McLaren faces performance uncertainty and driver collision in Singapore

Technical uncertainty and performance drops

Andrea Stella revealed that McLaren feared the Baku upgrade package made the MCL40 slower. The team introduced reworked sidepods and cooling in Azerbaijan to boost straight-line speed, but Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri struggled for pace in both Baku and Malaysia, which left the squad unable to isolate if the upgrade caused the slump. Track roughness at the Sepang circuit produced "very weird" data that prevented the team from correlating trackside readings with simulation tools. Stella noted that the current configuration penalizes McLaren on long straights due to chassis factors and gear ratios. He also noted that power unit optimisation played a role in Baku. This season, the 2025 champions have won two Grands Prix, both with Norris, in Hungary and the Netherlands. Across Norris and Piastri, the team has five Grands Prix podiums, a Sprint Race victory, and four Sprint Race podiums. While Norris was the class of the field in Hungary, Zandvoort, and Madrid, he finished ninth in Bahrain and fourth in Singapore. Piastri has not finished higher than fifth across the last four rounds. The drivers currently sit sixth and seventh in the Championship standings, behind both Mercedes and Ferrari drivers, as well as Max Verstappen.

The Singapore Sprint incident

The Singapore Sprint saw Norris and Piastri collide on the final lap when the Briton attempted a move at Turn 5. This incident left Piastri out of the race and left Norris with only one point after he finished eighth. Before the accident, the drivers had been running in fourth and fifth. Zak Brown called the contact "unnecessary," and Stella described the move as "unacceptable." Otmar Szafnauer suggested that McLaren link driver contracts to the championship position to prevent drivers from making moves just to gain a single point over a teammate. Szafnauer argued that because the fight is for third in the constructors’ standings, such moves do not improve the team’s position. He noted that the difference between third and fourth in the championship is a lot of money. Szafnauer also proposed that McLaren reward drivers if they finish in the top four, top three, or top two in the championship. He said that drivers are racers who see a gap and want to take it. Szafnauer noted that if a driver does not have a championship position bonus in their contract, they will try to gain a point over their teammate. Rob Smedley added that driver bonuses driven by individual points can lead to bad behaviour.

Red Bull’s charge and Norris’s verdict

Max Verstappen won the Bahrain and Singapore Grands Prix to move Red Bull to 332 points. This result left them just seven behind McLaren. This gap follows a period where McLaren was six points ahead of Red Bull after the Singapore Grand Prix. Red Bull also benefited from Isack Hadjar’s return, as the Frenchman took third in Baku, fifth in Malaysia, and tenth in Singapore. This performance follows the three races where Liam Lawson filled in for Hadjar. Lawson scored 14 points with a seventh at Zandvoort, a fourteenth at Monza, and a sixth at Madrid. Lando Norris admitted a grim reality after the Marina Bay Street Circuit weekend. The 2025 champion stated that McLaren are the ‘worst of the top four teams’. He believes the team is closer to its early season form than its championship-winning levels. Norris noted that the team lacks any upcoming upgrades to protect against the fast-charging Red Bull. He concluded that the squad must just keep trying to upgrade the car. The team faces six remaining race weekends, including the United States Grand Prix on 25 October and the season finale in Abu Dhabi on 6 December. The gap between McLaren and Mercedes remains large, with the Woking squad sitting 239 points adrift of the leaders in the constructors’ standings.