Hints of McLaren ‘anxiety’ after Verstappen Azerbaijan GP win.
McLaren mistakes highlight Verstappen pressure. Cracks are already starting to appear for McLaren after Norris clipped the wall in qualifying and Piastri crashed into the barrier in Sunday’s race, believes F1 journalist Brandon Sutton.
26 Sep 2025
Joe Krishnan
Total Motorsport
F1 journalist Ewan Gale thinks it would be very unlikely that Verstappen wipes out the deficit in the remaining seven races, but his return to prominence is giving McLaren a headache.
“For me, I think it’s a stretch to say he [Verstappen] is in the title race. But what he will be doing is he’ll be causing anxiety to the McLaren drivers. They’ll be starting to look over their shoulder a little bit more rather than focusing on themselves,” he said.
“A lot has to happen for Verstappen to be in the title race. It needs McLaren to have another probably two off races. He probably needs Norris and Piastri to get into each other and take each other out of one of the races. But, as it stands, Piastri pretty much needs to finish third in every race and every sprint at the moment and he’ll still be ahead of Verstappen.”
‘Giving McLaren a headache’;
https://www.total-motorsport.com/f1-...azerbaijan-gp/
Montoya: “Piastri’s Baku Errors Show He’s Feeling the Heat in F1 Title Fight”
30 Sep 2025
James Rees
F1 Chronicle
Oscar Piastri’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix performance was “terrible,” according to former McLaren driver Juan Pablo Montoya, who fears the Australian is beginning to crack under championship pressure. “Piastri lost his temper,” Montoya said. “I’ve been telling you, ‘Wait and see,’ and it was noticeable. For a while, when he was under direct pressure from Lando regarding the points, he was still performing well. But in Baku, the race was terrible.”
Montoya suggested the Australian misjudged his rivals in the opening laps. “Apart from jumping the start, the start itself was terrible. Then he thought he would pass people quickly. He calculated his braking based on those around him, but they braked late, so he braked later—and bang. Welcome to a street circuit. The mental problem for me is more complicated now, because you’re going to another street circuit, which is 100% a Lando track,” Montoya explained.
“You’re not in a position to attack Lando, because if you make another mistake, you’re going to create a world of unnecessary headaches. He has a big advantage, but as we’ve seen, that can change in a week. What he has to do is finish second or third, avoid mistakes, and create stability. Because another crash at this moment…”
“Piastri lost his temper”;
https://f1chronicle.com/montoya-pias...1-title-fight/
Villeneuve counters Norris' comments: 'That's not true'
29 Sep 2025
Tobia Elia
GPblog.com
Jacques Villeneuve has responded to Lando Norris’s comments about his indifference to criticism. "That’s not true. There's not one driver, not one sportsman that says that. It's a way of trying to keep the pressure away. Everyone knows what's being written. Everyone gets affected even when you don't want it to. It’s somewhere at the back of your mind because it makes you think. Lando says that to try and minimise it. You have to because you don't want it to affect you too much. Just saying that means it's affecting him.”
In post-race comments following the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Norris admitted Red Bull’s dominance at Baku. The Brit suggested that the Austrian outfit operated on “another level” through much of the weekend. Norris also acknowledged a troubling reality for McLaren, revealing that the team had been off the pace compared with Verstappen and Red Bull all weekend. With his seventh-place finish in Azerbaijan, Norris managed to gain six points on his teammate in the championship battle, but lost another 19 to Max Verstappen...
‘Norris acknowledged a troubling reality for McLaren’;
https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/ville...thats-not-true
Golf analogy made as Oscar Piastri’s F1 title ‘jitters’ scrutinised
Oscar Piastri's mistake-ridden weekend in Baku has been examined.
30 Sep 2025
Lewis Larkam
Crash.Net
Oscar Piastri suffered from “jitters” amid the pressure of the F1 title fight hotting up, according to former driver Jolyon Palmer. “I think we saw, just purely, a chink in the armour,” Palmer told the F1 Nation podcast. “We just saw a driver making a really basic human mistake. I can’t see anything other than he just got jittery. He must have got jittery.”
“I was trying to relate this across sports. I was thinking something like The Masters, you play four rounds of golf. Rory McIlroy has played golf for years and years and years, he knows how to put from three yards. But suddenly you are on the back nine on the final day and basic shots become really tricky and you tense up. You start swinging in a weird way, and I think that’s what happened to Oscar.”
“He starts ninth. So he’s a bit tense. You are starting from the mid-pack in Baku. It’s really narrow, especially at Turn 2, Turn 3, Turn 4. The amount of time someone has been bundled into the wall there at the start is pretty high. And he’s got his championship rival ahead of him. I think he’s simply got a bit twitchy. That’s just pressure, it’s jitters and the rest of it was compounded by the first mistake.”
“A chink in the armour”;
https://www.crash.net/f1/news/108295...rs-scrutinised
The key McLaren weakness that recent F1 races have exposed
29 Sep 2025
Lena Ferle
Motorsport Week
McLaren boss Andrea Stella: “From a performance point of view, if you had asked me, ‘What is the most difficult weekend?’, I would have said it would be Baku or Las Vegas,” Stella told media including Motorsport Week.
“We know very well that the characteristics of our car mean that it is very competitive in long and medium speed corners, of which there are none in Baku, likewise in Las Vegas. The car is not particularly effective in straight line braking, of which there is a lot [in Baku and Vegas], or when you have to go through prescribed trajectories. The car really wants to roll in the corners, like Turn 1 at Zandvoort is a McLaren corner, of which you have none in Baku or Vegas.”
“But having said that, the car was fast enough to compete for pole position [in Baku], which is a credit to the engineers who have designed a pretty versatile car, even when not operating within the strengths of the car itself. So, Baku and probably Las Vegas, it will definitely not be a surprise that there are cars as competitive as McLaren.”
‘Key McLaren weakness’;
https://www.motorsportweek.com/2025/...-have-exposed/
McLaren in a hurry to fix Norris' recent bane in title fight
26 Sep 2025
Norberto Mujica
GPblog.com
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has admitted that recent pit stop issues remain a concern as the championship closes in. The spotlight fell on Norris once again after a slow 4.1-second stop in Baku, following a similar problem in Monza where a front-left wheel issue cost him nearly six seconds.
Andrea Stella has stated, “The pit stop itself didn’t make any difference because we would have ended up pretty much in the area of Leclerc... For me, the most important takeaway was that the car wasn’t fast enough. With a fast enough car, I think we would have been able to overtake and then have some free air and in free air actually use the full potential.”
Stella added McLaren are committed to improving. “We have seen that the racing, if anything, is getting tighter and tighter, so the impact of a pit stop now gets more and more important,” he said. “It’s an area in which we have already concentrated our efforts, but we need to keep working. Every tenth counts for the championship.”
‘Pit stop issues remain a concern’;
https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/mclar...etting-tighter
McLaren told to take immediate action to avoid looking ‘dumb’
McLaren have been offered some advice heading into the closing stretch of the 2025 F1 title fight.
26 Sep 2025
Lewis Larkam
Crash.Net
Guenther Steiner has urged McLaren to back Oscar Piastri over Lando Norris in the F1 2025 title race. “In the end, you want to win the drivers’ championship as well, not only the constructors’,” Steiner told The Red Flags podcast. “The team is more important than the driver, and the drivers are, as I always say and not diminishing, just part of a team.”
“And both cannot win, so instead of having two fighting and lose it all, you get somebody to win. As much as Lando is the face and the favoured son, I think McLaren needs to be above that, and will be above that. It is crazy, but you have to do it. In my opinion, you have to do it to win.” Steiner added: “I think they will take the decision, because otherwise, if they lose it because of that decision, how dumb do they look?”
With Verstappen lurking, Steiner is adamant that the time has now come for McLaren to throw all their weight behind Piastri. Asked when he would make the call to back one driver over the other, Steiner replied: “I would make it now. “I would do, because I just want to make sure I win the championship. I said I think Max cannot get near, but if I already get the feeling there is a risk, why would I take it?”
'Avoid looking dumb';
https://www.crash.net/f1/news/108249...-f1-title-race
