McLaren

McLaren/World Endurance Championship

McLaren finally confirms it will enter WEC Hypercar class in 2027 · RaceFans

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McLaren has ended years of speculation by confirming it will enter the World Endurance Championship’s top class in 2027.

The 1995 Le Mans 24 Hours winners will build a car to compete in the series’ Hypercar class.

McLaren confirmed the news in a brief statement quoting McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown, saying simply: “We’re back.”

The Formula 1 constructors’ champions are the latest grand prix team to expand into the top flight sportscar class. Ferrari, Aston Martin and Alpine already compete in WEC.

WEC stands to have 11 different manufacturers competing in its top class by 2027. McLaren will be one of three manufacturers to join the championship at that point along with Ford, who announced their plans in January, and Hyundai, which will compete with its Genesis brand. Ford will also join F1 next year through its involvement in Red Bull’s power unit programme.

McLaren will go up against existing manufacturers including Porsche, BMW, Toyota, Peugeot and Cadillac. The latter will also enter F1 next year.

JJ Lehto/Yannick Dalmas/Masanori Seikya, McLaren F1 GTR, Le Mans, 1995
McLaren won the Le Mans 24 Hours 30 years ago

WEC’s eight-round season began at the Losail International Circuit in February. Its calendar includes the prestigious Le Mans 24 Hours, which McLaren won with a version of its F1 road car driven by JJ Lehto, Yannick Dalmas and Masanori Sekiya.

With the announcement of their WEC programme, McLaren is now active across four major series. Its F1 team ended a 26-year wait for a world championship last year and is currently leading the constructors’ and drivers’ standings, the latter headed by Lando Norris. It won the first two grands prix this year.

McLaren also has a three-car team in IndyCar, where its driver Pato O’Ward lies second in the standings. It is similarly competitive in Formula E, where Taylor Barnard is second in the standings after the first four rounds. All three of McLaren’s existing teams will be in action this weekend: F1 in Bahrain, IndyCar in Long Beach, California and Formula E in Miami, Florida.

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World Endurance Championship

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FIA/Formula 1/McLaren

FIA and McLaren produce new guidebook on sustainable F1 car development · RaceFans

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The FIA has worked with McLaren and Deloitte to produce a guide for Formula 1 teams on how to produce racing cars more sustainably.

The F1 Constructors’ Circularity Handbook, which will be distributed to all teams, is intended to assist teams develop more sustainable practices. Its goal is to minimise the consumption of resources, reduce waste and maximise the value of materials used in car production.

The handbook includes guidance on how to gather data, how to examine circularity of input and waste, and ultimately “calculate a single circularity metric.”

McLaren was the first F1 team to receive the FIA’s three-star Environmental Accreditation. It has also experimented with the use of recycled carbon fibre on its cars in past seasons.

The FIA’s single-seater director Nikolas Tombazis said the governing body will consider what steps it should take to promote more sustainable car production in F1, which could ultimately include new regulations.

“Obviously all the environmental matters have been increasing in importance in the last decade in a fairly rapid manner and will continue to do so,” he said. “So it is our obligation towards society, towards our sport, towards the long-term sustainability of the sport to keep pushing on all such topics.

“The circularity is a key aspect, obviously a huge number of components get made and raced on cars on a daily basis and to measure and to encourage a more responsible use of these components and potentially reuse as much as possible is as vital.

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“We share the objective with McLaren and with other Formula 1 teams that the sport needs to become more sustainable. We have a dual role. We obviously have meetings with all the Formula 1 teams to discuss all of these matters in progress with the sustainability directors of the FIA and of the Formula 1 teams. And we’re also here to make either regulations, if necessary, or guidance documents, if not, and to try to push this message across.”

Tombazis said the fact the reigning world champions had undertaken the project showed sustainable practices do not necessarily compromise performance.

“I think it’s quite significant that McLaren have carried out this work,” he said. “They’re already in a leading position amongst teams for sustainability matters and at the same time, they’re also in a pretty good position on the track. And I think that’s quite shows that the two things are not conflicting.

“We, the FIA, want to work with all the teams for these matters, we want all the teams to adopt certain practices. Where necessary, we may have regulations in the future pushing to the use of certain materials, so pushing to certain responsible practises. That is in order to not give a disadvantage to somebody performance-wise or cost cap-wise who engage with these practises, but ultimately to make sure that all the teams follow suit and do a similar thing.”

The scope of the handbook is limited to chassis construction only and does not include other components including the power units and tyres. However Tombazis sees it as a useful starting point for future development which could have applications beyond motor racing.

“It’s an area of innovation in Formula 1. We soon hope to expand it to the PU manufacturers and to tyres and to all aspects of Formula 1.

“But also we hope that we’ll eventually reach the full automotive industry and spread across many aspects of society. So that is a very good and important message of innovation through motorsport helping in the general picture.”

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2025 Bahrain Grand Prix/2025 F1 season/McLaren

Will McLaren win their ‘second home race’ for the first time? Five Bahrain GP talking points · RaceFans

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McLaren call Bahrain their “second home race” – but they’ve never won it. Will they change that this weekend? Here are the talking points for the Bahrain Grand Prix.

McLaren to hit back at ‘home’?

Since McLaren ended their 26-year championship drought last year, winning has started to seem familiar again for the team. It’s easy to overlook the fact that, though they won the first two rounds this year it took them more than half a season to score as many victories last year.

Now the team is winning regularly again, there’s a gap in their trophy cabinet which they will be especially keen to fill. McLaren has never won the Bahrain Grand Prix – its best result remains Lewis Hamilton’s second place in 2007.

This is an especially important race for the team as Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund Mumtalakat took full ownership of the McLaren Group last year, which owns a majority stake in the racing division which includes the F1 squad.

The squad may be British-based and founded by a New Zealander (as Liam Lawson was eager to draw attention to last year) but as team principal Andrea Stella noted Bahrain is their “second home race.” Will they finally win it?

Verstappen’s shot at the lead

Max Verstappen, Lando Norris, Suzuka, 2025
Verstappen is just one point off championship leader Norris

Max Verstappen’s record reign in the lead of the drivers’ championship came to an end at the season-opening race. But there’s a strong chance he could take it back this weekend.

His superb performance at Suzuka, which resulted in his first victory of the season, has brought him within a single point of Lando Norris at the top of the championship table.

Norris talked up Red Bull’s chances this weekend in the wake of Verstappen’s win, pointing out how effectively the RB21 pulled out of the slower corners at Suzuka, neutering McLaren’s advantage through the quicker corners. Bahrain, which is biased more towards low-speed turns than Suzuka, should therefore suit the RB21.

However McLaren’s performance over a long stint looked strong in pre-season testing at the circuit. Verstappen won in Japan by capturing pole position and resisting his rivals for 53 laps, but the same approach may not work so well for a second weekend in a row.

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Ferrari seeking a solution

Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari, Suzuka, 2025
All is not quite right with the Ferrari

Lewis Hamilton revealed all is not well with Ferrari’s car after the team’s disappointing start to 2025 continued in Japan. He finished seventh while team mate Charles Leclerc had a more successful run to fourth, but neither was happy with their car’s performance.

Will they have a solution ready for this weekend? Rumours in the Italian media suggest changes are coming to the car.

Ferrari’s start to the season has been much less successful than many expected for the team which ended last year just 10 points off world champions McLaren. They are already 76 points behind and badly need to stop the rot.

Qualifying championship?

Before the 2025 season began hopes were high that the championship would remain as competitive as it was at the close of last year. In one respect the signs are encouraging so far – three different drivers have won the first three grands prix; that becomes four from four if the Shanghai sprint race, won by Hamilton, is included.

But the racing has tended to be processional. Last weekend’s race, where more than half the field finished in the same places they started, was the clearest example yet.

The Bahrain International Circuit may be as exciting a layout as you’d expect a converted camel farm in the middle of a desert to be, but its long, wide straights at least make overtaking fairly straightforward.

That plus high tyre degradation and ample DRS zones should make for plenty of changes of position. But it’s becoming clearer with every passing year that F1’s post-2021 rules overhaul did not achieve its stated goal of making the cars less sensitive to running in turbulence.

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Rookie takeover

Dino Beganovic, Prema, Formula 3, 2024
Ferrari junior Beganovic will drive in practice

Now that teams must give twice as many opportunities for rookies to drive their cars this season, at least half of them will do so this weekend. Therefore George Russell, Carlos Sainz Jnr, Fernando Alonso, Charles Leclerc and Oliver Bearman will all sit out the first practice session so a junior driver can take over their car.

Dino Beganovic will get the thrill of driving a Ferrari in an official F1 practice session for the first time. Ryo Hirakawa will be in action for the second Friday practice session in a row, but this time with Haas instead of Alpine.

Felipe Drugovich (Aston Martin), Frederik Vesti (Mercedes) and Luke Browning (Williams) will all join in the fun. But how many of them are likely to graduate to F1 race seats in the future?

Are you going to the Bahrain Grand Prix?

If you’re heading to Bahrain for this weekend’s race, we want to hear from you:

Who do you think will be the team to beat in the Bahrain Grand Prix? Have your say below.

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2025 Bahrain Grand Prix/2025 F1 season/Lando Norris/McLaren/Red Bull

Bahrain’s low-speed corners will play to Red Bull’s strength over McLaren

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Lando Norris expects Max Verstappen will be a significant threat again in this weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix as the track layout will play to Red Bull’s strengths.

The McLaren driver said the Red Bull’s superior performance in low-speed corners prevented him from getting close to Verstappen throughout Sunday’s race. The Bahrain International Circuit features a higher proportion of lower-speed corners than Suzuka.

“Our weakness was the slow-speed compared to them,” said Norris after Sunday’s race. “There’s a lot less high-speed [in Bahrain], so we’re kind of losing some of our strengths and we’re going more into our weaknesses.”

Norris believes Red Bull have improved their car since the beginning of the season, after Verstappen narrowly beat him and team mate Oscar Piastri to pole position in Japan.

“Clearly, they’re quick,” he said. “I feel like between Oscar and myself, we got a lot out of the car [in qualifying]. It was probably a little bit more, yes, but both our theoretical [lap times] were not that far ahead.

“So Max is doing a good job and Red Bull seemed to maybe have caught up a little bit. But they’ve also not been that bad the whole season.

“When you look at Australia, he was fighting for a win. When you look at China, he wasn’t miles away. And this weekend he’s done very good. So I expect him to be challenging us every weekend.”

McLaren have “got areas to work on” with their car, he added. “In high-speed [corners] we were very, very strong and I think definitely the strongest car out there.

“In slow-speed we’re quite a chunk off the Red Bull, and that’s where we lost in qualifying. We lost again consistently in the race. So there’s a lot of areas we have to try to work on.”

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2025 F1 season/2025 Japanese Grand Prix/McLaren/Race data

Did McLaren miss a chance to beat Verstappen? Japanese GP data analysed · RaceFans

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After spending 53 laps following Max Verstappen around Suzuka, Lando Norris couldn’t help but wonder whether his team could have done more to get him ahead of the Red Bull.

“Maybe we could have tried a bit more with strategy,” he said. “Overcut or undercut – we just [pitted] on the same lap [as Verstappen] for some reason. So there’s some things we’ll discuss.”

Often when one driver is bearing down on a rival they are clearly quicker than but can’t overtake, their race engineers give them the instruction to “box opposite” their rival: i.e. “If they pit, stay out, and vice-versa.”

That didn’t happen when Verstappen and Norris approached the pit lane entrance at the end of lap
20. “Box this lap,” called Norris’s race engineer Will Joseph. In came the McLaren, right in Verstappen’s wheel tracks.

Should McLaren have issued a “box opposite” instruction at this moment, in which case Norris would have stayed out at least one more lap after Verstappen came in? Afterwards team principal Andrea Stella said that the performance advantage from the new set of hards tyres the drivers would take was so great that it’s doubtful Norris could have ‘overcut’ Verstappen by staying out.

“We saw that staying out would have not been faster than pitting,” he said. “We saw that from Russell, as soon as he pitted and he went on the new hard he was very fast.”

There are two potential outcomes of an ‘overcut’ for the attacking driver. Either they improve their pace immediately then pit and come out ahead, or they run much longer, pit and come out behind, then use the advantage of their fresher rubber to overtake on the track.

Stella’s assertion that the latter route would not have worked for McLaren looks entirely correct. For proof of that, consider how little overtaking occured throughout the field on Sunday.

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But what would Norris’s pace have been like on his medium rubber had he stayed out? He was able to draw within 1.3s of Verstappen in turbulence, and would have had clear air ahead of him after the Red Bull driver pitted.

Even though Norris was plainly managing his medium tyres earlier in the stint, McLaren must have been convinced they did not have enough life left in them to find the time he needed to stand a better chance of coming out of the pits ahead of Verstappen.

Stella said afterwards they will review the decisions they took, and they may look at Verstappen’s initial lap times on hards and wish they’d taken the risk. Norris set the fastest lap of the race, a 1’32.988, two laps before pitting. Verstappen’s first lap on hards was only three tenths of a second faster than that, following which he gained almost four tenths on the next lap.

No doubt Verstappen would have leant on his tyres harder had Norris not been behind him at that stage. But that would have brought him within range of the likes of Alexander Albon sooner, potentially negating that benefit.

There is another reason why McLaren might have liked the idea of bringing Norris in on the same lap as Verstappen. As constructors’ champions, they held the prime spot next to the pit lane exit allowing their drivers a cleaner run back onto the circuit.

Norris’s audacious bid to come out of the pits alongside Verstappen came close to working. This bore the hallmarks of a pre-planned move, particularly as Norris must have made a borderline call on how early to release his pit lane speed limiter, as Verstappen suspected.

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But there was one other point in the race where McLaren’s tactics should be scrutinised. Norris’s pit stop immediately followed that of his team mate Oscar Piastri. Should McLaren have pitted their drivers in the opposite order?

Typically, teams have preferred to give the benefit of the ‘undercut’ – pitting first to get onto fresher tyres – to whichever of their drivers is ahead, to reduce the chance of switching their running order through the pits. McLaren brought Piastri in first to cover off the potential threat from Russell.

Should McLaren have brought Norris in first? With the benefit of hindsight it’s easy to point out that, given the time Norris lost in his pit stop, he might have come in a lap earlier and rejoined the track ahead of Oliver Bearman with enough fresh air to attack Verstappen for a lap.

But teams have to make these decisions knowing the time taken for a pit stop can vary. This was the case for Verstappen who, partly because Red Bull were using reserve team members in their pit crew, lost over a second compared to Norris when he came in.

Even so, it says something about McLaren’s priorities that they were more geared up to protect Piastri’s third place than they were to use their best-placed driver to attack for the lead. After all, if they had got Norris into the lead but Piastri had fallen to fourth behind Charles Leclerc, that would have been a net gain of four points for the team.

This is the difference between a team like McLaren, which is trying to optimise the result of both its cars, and Red Bull, who have stated their priority is to get the best result for Verstappen alone. It is therefore a dilemma McLaren are likely to continue facing over the rest of the season, and one which will become more complicated if Red Bull manage to get their second car back up to the sharp end.

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2025 Japanese Grand Prix lap chart

The positions of each driver on every lap. Click name to highlight, right-click to reset. Toggle drivers using controls below:

2025 Japanese Grand Prix race chart

The gaps between each driver on every lap compared to the leader’s average lap time. Very large gaps omitted. Scroll to zoom, drag to pan and right-click to reset. Toggle drivers using controls below:

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2025 Japanese Grand Prix lap times

All the lap times by the drivers (in seconds, very slow laps excluded). Scroll to zoom, drag to pan and toggle drivers using the control below:

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2025 Japanese Grand Prix fastest laps

Each driver’s fastest lap:

2025 Japanese Grand Prix tyre strategies

The tyre strategies for each driver:

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2025 Japanese Grand Prix pit stop times

How long each driver’s pit stops took:

Rank#DriverTeamComplete stop time (s)Gap to best (s)Stop no.Lap no.
144Lewis HamiltonFerrari22.937130
281Oscar PiastriMcLaren23.0370.1120
323Alexander AlbonWilliams23.0930.156124
463George RussellMercedes23.1840.247119
54Lando NorrisMcLaren23.2220.285121
66Isack HadjarRacing Bulls23.3330.396125
755Carlos Sainz JnrWilliams23.3370.4133
816Charles LeclercFerrari23.3460.409121
97Jack DoohanAlpine23.3820.445115
105Gabriel BortoletoSauber23.4190.482131
1127Nico HulkenbergSauber23.5150.578122
1218Lance StrollAston Martin23.6080.671230
1330Liam LawsonRacing Bulls23.6620.725133
1418Lance StrollAston Martin23.7240.78719
1522Yuki TsunodaRed Bull24.1811.244123
1612Andrea Kimi AntonelliMercedes24.381.443131
171Max VerstappenRed Bull24.3971.46121
1831Esteban OconHaas24.4641.527132
1987Oliver BearmanHaas24.8341.897123
2014Fernando AlonsoAston Martin25.7082.771124
2110Pierre GaslyAlpine26.0413.104124

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2025 F1 season/2025 Japanese Grand Prix/Formula 1/Lando Norris/McLaren

McLaren deny making error with Norris’s Japanese GP strategy · RaceFans

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McLaren insist it did not make a mistake by calling Lando Norris into the pits on the same lap as leader Max Verstappen during the Japanese Grand Prix.

Norris spent the entire race trapped behind Verstappen. Despite looking potentially quicker than the Red Bull driver at times he was never able to get close enough to attack him for the lead.

Both McLaren drivers ran close behind Verstappen in the first stint and the team brought in Oscar Piastri first for his pit stop. Red Bull reacted by bringing Verstappen in on the next lap but Norris surprisingly followed him in.

Other drivers, such as Andrea Kimi Antonelli, stayed out much longer in their first stint. However McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said doing the same for Norris would not have given him a better chance to win.

“We saw that staying out would have not been faster than pitting,” he told Sky. “We saw that from Russell, as soon as he pitted and he went on the new hard [tyre] he was very fast.

“So clearly there wasn’t the possibility, like there is sometimes, to go for what’s called the ‘overcut’: You stay out, you try to go faster than the car that pitted. Today it was not possible.”

He pointed out the characteristics of Suzuka have changed since the first third of the track was resurfaced, contributing to considerably quicker lap times.

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“The degradation, with the new Tarmac, Suzuka has changed completely its personality. The degradation is now very low, and this means that it gets very difficult to overtake if you are on the same strategy. It takes like eight tenths of a second to be able to even attack the car ahead.”

Stella said the team’s strategy was dictated by the lack of opportunities to pit their drivers into free air earlier in the race.

“The race was mostly decided yesterday when, for a matter of a few milliseconds, Verstappen managed to score the pole position. He defended it in the first lap today, and then there wasn’t much action going on.

“I think the pit stop timing was pretty much set by the other people pitting. There was not much to play with and it just ended up with the same result as qualifying.”

Despite failing to win a grand prix for the first time this year, McLaren extended their lead in the constructors’ championship. Verstappen cut Norris’s lead in the drivers’ championship to a single point.

“It’s a good result, still, for us,” said Stella. “A lot of points for the constructors and a lot of points for both our drivers.

“It’s encouraging, again, the indications from the performance of our car. But clearly we see that the others are not far and sometimes even ahead.”

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2025 Japanese Grand Prix

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2025 F1 season/2025 Japanese Grand Prix/F1 Statistics/Lap Time Watch/Max Verstappen/McLaren

McLaren admit Verstappen’s pole lap was “near-perfect”: Lap time data

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Even McLaren had to admit there was something special about Max Verstappen’s lap for pole position at the Japanese Grand Prix.

Either of their drivers could have taken pole position. Together they could have locked out the front row of the grid. But minor errors handed Verstappen the slimmest of opportunities, and he seized it brilliantly.

Sector times

On a day when shifting conditions made it harder than usual for drivers to string together their best sector times, Verstappen was the only driver who reached Q3 to pull it off.

He wasn’t fastest in any of the three individual sectors – the McLaren drivers were. Each of them produced sector times which, taken together, could have put them in front of Verstappen.

But they didn’t manage it when it mattered. “We looked like we were on the way to pole position when Max managed to pull off what looks like a near-perfect lap,” McLaren team principal Andrea Stella admitted, “so credit to Max.”

P.#DriverS1S2S3Ultimate lap (deficit)
181Oscar Piastri30.514 (5)39.197 (1)17.205 (1)1’26.916 (+0.111)
24Lando Norris30.358 (1)39.301 (2)17.307 (6)1’26.966 (+0.029)
31Max Verstappen30.387 (3)39.355 (4)17.241 (2)1’26.983
416Charles Leclerc30.535 (6)39.352 (3)17.292 (4)1’27.179 (+0.120)
563George Russell30.376 (2)39.560 (8)17.281 (3)1’27.217 (+0.101)
644Lewis Hamilton30.506 (4)39.454 (5)17.406 (12)1’27.366 (+0.244)
712Andrea Kimi Antonelli30.669 (12)39.503 (7)17.295 (5)1’27.467 (+0.088)
86Isack Hadjar30.663 (11)39.471 (6)17.401 (10)1’27.535 (+0.034)
923Alexander Albon30.604 (8)39.581 (10)17.399 (9)1’27.584 (+0.031)
1087Oliver Bearman30.646 (10)39.639 (12)17.403 (11)1’27.688 (+0.023)
1155Carlos Sainz Jnr30.760 (14)39.579 (9)17.408 (13)1’27.747 (+0.089)
1210Pierre Gasly30.593 (7)39.840 (15)17.389 (7)1’27.822
1322Yuki Tsunoda30.707 (13)39.672 (13)17.449 (14)1’27.828 (+0.139)
1414Fernando Alonso30.633 (9)39.705 (14)17.559 (18)1’27.897
1530Liam Lawson30.879 (15)39.634 (11)17.393 (8)1’27.906
165Gabriel Bortoleto30.974 (17)40.000 (17)17.542 (17)1’28.516 (+0.106)
1727Nico Hulkenberg31.082 (20)39.984 (16)17.504 (15)1’28.570
1831Esteban Ocon31.012 (18)40.137 (18)17.518 (16)1’28.667 (+0.029)
197Jack Doohan30.949 (16)40.186 (19)17.608 (19)1’28.743 (+0.134)
2018Lance Stroll31.034 (19)40.483 (20)17.754 (20)1’29.271

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Teams’ performance

Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari, Suzuka, 2019
Verstappen broke Vettel’s Suzuka course record from 2019

McLaren and Red Bull had around three tenths of a second over Ferrari and Mercedes. George Russell was disappointed with his lap for fifth on the grid, having been consistently higher than that in practice, blaming low tyre temperatures for a poor start to his final lap.

Racing Bulls threatened to get in among the front runners during practice, but were one of several teams which appeared to be caught out by the shift in wind conditions overnight.

“Somewhere along the way, I think with the wind change, we struggled more,” admitted Liam Lawson following his return to the team. “It’s a shame because the potential of the car has been very, very good this weekend.”

Sauber was the only team to lose both drivers in Q1, which somewhat exaggerates their deficit to the competition, as the track conditions continued to improve in Q2.

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Williams chalked up the biggest year-on-year improvement of any team. Moreover, Carlos Sainz Jnr finally seems to be getting to grips with the car, lapping just five hundredths of a second off Alexander Albon in Q2.

Field performance

Thanks partly to the resurfacing at the start of the lap, Suzuka saw record-breaking times during qualifying. Verstappen trimmed the former record, held by Sebastian Vettel since 2019, by 0.081 seconds.

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Australian Grand Prix/Formula 1/George Russell/McLaren/Mercedes/Tech/Toto Wolff

F1 Tech | How front wing flexing is improving the W16's performance

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The start of the season for Mercedes has been quite encouraging, as they showed off to be the second fastest team behind McLaren, on level terms with Max Verstappen and in front of Ferrari. The W16 is definitely a step forward compared to last year’s car, but still shows some weaknesses that can affect performance in specific conditions. Let’s try to explain why.