How F1’s 2025 title race could be decided by nightmare factor completely out of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris’ hands

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The McLaren duo of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris are currently in a league of their own at the top of the drivers’ championship, but something out of their control could throw a spanner in the works of their title hopes.

Oscar Piastri leads Lando Norris by 16 points in the drivers’ championship after 13 rounds of the 2025 season. Third place in the standings sees Max Verstappen trail Norris by 65 points.

F1 fans are convinced that the title will be heading home with Piastri come the chequered flag in Abu Dhabi, but Norris is far from being unable to turn around the deficit put up by his Papaya counterpart.

Damon Hill has expressed his admiration for Piastri, whilst also noting the quality that Norris is bringing to race weekends to tighten the deficit built by the Australian.

READ MORE: All you need to know about McLaren F1 Team from team principal to engine

Mercedes’ ‘reliability issues’ could decide which McLaren driver snatches the 2025 F1 championship

Speaking on the F1 Nation podcast about Mercedes‘ regression this season, F1 analyst Alberto Fabrego touched upon the issues that have been plaguing the German constructor as well as some of the customer teams that house Mercedes engines.

“There are reliability issues with the engine and the power unit,” Fabrega said, “not affecting only them, but other teams that Mercedes is supplying as well.”

Mercedes currently supplies engines to three customer teams on the grid: Aston Martin, McLaren and Williams.

McLaren seems to be the only customer team that the ‘reliability issues’ haven’t affected so far this season, which only adds to the anticipation that it could happen at the worst possible time for either Norris or Piastri.

One theory that has emerged regarding McLaren’s luck in the reliability of the Mercedes engines relates to the Woking-based team being ‘over-efficient’ in races.

The team doesn’t need to rely on turning their power units up to the highest level and has a ‘cutting-edge’ thermal regulation process to alleviate some of the higher temperatures.

READ MORE: All you need to know about Mercedes F1 Team from team principal to lineage

Reliability issues have decided F1 championships for Mercedes in the past

The most recent example of a world championship being decided by poor engine reliability came in the 2016 season, when Nico Rosberg finally dethroned Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes.

Hamilton trailed Rosberg by eight points heading into the Malaysian Grand Prix, which marked the 16th round of the season. The Brit dominated the weekend but was hit by an engine failure on lap 41 of the Grand Prix, gifting his teammate a 15-point buffer thanks to Rosberg’s third-place finish.

Despite Hamilton winning four of the final five rounds, the deficit was too much for him, and Rosberg took his first and only world championship at the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi.

It was a frustrating ending to the season for Hamilton, who won more races and took more podiums than his world championship-winning teammate.

It’s very possible that the championship could be decided again by reliability issues if the McLaren pair run into any during the remaining 11 rounds.

Norris previously noted the motivational atmosphere at McLaren, which is one of the reasons he is so determined to win some glory in 2025 after a tough fight against Max Verstappen last season.