback approach if it comes to picking one of the two drivers for the title battle.

The McLaren driver expectations

Lando Norris

For Norris, the 2025 F1 season should arguably be his second opportunity to fight for a title. The first was in 2024, and the driver showed two key areas where he has to improve, the first being the starts and the second being a team leader.

Norris is a team leader when it comes to performances but hasn't conducted himself as one when it comes to taking the initiative within the team, something that he would need to work on if he wants to fight for the title against Max Verstappen.

Oscar Piastri

For Piastri, the 2025 F1 season is where the excuses end. The driver cannot afford to have a season where he's just too far behind his teammate because then he ends up being the David Coulthard to Mika Hakkinen of the past. He would be the perennial second driver at McLaren, and that is something that a driver of his caliber would not want to accept.

Piastri has shown improvements every year he's raced in F1, be it 2023 or 2024. In 2025, he has to take that final step and fight for the title.

Early 2025 predictions

Looking ahead, McLaren should start the 2025 F1 season with a car that's very close to the sharp end of the grid. The Woking-based team would be looking to put challenges for both titles this time around and bank on the experience of what they learned in 2024.

Could Lando Norris or Oscar Piastri be title contenders for 2025? Well, we should see a more resolute challenge from the Aussie against his British teammate. We should also see a Norris, who's better at converting pole positions and overcoming his first-lap weakness.

It should be a season where McLaren are a factor in both championships; whether they win or not is still quite speculative.