HALF TERM REPORT: McLaren’s best and worst moments from 2025 so far and driver head-to-heads

McLaren have enjoyed a stellar 2025 campaign up to this point, with the reigning World Champions storming towards back-to-back titles while impressively managing the intra-team battle between Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris. With 14 of 24 rounds down, we present their glowing half term report…

Best finish

Oscar Piastri – 1st in China, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Miami, Spain and Belgium; Lando Norris – 1st in Australia, Monaco, Austria, Britain and Hungary

McLaren ended a 26-year wait for title glory last season, building on the progress they made through 2023 to become regular podium finishers and then frequent race winners – ultimately earning them the Teams’ crown over historic rivals Ferrari.

For 2025, the goal was to turn that morale-boosting triumph into a championship double. Thanks to the ultra-efficient MCL39 winning 11 out of 14 Grands Prix so far at the hands of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris, it is surely a matter of when, not if, this target will be achieved.

The only remaining question surrounds which of the two McLaren drivers will go on to secure the individual title – Piastri having triumphed six times to Norris’ five so far and heading into the summer break with a slender nine-point advantage.

Qualifying head-to-head

Piastri 8-6 Norris

With Norris making his F1 debut back in 2019 and Piastri arriving as his team mate only a couple of years ago, it was the Briton who comfortably led their Qualifying and Grand Prix head-to-heads through the 2023 and 2024 seasons.

However, Piastri has made a clear step forward this year – in his own words, improving “a little bit in a lot of areas” – to consistently challenge Norris for intra-team supremacy, as highlighted by him narrowly topping the one-lap charts after 14 rounds.

While both drivers have scored four pole positions, Piastri’s Qualifying form has been particularly consistent – logging a worst grid slot of fourth in Miami. As for Norris, he ended up sixth in Bahrain, 10th in Saudi Arabia and seventh in Canada via Q3 mistakes.

Race head-to-head

Piastri 7-7 Norris

It is a tie when it comes to Piastri and Norris’ race day head-to-head, with their internal battle ebbing and flowing between the season opener in Australia and Hungary last time out – and pausing on that aforementioned gap of just nine points.

The obvious hit to Norris’ tally came at the Canadian Grand Prix, where he dramatically ran into the back of Piastri’s car in the closing stages of the race and retired, meaning his team mate is the only driver to score points at every weekend so far.

Best moment

McLaren’s relentless success in 2025 gives us plenty to choose from when it comes to ‘best moments’, but achieving a 200th F1 win at the Hungaroring – only the second team after Ferrari to reach that number – marked another major milestone in their journey.

McLaren team boss Andrea Stella said it was a result – which also earned a fourth successive 1-2 finish – the entire Woking-based squad were “proud and privileged to have delivered, following in the footsteps of our founder Bruce McLaren”.

On personal levels, Piastri’s hat-trick of wins across the Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Miami weekends would no doubt be towards the top of his list, while Norris achieved two childhood dreams by winning on the streets of Monaco and at Silverstone.

Worst moment

We mentioned the Canada clash above, and it is difficult to look beyond it for McLaren’s worst moment. After all, it marks the only time one of their cars has failed to take the chequered flag this season, while bringing into question the policy of letting both drivers race freely.

“We never want to see a McLaren car involved in an accident, and definitely we don’t want to see the two McLarens having contact, so this situation is a situation that we know is not acceptable,” Stella explained to F1 TV in the immediate aftermath.

“At the same time, we appreciate that Lando immediately owned it and apologised to the team, which for us sort of reset the situation. I’m sure he has an important learning point coming from this race – he paid a price in the championship.”

Going forward

To the benefit of fans, McLaren admirably stuck with that free-to-race approach after Montreal – their drivers’ subsequent scraps and close calls in Austria and Hungary (two races in which Piastri almost hit Norris’ car) showing that nothing had changed.

On the whole, the situation appears to have been managed extremely well, with both Piastri and Norris getting a fair crack at the title, the pair of them aware of their wider responsibilities, and the rest of the team fully aligned under Stella and CEO Zak Brown’s leadership.

It is likely to be more of a challenge when the heat gets turned up over the final 10 rounds, but McLaren are confident they will avoid controversial showdowns of the past and, disasters aside, be able to properly celebrate becoming double World Champions for the first time since 1998.

“It’s not a problem,” Brown recently said of managing the situation. “They want to race fairly – they just want equal equipment, fair treatment, which is exactly what they get, and they want to beat 19 other cars, their team mate included.

“It’s a pleasure to work with them. They’ve got a tremendous amount of respect for each other – how you see them conduct themselves, that’s how they are behind the scenes. I think a lot of that is the chemistry that we’ve built in the team.

“I see no reason why it can’t come down to [the final round in] Abu Dhabi. I hope the two of them are battling it out and, when it’s all said and done, they shake hands and say, ‘Job well done’, and go again next year.”