McLaren boss addressess the biggest dilemma every team faces in the 2025 F1 season

McLaren's boss addressed the biggest dilemma that every F1 team will face in 2025: balancing resources between this season and 2026. The 2025 season will be the last year following the current regulations set. In 2026, there will be new regulations with the advent of active aerodynamics and a completely new power unit.

A new rule set often presents a tricky challenge in the season before it because at that time, teams have a choice to make. As a result, some chose to compromise the last season of a regulation set and focus on the first year with new regulations because that would give them enough resources to pull out a gap on the competition.

In 2009, Brawn GP implemented this strategy, and it helped the team win the title. Even Haas implemented the same in 2022, where it gave up on the 2021 F1 season and focused entirely on making the next season a strong one. McLaren is also in a peculiar situation.

McLaren will have a competitive car this year, and hence, there would be a bigger incentive to develop deep into this season and hold on to the championship. At the same time, the team would have to be careful not to compromise its 2026 F1 season as well.

Almost every team is facing a dilemma this year, and the question was posed to Zak Brown. He admitted that it was tricky but also said that the Woking-based team would not be giving up on 2025 in any way.

In the press conference held during the preseason test, Brown said:

"Same challenge everyone has. I think there'll probably be some teams that maybe don't put as much effort into '25 because they don't think they have a chance and therefore double down on '26."

The McLaren team principal continued:

"That'll be interesting to see what that looks like in '26 and then you have ourselves and I'm sure many others where it's like, ‘well, before we think about '26, let's make sure we optimize '25 because we have a chance.'"

McLaren boss talks about balancing things

When pushed further, Zak Brown admitted that the focus was essentially on balancing everything. It's not about pushing one season or the other, as the emphasis would be on optimizing the effort on both years. He said:

"We are working on both. Our ‘26 car has been in the wind tunnel, our '25 car [too]. They kind of bounce back and forth. So we're working on both, and then I think we gotta see how we start the season, how much development do we think we have left, and then kinda react accordingly as far as how we balance our resources."

The 2025 F1 season will be the first time that McLaren will start the season as a reigning champion in the 21st century. It is a big feat for the team, and it would hope to build on this and continue this run.