Numbers that reveal McLaren’s true advantage

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China was McLaren’s first one-two finish of the 2025 season - Getty Images/Kym Illman

With two races and one sprint round of the 2025 Formula One season over, it is worth assessing and analysing the true extent of championship leaders McLaren’s pace advantage.

We have looked at their performances over one lap and also over a race distance. Should the rest of the field be worried about McLaren dominance in the remainder of the season?

Qualifying: are strong but vulnerable​

McLaren have taken two grand prix pole positions from two attempts, though it was only in Melbourne where they locked out the front row. In those two races the advantage from their pole time to the next fastest car was 0.082sec (China) and 0.385sec (Australia).

In sprint qualifying in Shanghai, however, they were the third-fastest team, though not by much. Oscar Piastri’s lap of 1min 30.929sec was 0.08sec off pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton and 0.062sec off Max Verstappen in the lead Red Bull.

Looking at the raw pace rating for each team, McLaren lead the way by a solid if not enormous margin. This gives an overall picture by measuring the fastest lap time of each team in qualifying compared to the overall fastest time of qualifying and is expressed as a percentage, the lower the better. It is averaged out over the season.

McLaren are 0.345 per cent faster on average than next best team Mercedes, with Red Bull neck and neck. Despite their sprint pole Ferrari are further back by 0.2 per cent or so, showing that they have work to do over one lap.

This tells us that McLaren are not perfect over one lap by any means. Indeed, the MCL39 has a tendency to bite its drivers when pushed on low fuel. Both Lando Norris and Piastri have experienced this, though so far it has not been especially costly.

You can see this with your eyes as well as looking at the data. It was evident in Melbourne in Q3 but also particularly in sprint qualifying in China. Norris, who qualified sixth, made several mistakes and he put that down to him pushing too hard rather than the car. You cannot completely separate the two, however.

Races: unbeatable if they get ahead​

China was McLaren’s first one-two finish of the season but it should have been their second after Piastri’s spin in Melbourne. In Australia, Verstappen gave both McLarens a tough time in the early stages and then finished within a second of winner Norris. That, however, gives a misleading picture. One, Verstappen used his wet-weather ability to close the gap early on and two, numerous safety cars bunched the pack up towards the end of the race.

In the period when McLaren resumed first and second and the race and weather settled down, Norris and Piastri streaked clear. For 15 laps they increased their lead over Verstappen by nearly 1sec a lap. George Russell in the Mercedes in fourth was a further 15sec back.

This advantage was because McLaren looked after their rear intermediate tyres on a damp but fairly dry track far better than their rivals. Whilst Verstappen was able to fight in the early stages, he became more distant after as the stint progressed and his tyre performance fell away.

China, though, gives a more representative read of the situation because it was run entirely in the dry. In the first stint on the medium tyres in Shanghai, Piastri led Norris by 3.4sec, who was in turn 2.4sec ahead of Russell in third. Charles Leclerc in fourth was 8.8sec behind leader Piastri. From the lead McLaren to the next best car that equates to around 0.4sec per lap – or slightly less if you consider the dirty air effect.

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In Shanghai Oscar Piastri led Lando Norris by 3.4sec, who was in turn 2.4sec ahead of Mercedes’ George Russell in third - Getty Images/Clive Mason

In the second stint on the hard tyres, winner Piastri went from 1.5sec ahead of Russell to 11sec ahead at the chequered flag. That works out as just under a quarter of a second per lap.

Yet the Red Bull of Verstappen was actually faster than Piastri in that final stint, albeit by less than a tenth of a second per lap. Most of that can be attributed to the Australian easing off in front after Norris’s brake issue.

So far McLaren have excelled in varying conditions and on two tracks which require different attributes from a car. The only (slightly) weak point were the sprint sessions in China.

How to beat McLaren​

If you had to put a very rough number on it McLaren’s pace advantage is probably around 0.2-0.3sec over the next-best car in both qualifying and race conditions. At this early stage, it is difficult to see them being challenged if they qualify at or very near the front and manage to get ahead.

There is hope, though. The sprint race in China was a set of circumstances that shows McLaren can be beaten. Sure, a sprint is only one-third of the race distance but Hamilton’s victory over Piastri highlights the vulnerabilities.

The chinks in the armour are over one flying lap, as was shown on Saturday and mentioned above. Norris failing to hook up a lap in sprint qualifying meant he started the sprint race slightly out of position in sixth. Whilst some of this was down to a mistake he made on lap one, the McLaren was hardly a hot knife through butter in the rest of the 19-lap race, finishing eighth.

In turbulent air alongside cars of a broadly comparable (within 0.2-0.3sec) pace, Norris lacked the pace to advance, finishing 23sec down on Hamilton’s winning time and behind even Yuki Tsunoda and Kimi Antonelli.

What McLaren’s rivals need to hope for is that the MCL39 proves problematic enough in qualifying often enough for Norris and Piastri to have several cars ahead of them in racing conditions. That way they will find it more difficult to unleash their true pace and will not be able to hammer home their tyre advantage. All three of their rival teams have at least shown potential at varying points this season. It will be about unlocking that as consistently as McLaren, whether with upgrades or understanding.

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