McLaren Continue To Lead As Verstappen Announces Decision On His Future
The 2025 Formula 1 calendar is in full flow and with the Hungarian Grand Prix soon to be over, racing fans around the world will be looking forward to the Zandvoort hosted Dutch Grand Prix and plenty will be hoping that McLaren pairing Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris continue their assault for top spot in the Drivers standings.
After Red Bull's recent dominance and the success of Max Verstappen in particular, this years competition is making for a nice change as it clearly is no longer effectively a one horse race, and although we have had the typical number of headlines, stories and the slightly more controversial moments and spats, there will certainly be plenty wondering whether it is a case of McLaren showing significant improvement, or whether it has been a bit of a fall from grace by Red Bull given all of the off track issues that it appears that they have been dealing with so far this year.
For those race fans who have decided to buy a VPN online to stream safely and enjoy this years entertainment, they will have noticed that one lingering Red Bull story was put to bed prior to the Hungarian GP. 27 year old Verstappen ended the rumours and speculation surrounding his own future at the team by announcing that 'it's time to basically stop all the rumours' and stating that 'it's always been quite clear that I was staying anyway'.
Again, it will not stop people wondering whether his own performances have suffered as a result of all of this, but for now he has some significant catching up to do if he wishes to reclaim top spot. As things stand, Norris trails team mate Piastri by 16 points in the standings, but the 25 year old British driver is remaining pretty philosophical about the race so far, stating that it will ultimately boil down to how finishes first or second the most often between now and the end of the calendar.
He knows that this really means it comes down to how is the most consistent driver on the tracks and basically who makes the least amount of mistakes as qualifying and the laps tick by, and on that front having gained pole position in Spa but seen himself overtaken by Piastri on the first lap, he acknowledged that there were a few things he should have done better, but there were also slightly incorrect settings issues that were out of his control. However, he was not going to use that as an excuse as he knows that although he did not do a 'bad job' he also 'didn't have the best run' and his feeling was that despite the issues his race colleague would 'probably' have passed him irrespective.
What it had again taught him was that he is still learning, and whilst improving, he knows he could well do better at race management and knowing when to push himself, and when there is more to gain by being a little bit more conservative. In his words it is about knowing when to go 101% and then when to dial back to 95% depending on what would bring him the most positive outcome.
Given the developments so far, it will be interesting to see what happens in the races that are yet to come, but Piastri and Norris should certainly be there or there abouts you would think.
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