Despite Max Verstappen‘s crushing victory at the Italian Grand Prix, McLaren continues to enjoy one of the most statistically dominant displays Formula 1 has ever seen.
The Woking team is not only on the verge of clinching its 10th constructors’ championship but also on course to break several records, including the most points scored and the biggest number of podiums in a season, among others.
At the core of it all, there is obviously a car that has proved to be the class of the field in most of this year’s races.
But McLaren has enjoyed a key advantage that its rivals haven’t had: two consistently strong drivers.
While Ferrari, Mercedes, and particularly Red Bull have leaned on one standout driver, McLaren has built its dominance on two drivers delivering, week in and week out.
The biggest difference between McLaren and the rest in 2025 isn’t just the car — it’s that Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri have both been relentless in scoring, while rivals have stumbled with only one dependable option.
Stella is a big believer in driver equality
Getty Images
That old Formula 1 truism that one car can win race, but two cars win championships, is evident this season, even if one driver alone would have a fighting chance of winning the title given McLaren’s superiority.
It is still surprising to see how so many of the Woking team’s rivals have failed at nurturing a driver pairing that elevates each other without imploding under pressure.
Ferrari has leaned heavily on Charles Leclerc while, for a significant part of the season, Lewis Hamilton has struggled to stay in touch.
Mercedes has been left with George Russell as its leading driver as its bet on Kimi Antonelli has so far failed to pay off.
And Red Bull, with arguably F1’s best driver in Max Verstappen, is the most extreme case of a one-driver team, with first Liam Lawson and later Yuki Tsunoda having contributed almost nothing.
McLaren is, apart from Aston Martin, the only team with the same drivers it had in 2024.
It’s perhaps not that surprising that McLaren and Aston Martin have, statistically, the driver pairings who have contributed to their teams’ points tally in the most equal way, even though Fernando Alonso should have probably scored a few more times.
At Williams, Alexander Albon has been the leading driver most of the time, as Carlos Sainz struggled to adapt or was unlucky with car problems.
Red Bull has only been able to count on Verstappen this year
Red Bull
Albon sits seventh in the standings ahead of Antonelli, while Sainz is down in 18th.
While Lawson has somewhat raised his game since moving to Racing Bull, it’s been Isack Hadjar who has led the Faenza squad’s fortunes, the rookie even scoring a sensational podium at Zandvoort.
The performances of the Sauber and Haas drivers are a little more equalised in the second half of the season, but both Nico Hülkenberg and Esteban Ocon have been ahead of their team-mates since the start of the year.
Alpine has one of the most unbalanced line-ups, first with Jack Doohan and then with Franco Colapinto struggling to match Pierre Gasly, who has scored all of the French squad’s points.
The 2026 gamble
While McLaren has reaped the rewards of stability and balance, much of the rest of the grid appears to be playing a longer game.
The 2025 line-ups of teams like Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari suggest a calculated gamble: sacrifice short-term consistency in order to gather insight, develop drivers, and extract lessons that could prove decisive if and when their cars are genuinely competitive in 2026 under the new rules.
Mercedes’ reliance on Russell is one of the most visible examples, as its experiment with Antonelli has been more about testing long-term potential than scoring maximum constructors’ points this season.
Ferrari has somehow ended up in a similar position with Hamilton, whose hopes of a turnaround rest firmly on a new car concept that helps him regain the feeling he has been missing during his first year with the Scuderia.
Antonelli is yet to show the consistency Mercedes needs
Mercedes
For many teams, 2025 has been a test, although in many cases, not one that was pre-conceived as such, but rather the result of failing to compete against McLaren.
So every failure and strategic misstep has become preparation for next year – or at least they hope.
If they can emerge from this season with clear insights into which drivers thrive under pressure and how their cars perform over a full season, the teams could leapfrog rivals when 2026 brings a genuinely competitive package.
The quick driver swaps at Red Bull and Alpine are examples of the time pressure teams are under to be as ready as possible for the rules overhaul of 2026.
Those moves haven’t yet paid off, and while teams like Mercedes or Ferrari have stuck with their original decisions, the jury is still very much out as time runs out to be ready for next year. It will be a nervous wait for them.
The McLaren model
McLaren’s success in 2025 hasn’t just been about outright performance, but also about structure and priorities.
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Mark Hughes
For all its minor missteps during the season, McLaren has built an environment where Norris and Piastri are treated as equals, encouraged to push one another but not at the expense of the squad’s larger goals, as evidenced by the controversial Monza team orders call.
The result has been a harmony that’s rare in modern F1, particularly for an outfit going through an intra-team title battle.
It would be naïve to pretend part of this harmony doesn’t come from having a car that’s a step above the rest, but one could see why Andrea Stella’s approach would benefit the team in a closer championship fight with others.
Stability has also been a key element in McLaren enjoying such a dominant year: McLaren has the longest-standing driver line-up in the entire field, dating back to 2022.
Whether McLaren will get the new rules right and continue to be the dominant force remains to be seen, but if 2025 has shown anything, it is that at least the team doesn’t need to be worried about its drivers, a luxury that many of its rivals are still chasing.
