Zak Brown reveals McLaren’s greatest threat for 2025 title after Chinese GP
Zak Brown anticipates great competition to McLaren for the remainder of the 2025 season after close call at the Chinese GP.
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Christian Horner and Zak Brown (via Red Bull)
McLaren has developed the most dominant chassis on the grid for the final year of the ground-effect era. The team has achieved victory in the first two races of the 2025 season. Woking currently leads the constructors’ championship with a 25-point lead to Mercedes in second. Now, with the Japanese GP coming next, McLaren Racing’s CEO Zak Brown pondered over the team’s greatest threat in the championship ambitions this year.
Mercedes has remained a strong competitor to McLaren since the beginning of the 2025 season. Both George Russell and Kimi Antonelli put forth decent results and enabled Brackley to remain in the vicinity of Woking. Moreover, Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc seem to have performed great since the beginning despite a mediocre performance in the car. The Italian constructor is set to go only ahead from the point in terms of performance.
As such, Zak Brown anticipates that Ferrari will remain the biggest threat to McLaren over the season. However, the Briton noted that he didn’t want to single out competition from any team due to all teams looking strong. The 53-year-old applauded the ‘fantastic’ job by George Russell that enabled the German carmaker to place themselves in the championship contention.
I think Ferrari over the course of the season, would be my guess. But, I wouldn’t want to make that prediction because we are taking them all seriously. George has done a fantastic job.
Zak Brown said in a post-race conference
Brown believed that the prodigy Kimi Antonelli would only get stronger from this point as he has already secured a P5 standing in the drivers’ championship table. Regardless, for McLaren’s constructors’ championship Ferrari remains the biggest threat, especially due to their renewed drivers’ lineup with Hamilton and Leclerc. The Italian constructor still needs to find massive improvement in their pace in order to seriously fight for either of the championships.
Kimi is only going to get stronger. From a constructors’ standpoint, Ferrari is going to be the biggest challenge because of their driver line up, and with Kimi being a rookie, it’s inevitable that he will have a good weekend.
Zak Brown added
Zak Brown labels Max Verstappen as a threat to Lando Norris’ championship ambitions
Max Verstappen has kept up with performances in the 2025 season despite racing in a highly inferior chassis. The Dutchman secured a P2 finish in the Australian GP and provided tough competition to Lando Norris for the race win. Moreover, Verstappen came in P4 at the Chinese GP despite facing struggles early on in the race. As a result, Zak Brown believes that the 27-year-old would also be a threat to Norris and Oscar Piastri in the drivers’ title ambitions.
Norris currently leads the drivers’ standing with 44 points with Verstappen trailing him by a deficit of just 8 points. Zak Brown noted that from the drivers’ title perspective, the Dutchman would be a threat to the Briton. Moreover, the 53-year-old expects Russell, Hamilton, Leclerc, and Piastri to also provide a tough time to the 25-year-old. Ultimately, the Englishman expects over seven drivers to score race wins this season due to the competition bunching up at the forefront.
From a drivers’, it’s got to be Max, George, Lewis, Charles, Oscar, Lando… and I think you are going to see Kimi Antonelli win a race this year. So, I think you are going to see seven plus winners.
Zak Brown noted
Oscar Piastri confesses ‘tough to make progress’ at Chinese GP
McLaren seemed to have remained at the backfoot of the grid over the Chinese weekend despite achieving a one-two finish. The team couldn’t amass a Sprint race win as Lando Norris fell desperately behind the pace. Despite the team’s turnaround in performance for the main race, Oscar Piastri revealed that it was difficult to make progress over the race weekend.
Piastri pointed out that for some unforeseeable reasons, McLaren couldn’t quite make progress over the race weekend. The Aussie insisted that the tires were difficult to manage as even tire temps remained uncontrollable at times. The 24-year-old expects a difficult start to the upcoming Japanese GP as well with all his focus now being shifted to the Qualifying sessions.
I think this weekend, from what I’ve seen and heard from behind, it was pretty tough to make any progress. And I think here, just because of how fragile the tyres were, you know, you pushed for literally a lap in the sprint and you had to take about five trying to cool everything back down. So it’s pretty tough. And qualifying is always going to be important.
Oscar Piastri said in a post-race conference
The 2025 season seems extremely interesting and enticing amongst the top teams at the forefront. The grid showcases the most amount of teams competing in Q3 for the best start in the main race. Hence, time will tell about how McLaren holds onto their lead against the ever-growing pace of its rivals in the final year of the ground-effect era.
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