mclaren Will not bring any more upgrades to his 2025 car to help oscar piastri And lando norris to hold back max verstappen in the drivers’ championship, but the team feels Norris’s US Grand Prix race pace has provided some reassurance.
Verstappen won his third grand prix out of four on Sunday, also taking maximum points in Austin Sprint race in which both Piastri and Norris were eliminated,
It has brought the four-time world champion back into the title fight, and he trails Piastri by 40 points with five weekends remaining. Norris is now 14 points behind his Australian teammate.
After Verstappen’s impressive performance in circuit of americaThere is no doubt that their Red Bull RB21 is now the fastest car in F1 after an impressive makeover by the team.
In terms of hardware, the 2025 development race is now over, with McLaren turning off the tap before Red Bull and mercedesMcLaren team boss Andrea Stella confirmed that Piastri and Norris would not receive any replacements for the remaining races.
“When it comes to new upgrades, new parts, that won’t be the case for the rest of the season,” Stella said Sunday night.
Andrea Stella,McLaren
Photo by: Alistair Staley/LAT Images via Getty Images
But Stella also saw some reassuring signs in Austin. As fifth-placed Piastri struggled with confidence in the car, Norris’s race pace was much more impressive and he looked largely on par with Verstappen in front.
However, Norris’ attempt to win failed due to falling behind charles leclerc Initially on a circuit where overtaking was not easy.
“In terms of trends, today is a relatively reassuring race, because I think without fighting with Charles, which was certainly an entertaining battle, I think Lando had the pace to win the race today,” Stella was adamant.
“Obviously, he needed to gain position on the track, which is never easy with Max. And with the one-stop strategy, we didn’t necessarily have many opportunities from a strategic point of view. But performance-wise, I think we are confident that the pace was enough to fight for the victory.”
Norris and McLaren had zero data to rely on from Saturday’s 19-lap sprint after being taken out at the start, hampering the team’s set-up work between the sprint and the Saturday afternoon qualifying session.
“Not having sprint races left us a little behind from a setup standpoint,” Stella said. “And looking back, we can already see that we could have got more performance out of the car.”
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