Zak Brown hints at the ‘terrifying’ problem McLaren face developing Lando Norris’ 2025 F1 car

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McLaren are the team to beat in 2025 as they look a shoo-in to win both championships. But it is not Lando Norris that is leading their title charge.

Oscar Piastri has established a clear advantage over his teammate in 2025. The Aussie has upped his game as he gives Norris a hard time in qualifying and is beating him in races, despite not showing as much speed as the Brit.

Mistakes have hampered Norris this season, having won two races and claimed two pole positions for the first 10 races. Piastri has five wins and three poles as he emerges as a serious title contender.

Norris collided with Piastri at the Canadian GP while trying to overtake him on lap 67. The crash was reminiscent of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button’s crash in 2011 – the 25-year-old was forced to retire and now sits 22 points behind his teammate in the standings.

Nico Rosberg thinks Piastri is the favourite for the title as Norris falls behind after Canada. Ralf Schumacher reckons Piastri is being backed ‘internally’ for the title by McLaren, which will be a gut-punch for his teammate.

Norris will be determined to get his title fight back on track, with there being 14 races still to go. However, McLaren CEO Zak Brown has hinted at a ‘terrifying’ problem for the team as they work on developing his car.

Zak Brown hints at ‘terrifying’ problem for McLaren as they decide when to shift focus to 2026

The Woking outfit, like many teams on the grid, are faced with a different situation in 2025. The 2026 F1 regulations bring an entirely new technical directive to the sport, with teams working on when to shift focus to next season.

Speaking via Stagwell at the Canadian GP, Brown highlighted the ‘tricky’ situation McLaren face with their decision, as they want to win in 2025, but also worry about other teams having more resources in 2026.

“It’s a tricky one for us being at the front because you have some teams that don’t have a chance this year. They’re trying, but they’re putting all their development into the ’26 car, where we’re trying to compete, as you said, for both championships,” said Brown.

“So we’re trying to figure out how much development does this car need, but every dollar that we spend on this year’s car is a dollar we’re not spending on next year’s car.

“So, there will be many that have more resources in their ’26 car than we have, but we want to win the ’25 championships before we worry about the ’26.

“So, you do have to publish your upgrades, so we will get a sense of when other teams stop developing. We’ll stop developing sooner rather than later this season, especially because the car from this season, there’s no carryover to next year’s car, where this year’s car is a carryover from ’24.

“There was development, but there’s a lot of learnings that you can carry on with you. ’26 is a clean start, so that’s exciting and terrifying at the same time because no one has a baseline.”

READ MORE: McLaren driver Lando Norris’ life outside F1 from parents to celebration

Could McLaren fall back in 2026?

There is every chance that McLaren could regress under the new regulations, especially when other teams have already had a head start on 2026.

Cadillac and Audi will join the grid next season, the former as the 11th team, while the latter takes over from Sauber. The new rules were a key reason why the two outfits are coming to the sport; they are solely focusing on next year as they look to be competitive from the off.

Williams are also focusing on 2026, as James Vowles hopes to use the regulations to propel the team back to the front of the grid. However, Vowles disagrees with George Russell that they will be the ‘team to beat’ next year.

It is hard to gauge where the teams are in terms of performance in 2026, but McLaren could be looking good at the front again. Mercedes are tipped to have the fastest power unit next season, which will be music to Brown, Norris and Piastri’s ears.