McLaren’s Collapse Just Shook The Championship

McLaren did not cheat in Las Vegas. They simply done goofed…and made Lando’s life harder.

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McLaren said it was a mistake, but in reality, it was a greedy gamble in the midst of a lack of data due to practice being limited for the 2025 F1 Las Vegas GP. As a result, what became a smooth ride into the Middle Eastern races has become a more nervous siutation for Lando Norris with BOTH his title rivals still in contention. Not only that, but McLaren must avoid the same mistakes occuring again at a grand prix with only ONE practice session. This means Max Verstappen has nothing to lose.

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McLaren’s Gamble Blows Title Race Wide Open

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Oh man, there are consequences to be had, my friend. Especially unforeseen circumstances, especially with the level of sentiment coming from non- McLaren fans. I’ve taken a look and uh it’s bleak, Chad. It It’s bleak. Not what they hoped for at all. And we’ve got a perfect comparison, not from decades past or anything, from this very season. The China 2025 double disqualification for Ferrari. When Hamilton andlair both got nailed for the same thing McLaren got nailed for just now, the shock was universal. There was almost a level of sympathy. That shared sense of disbelief has now gone on to define Ferrari’s very season where they very much have to tell their drivers almost every single race. Hey now, hey now, hey now, hey no, like yeah, the word Leo doesn’t go down well in Marinelo. But the point is though is that I can talk about all of the ramifications of the technical breach which I will do so later on in this video. But from the perspective of the current McLaren, it’s all about their image, their optics, how their current position within Formula 1 looks to outsiders outside of the McLaren fans fear about them being the ones to finally nurture two elite drivers toward a championship with absolutely no drama whatsoever. The one thing Red Bull never quite managed to do. But this time, the reaction is different. The vibe I’m getting isn’t really sympathy, but mockery, cheers instead of commiseration. I doubt that’s how Zack Brown wanted the team to be perceived, even if they had something like this before them. Now, for those of you concerned whether or not I’m going to be going into the whole favoritism argument, don’t be. This is just a straightup technical breach. McLaren done goofed. They had very little data to work with and they paid the price for it with this particular gamble. Something which the team alleges was a mistake and it happened to both drivers. and Andreas Cello responded in his own very well-detailed manner. So, I will share that with you for your consideration. A hint. During the race, both cars experienced unexpected high levels of porposing not seen in the practice sessions, which led to excessive contact with the ground. We are investigating the reasons for this behavior of the car, including the effect of accidental damage sustained by both cars, which we found after the race, and that led to an increase of movement of the floor. As the FIA noted, the breach was unintentional. There was no deliberate attempt to circumvent the regulations and mitigating circumstances also existed. As a team, we also apologize to our partners and fans whose support means so much. While this outcome is extremely disappointing, we remain fully focused on the last two races of the season. Well, I mean, they’ve really got to be focused here, chat, because this really could have lasting consequences going into the final two races of the season. And Red Bull, I think we’ll be seeing this all as delicious, delicious karma. And you can probably tell that maybe he’s realized the karma because Zach Brown’s been walking back all of those comments recently, especially the ones regarding Vstappen. But anyway, McLaren getting both cars thrown out of Vegas for plankware is one of those moments where the FIA reminds everyone that the rule book is a brick wall and not at all flexible. If you breach a rule like this, you’re done. But at the same time, the FI, remember, did not accuse McLaren of cheating, which I have seen is a thread that has been circulating around the internet, even in my own comment section. You might be getting your own clones of doubt out for this because you might be wondering is the FIA trying to manipulate the rules so that means the title decider is then taken to the Middle East just for the sake of their investors and whatnot. No, I really don’t think that at all. It’s all about self-preservation and trying to keep things simpler. We all complain about the stewards for being too convoluted with how they implement the rules. If they just said to McLaren, “Oh, you said it was an accident. Oh, well, okay. Well, maybe we’ll give you just a time penalty, you know, or maybe a grid drop for the next race, but you can keep those results. No, there can’t be any half measures here because then it would just send out a huge sway of politics, courtroom cases, debates, results being held in limbo for days. I don’t think anyone wants that. So, instead, the rules like this are made merciless by design for their own sake, for their own sanity. But for those of you who are new, welcome, by the way. Let’s start off with the basics as why this is a thing. Beneath every F1 car is a plank, a composite floor insert fitted with titanium skid blocks. When a car bottoms out, those parts scrape the track. It starts at 10 mm thick and since 1994 when the rule was put in place, only 1 millm of wear can be had. A safety measure born from Senna’s tragedy. McLaren’s cars, according to the documents, were exceeding that limit by just.1 to.3 mm. Barely over, but over nonetheless. It’s the same principle that led to Hamilton andlair being disqualified. McLaren arguing, “Well, we didn’t breach the rules as badly as Ferrari did. So, can you please show us some mercy here?” Because we really don’t want Max Vappen breathing down our necks, especially with Lando being so close to maybe clinching his first world title. But again, the rule book is a brick wall. It’s not a sponge. You can’t just squeeze it out. But then you might be wondering, why would have McLaren played with fire like this? Well, I mean, when you look back to what happened during practice, the answer is relatively straightforward. And it probably compromised many other teams as well, but McLaren the most. Margins are incredibly fine. Every millimeter you run the floor closer to the track at the moment gives you more downforce from ground effect. And Vegas, it’s a long, straight, low drag circuit where top speeds get really, really high. Teams live on the edge here, especially with McLaren because they don’t really get on with this track at all because this track is one of the lowest grip circuits on the calendar and one of the coolest. You need as much downforce as you can get. ESPN’s breakdown makes this pretty explicit. Teams use practice running to find that sweet spot, but the teams didn’t get that this time. Not really. FP1 was okay, relatively speaking. FP2 was then compromised by that manhole cover coming off and then the CLA’s gearbox going kaput. This all meaning that long run data could not be generated. So therefore any red flags that may have come about in practice were not brought up by the McLaren pit wall. Then FP3 was compromised by rain and then that’s your answer. So in the light of all this in hoping for a good result to try and correct the mistakes of the last couple of years, McLaren went aggressive. Clearly too aggressive. They had looked really strong all weekend, especially Norris. This was looking likely to be him winning yet another Grand Prix or at least being on the podium. I think McLaren would have taken that. But now we know what we know. This probably explains why they were running the car dangerously low. That’s why they were that good. Other teams may have been a little bit more cautious regarding the plank wear. McLaren went into this blind and was like, please. And maybe that confidence that it might have worked out that their data was sound despite them having relatively little data, less so than usual, it then became a massive overreach. I’m not saying it was cheating, but more like the gamble did not show its ugly side until the end of the race. It didn’t show it over the course of qualifying. And mid-race radio made it very obvious that something was wrong and the amount of time Lando lost toward the end of the race when he was told to manage it toward the end. Many taking that as basic fuel saving. In reality, McLaren had to employ what Ferrari had to employ so many times this year, lifting and coasting. And it does make me think that maybe the previous instruction in going after Max might have actually led to them suddenly telling Lando, “Dude, dude, stop. Slow down.” So, uh, yeah, that that takes not aged well, especially with GP and Max laughing about it on the radio saying, “Hey, Max, get a load of this.” Lando was told to come and get you. So, their fault is basically a fundamental one. Their sensors probably can tell that the plank is wearing, which is why they told Lando to back off a little bit, but it probably couldn’t give them exact figures as to how much wear had actually been brought upon it. So, they had to kind of guess that they saw the numbers going down roughly, but what they did simply was not enough. Or maybe they should have just been more cautious throughout the race. And where Stella’s explanation is psychically self- serving is in the emphasis on accidental damage and unexpected porposing. If only one car had been thrown out, you would more likely believe that yeah, it probably was down to damage that the car got. But both cars being rendered illegal? Nah. McLaren Dung goofed at a crucial time in the championship for the sake of maybe looking good at a track they previously had not looked good at. A risk too far. The FIA did accept their words, but they had to remind McLaren that their previous examples of all of these breaches of technical regulations meant that they really couldn’t do anything else because safety matters around the FIA these days in the wake of Joe Bower and the legendary Sid Watkins. There’s zero tolerance here. You cannot have any half measures because then it may mean teams might decide to take a risk in saying, “Oh, well, we can just claim that, oh, oh, sorry about that. Yeah, oh, we didn’t mean to.” And then it might become trivialized. We don’t want any of that. We don’t want what happened to Senna happen to anyone else ever again if the car bottoms out for the sake of a team getting one or two ten extra in qualifying or in a race for example. We don’t want that kind of fire to be played with. My take in all of this is that Stellar is being truthful that they really didn’t mean to. But he’s also trying to mask the fact that this was just an absolute freak occurrence rather than realizing that yeah, we messed up really badly and both drivers paid the price for it. And uh this was all summed up for me in a glorious comment from Rahul. McLaren’s points in Vegas well stayed in Vegas. I’d say based on the amount of likes it got, that’s the perfect summary. And then you might wonder if this links all to the Interlago skid block controversy. Reports of teams maybe heating the titanium skid so they’d expand during the running, take the wear instead of the plank itself, and then cool back to legal size by the time it got back to Park Furme. Clever, but I think you can imagine that’s against the spirit of the rules. Joe Bower, the lead FIA guy, then rumbled this and basically laid the hammer down. That’s why there’s an investigation. And surely next year, it’s going to be explicitly banned in the regulations. There will speed specific language, meaning you cannot do this anymore. And if you do, that is going to be a automatic disqualification in and of itself. Again, this is related to safety, and the FIA does not play nicely with any breaches of safety. Then you might be wondering, well, of course, McLaren was one of those teams. Well, I I really don’t know that. Naturally, the FIA wouldn’t be that specific. They said several teams were being investigated on this particular technical innovation, but McLaren were maybe not listed as one of them, and the FIA doesn’t really need to, nor should they. This is just yet another game of cat and mouse between designers and the regulators. So, yeah, the FIA is going to be paying more attention to this particular area of the car. And in the final races of this current set of regulations and convergence being a thing where teams can be just a few ten between each other and yet still come out in Q1, you got to find every trick you can get. So teams will surely come up with clever tricks like this and then suddenly not having anymore. That can change maybe how teams operate. You can’t use it anymore. So the targets may be completely mismatched and you end up being too aggressive. But hey, I guess there’s more titanium around for Kimmy Anteneelli to use because that’s one of the weirdest things I’ve ever heard in Formula 1. the whole titanium oxide thing and it being attributed to when Kimmy is good and when he is not if it’s banned in a particular country. There are charts related to whether or not it’s available and in relation to Kimmy’s performance. I don’t get it. Can someone please explain it to me why that meme or that trope became a thing? I I just don’t get it. But I still don’t think McLaren was one of those teams. I simply think it was just operator error in that we misjudged the amount of wear we were expecting to have and it cost us badly. It was just a case of how low can you go? How low can you go? And uh yeah, in this game of limbo, McLaren went too low. There is a plausible indirect link though in the sense that any crackdown on underside loopholes forces teams to run closer to the raw limits of the plank. But right now, there is no evidence pinning McLaren to this specifically. So for those wielding their own spanners of speculation here, just just put it down for now. There is no reason to think that McLaren was cheating in any way, shape, or form. This was just simply a goof. one that has harmed both their drivers at a time when they really did not need this to happen. Although, some of you might get it out again in relation to maybe it harming one driver more than the other one. But again, I’m just going to put that down because I’ve been burned before. But you can maybe see why they were hungry for more and to try and redress the balance around Vegas because they’ve been lousy around here. But then this year, suddenly Norris stuck it on pole in tricky conditions. The title was in their sights, maybe. So this to me was McLaren getting a little too greedy. And they also maybe trusted their models too much. And that’s the thing about McLaren right now. Their greatest strength, their simulator accuracy, just exposed their biggest weakness, that they maybe have become too confident in the numbers, especially when the numbers become limited. That the computer is absolute. That whatever they have in their arsenal should be trusted to the hilt. It’s going against the complete opposite of what Red Bull’s doing right now. That their simulator tools are absolutely rubbish. and instead they’ve been relying on what the drivers experience in their bums and that actually translating into a massive uptick in performance for the stappen especially less so about Yuki Senota but that’s a story for another video. Leave a like maybe if you want to see that. But what do both drivers think about this particular turning of events? Well, fortunately we’ve got a case of that in an official team statement. Both sound annoyed but controlled. That sounds about right given how McLaren is all about optics. Norris calling it a frustrating end and talking about managing toward the end of the race and saying straight out that we clearly didn’t get that balance right today. Pastry called it disappointing, stressing how tight the field is and how they are always looking at where we can gain performance, but didn’t get it right this time. Psychologically though, Norris’s frustrations surely run deeper than Oscars. The team failed him in a way that he couldn’t control. His trust in the preparation took a hit right when he needed it most. As for Pastry, though he was disappointed, he does benefit slightly. Losing People actually helped him in that his gap to Norris remained the same as it was after Brazil. No wonder that you’ve seen all of those pictures of Pestri leaving the paddic smiling and people being left confused and like why is he happy after he got disqualified at what was a really transformative performance and actually he looked fairly solid instead of just languishing in fifth with no hopes of a podium. At least there was a chance of a podium. Whereas Norris bore a real emotional cost. It broke the flow. It broke the flow that he’s had the last few races, especially around Mexico and Brazil. He was on a good run and now it’s come to an end. And now it’s up to him to try and restore that good rhythm for the last two races in the sprint. And for Maxappen, if we refer to all of the coinings and illusions to Las Vegas, he hit the absolute jackpot here. That is completely obvious. He won the race by 20 seconds, which was another dominant win to add to his rule book, as well as dictating the pace from the start. And now the gap to Norris is the smallest it’s been since the start of the season. Before the disqualification, it was going to be down in the low 40s. Mathematically still possible, but his championship hopes were basically dead. Afterwards, he’s now within a DNF of Norris, and he’s now tied with Pastri in second place, although it’s technically third due to countback and stuff. I’ve seen many accounts saying that, “Oh, he’s ahead of Pastri.” No, he’s not. He’s still tied. Although, technically, actually, Pastry is still ahead thanks to him winning more races than Max. But that could change again if Max keeps on winning. And given there are 58 points still available over the Qatar sprint and main race in Abu Dhabi, that turns him from an outside chance into a very real threat again. He’s been in this situation before, whereas Lando and Oscar have not. Thusly, it’s important to look at the Vegas start. It just about summed up where two of the challenges stand right now. Norris tried to be as hard-nosed as Max into turn one and it came off as desperate and ill-informed. He was trying too hard. He didn’t understand the nuances which has allowed Max to skirt the rules sometimes and come out the other side. Meanwhile, the article himself, this being Max, is able to raise the stakes and it actually performs better when things get really, really tense. He has real experience whereas again Norris is still finding his feet there and Pastri is a complete and utter greenhorn. I don’t know how Max will actually take it out in Qatar and Abu Dhabi, whether or not he’ll still remain cautious and hope for McLaren to make a mistake. Or maybe he might just go absolutely all out because there is simply nothing left to lose. But there is still a realistic chance of a fifth world title, whereas just 48 hours ago, heck, even the few minutes after the end of Las Vegas, it was all but done. And even if he doesn’t end up winning the championship, he can still be proud at how it actually turned out. Considering the way it started and it being so absolutely dreadful and no hope whatsoever, coming away with half a dozen wins at the very least, that’s not too bad. He can then have a lovely winter break with his budding family and of course the racing rig. Back to him being the equivalent of what Leo is to Charl. And crucially here, he is not being seen as the villain of some kind of injustice. That he is not the bad guy here. McLaren the team are being seen as the bad guys and them falling at the almost penultimate lice. People are mostly cheering for that. As a McLaren fan, I am just left, oh my god. Oh, oh, oh. Because remember, Pastry was still affected by this too. And he is my boy. And I still feel it’s really unfortunate that Norris got mobbled by this too because he was on such a roll and now that role has been stopped all for the sake of his own team dropping the bag. So what does McLaren have to do to stop this from happening again? Well, you might be thinking, well, Qatar is not going to be so bad. Well, about that. There are so many things going into Lassel, which is making me think it’s not going to be as easy as some people might expect, and we are going into a sprint weekend. The simple stuff will be boring, but important. They’ll raise the car, especially at the rear where the wear was measured. They’ll build more conservative safety margins, and they’ll be thinking really hard regarding setup, around guitar, where they’ll only have one practice session to get it right. And history has shown us that even when you can tweak between the sprint and qualifying, it’s not a guarantee in unlocking performance there either. As Max showed us in Brazil, you can get it disastrously wrong. And in Vegas, it showed us that McLaren basically got cocky when they had a lack of data. They cannot be as cocky again. They have to have learned from this. And it really really matters considering the track we are going to where it’s a really high energy race and the tires are going to be absolutely shredded to bits. So much so in fact that the FIM PL have mandated a 25lap maximum stint for all compounds which in of itself is going to impact McLaren because their legendary tire advantage in them soothing them whereas other teams are a little bit more harsh on them is now effectively rendered moot because this guarantees a two-stop race and all of the other teams will be really taking this into account here. So that the reduced practice time and the fact that so much energy and the high-speed nature of the circuit means you have to get things absolutely right or one trip on the curb too many can wear out the plank more than expected. You really have to get it right here. So Norris, Pastri, McLaren, they are going to be on tent hooks right now, especially since they don’t have two weeks to go back and read the data. We are going straight to Qar people. So, if you’re Norris, you probably want to air on the side of caution this time out and take the hit this coming weekend. He can afford to do so at least a little bit, not go mad chasing a win when just being on the podium in both races will be good enough to at least maintain a double figure advantage going into Abu Dhabi. The constructor’s title that’s already been wrapped up, so McLaren have to focus on the driver’s championship, be it on Oscar’s side or Lando’s. If we do get more instances of operational pitfalls and Norris and Pestri being noble themselves, then it will just add to the spanners of speculations being ried on regards to McLaren caring more about their own glory rather than their drivers glory. So seriously, their risk calculus needs to change. Before Vegas, their setup felt relatively justified because they wanted to try and redress the balance of previous ventures to Las Vegas. Not to mention, they still have one of the best cars on the grid, and they still had a massive advantage in the driver’s championship. It was either going to be the Australian or the Brit. After Vegas, they’ve now seen for the first time in their history that 1 mm plus can easily wreck an entire weekend, like how it was the first time in their own history, Ferraris, that they experienced the same thing. It’s not a good look. So, expect the team to be really, really cautious and not be chasing glory. They are going to just try and get on the podium and that will be that. I really don’t expect them to be going absolutely hell for other leather here because as we’ve witnessed, porpasing may not be as bad as it was back in 2022, but it hasn’t gone away entirely. It’s is still there. It is still a phenomena that occurs. It’s just that teams have gotten a better handle on it. But clearly McLaren dropped the bag here. It can still come back to bite you. And the fallout after that bite is huge. Norris’s comfortable title cushion has now turned into a proper three-way scrap where mathematically speaking it can easily go down in certain scenarios where all three Oscar, Lando, and Max being on equal points. That is one scenario. But even in reality, Lando lost all of his points while Oscar’s deficit got reigned back in by six points because of it. Oscar benefited whereas Lando did not benefit at all. It means that it’s imperative for Lando to wrap things up definitely in Qatar to throw off any allegations or illusions of favoritism and that he himself is a driver that can do the deed with a race despair without any help from his team. Now though, that assurance is not a guarantee. In order to try and correct all of this, the team’s mistake, he has to win the sprint, the race in Qatar, and the race in Abu Dhabi. He has to absolutely blaze it. But he can’t do that because then the team want to be careful. He will want to be careful. He’ll just want to nurse the car through the next couple of races and then just end the season and then regroup. And this will all mean that the momentum will be going back towards Max Vstappen again after it really took a hit after Brazil and Mexico despite the fact that Brazil was an absolute chore to force for the Dutchman. Red Bull have nothing to lose right now. They’ve just got to give it a go. Even though Christian her isn’t around anymore and McLaren, they now have to thread the needle even more finally than they had been before. Yeah, they’ll have to be chasing performance. They can’t be too cautious, but they have to be more cautious than they were just a week ago when they were planning all of the strategies before they got to the track. Anything could happen. And the one thing they’ll want to make happen is that they don’t see their name attached to any technical disqualifications regarding Skidware ever again. And I can easily imagine that, hey, even if Max doesn’t ultimately convert this and get his fifth world title, his fans will be even prouder than they were just a few days ago regarding him. And you yourself can check out these videos that came out before Vegas. And quite a few of these are definite bangers, especially this one. I’ll see you over there after I just have a change of clothes and a glass of water.