What Formula 1 drivers and their team bosses are not saying at this time of year is usually much more revealing ahead of a new campaign.
And for one that’s predicted to be even closer and more competitive than the last time the championship got a season-long scrap for world title glory – 2021 and that season of seasons – it’s worth paying attention to the subtext of what the likely contenders are saying.
Having gone first in a year where launches were supposed to be a thing of the past, McLaren has breathed a lot of confidence into the 2025 pre-season.
By the time the platforms of North Greenwich tube station are packed with fans fresh from attending the F175 Live event at London’s O2 arena on Tuesday night, the likely main opposition will have had their first say on the coming season too.
But there’s plenty to dig into now fresh from the freezing conditions of McLaren’s Silverstone filming day – one that for the orange team is understood to have lasted with its MCL39 running around within F1’s mileage limits for such events until the early winter evening was firmly setting in.
While team principal Andrea Stella and Oscar Piastri discussed their obvious respective personal targets of defending the constructors’ title and mounting a first quest for the drivers’, Lando Norris was already dealing with something more high-profile and different. That is how to finally defeat Red Bull’s Max Verstappen – given how his long-shot quest to do in 2024.
From the way he responded from underneath the thickest of overcoats in the hotel restaurant that is next to the pitstraight at the home of the British Grand Prix, Norris indicated he’s anticipating the coming campaign to be, in many respects, a repeat of last year. That his McLaren squad will be up there against the best, if not leading, with Verstappen providing the stiffest opposition as a likely lone thrust from Red Bull.
In straightforward terms, Norris acknowledges what first became obvious at Silverstone in 2021 with Lewis Hamilton: to beat Verstappen’s fire you have to give him your own.
“I need to get my elbows out and I need to show that I'm not going to willingly give him any positions,” Norris stated.
But there’s a real possibility that in F1’s first championship battle involving more than two teams since 2010, those that stay out of the fiercest flashpoints could gain massively. Constant crashes aren’t going to cut it either – or there’s the risk of ending up on a pile of ashes with nothing to show for it. And Norris, it seems, gets this.
“I also have to be a smart driver,” he added. “You have to be a smart driver to go up against Max.
“At the same time, I want to say I don't need to go out and just prove something to him. I don't need to take any unnecessary risks and don't need to go down trying, necessarily.
“I just keep focusing on myself. I don't think you have to do anything special to try and beat Max. He's quick, he's aggressive, he's one of the best ever.
Watch: Why Stella is confident as McLaren launch their F1 2025 season
“The easy way is just going out and being quicker than him and staying ahead.”
If there is, however, going to be any point-making – as Piastri showed in being as uncompromising with Verstappen’s Turn 1 lunge at Abu Dhabi last year as the world champion has shown – Norris will only be able to do so from a position of strength.
The points may be level when the season finally starts in Melbourne, but in a close-run championship there’s no point throwing anything away really early on.
A counter would be how Verstappen himself raced Hamilton in 2021’s initial rounds – that this set the tone for his campaign and the rest that have followed, amid the car development twists of F1’s last ultra-close competitive picture in the final year of a regulations cycle.
But, overall, the benefits of the points reset have clearly not been lost on Norris and how he views things if the competitive outlook from 2024 holds.
He’s right to say of Verstappen “with how he drives and the risks that he takes and the aggressiveness that he has, there was almost no way that I could come back from the deficit that I had because there would have been too many scenarios that replicated Mexico or replicated [the] Red Bull Ring – that kind of thing where we were both out and that benefitted him more than it benefitted me”.
Because being the long-shot chaser late last year meant even any double DNFs in Verstappen-Norris clashes benefitted the Dutchman given his hefty points lead – the risk of falling further behind obvious to the Briton.
Here, then, comes pressure on McLaren to ensure it starts 2025 exactly as it ended 2024: winning.
“The main thing is just starting off on the right foot, which changes the mentality of every driver,” explained Norris. “It would be [a different] mentality of Max [in 2024] if he’s 50 points behind versus 50 points ahead.
“That’s the biggest key difference. The rest is keep doing what I’m doing.
“But I know I wasn’t at the level that I needed to be when I first went into those battles with Max – that was clear. And I take that on the chin. It hurts. It’s always gonna hurt when you’re mixing it at times and you don’t come out on top.
“That’s the way it is in life sometimes. As long as I learn and don’t make them multiple times. That’s the way it is. I need to do a better job.”
