Andrea Stella has privately admitted McLaren ‘could struggle’ at one more race during the 2025 F1 season

Follow us on Google Discover

McLaren are aware that they have to start delivering perfect performances if they want to take home both Formula 1 titles in 2025.

With five races to go, Oscar Piastri’s advantage over Max Verstappen is 40 points in the drivers’ championship. That gap has come down by 64 points since the summer break, and there’s still a strong possibility of the greatest turnaround in history happening.

McLaren stopped developing their car some time ago, and Lando Norris now appears to be the driver with greater momentum. It sets up a fascinating three-way fight for top honours, which looks as though it could still go any way.

Piastri admitted a weakness after mustering fifth place at the United States Grand Prix. He didn’t expect to do too well, but McLaren do have an ‘ace card’ against Verstappen, which Martin Brundle thinks will be very useful over the coming weeks.

READ MORE: Oscar Piastri should be worried as his biggest ‘problem’ could haunt his title chances in Mexico City

Andrea Stella privately expects McLaren ‘struggle’ at the Las Vegas Grand Prix

McLaren felt Piastri was so slow in Austin last weekend due to concerns about tyre life. The Aussie has been quite good at remaining competitive this season, even at tracks that he wouldn’t consider his favourites.

Despite the advantage he holds in the standings, he needs to make sure that he has as close to a perfect weekend as can be achieved in each of the upcoming races, otherwise, his teammate will be breathing down his neck at the very least.

Sky Sports F1’s David Croft has now revealed what McLaren boss Andrea Stella told him after the United States Grand Prix, fearing that the Las Vegas Grand Prix could be their next real hurdle to navigate in 2025.

“I spoke to Andrea Stella after the race,” he said. “Had a quick chat and he said, ‘Look, we left a lot of time in the garage.’ All the spanners, kind of alluding to the fact they couldn’t run it as aggressively low as they really wanted to.

“I said, but coming up? He went ‘Look, Mexico, Brazil in the dry, we should be more competitive. We’re not worried necessarily about Qatar and Abu Dhabi. We think they’ll be our tracks. Vegas, though. Vegas is one where we could struggle a bit, although we think we found something.’

“They weren’t competitive last year, apart from the last stint with Lando, and they think they found something that they did in that last stint that brought the car alive a bit. But he’s not panicking.”

Could Lando Norris’ ‘horrendous’ problem hold him back in the F1 title fight?

Despite having a car finish second in Texas, McLaren still felt as though their car had the potential to win the race.

They opted for a conservative setup after missing Saturday’s sprint, and didn’t want to risk a disqualification for excessive skid plank wear after the Grand Prix.

On another day, they might have been able to challenge Verstappen at the top, but they just needed to extract more from their machine.

Norris had a ‘horrendous’ problem, and it’s something that could hold him back again in the future. It can take him a long time to get past his rivals sometimes, and he can struggle with overtaking.