McLaren told to ‘put fire out immediately’ in F1 2025 ‘fireworks’ prediction

Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri swapped positions out of the last corner of the Sprint race in Qatar.
McLaren may have to worry more about between its driver pairing in the F1 2025 season, believes Gary Anderson.
McLaren won its first Constructors’ Championship since 1998 last season, with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri outscoring Ferrari’s pairing to bring the Woking-based squad back to the very front of Formula 1.
Gary Anderson predicts ‘fireworks’ between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri
Speaking in his column for the?The Race, former F1 car designer Gary Anderson reviewed where he believes the World Champions will need to be wary in the F1 2025 season.
A potential stumbling block, he believes, is if McLaren allows possible tensions between their drivers to escalate on track.
In 2024, Norris and Piastri were reasonably harmonious but, until the introduction of ‘Papaya Rules’, Piastri showed little sign of playing a supportive role for Norris in the championship. This led to him finishing ahead on track in Hungary and Italy – races in which Norris finished a position behind the Australian at a time when he was trying to close down Max Verstappen’s points lead.
While Piastri did settle into a supportive role in the final races, moving aside to let Norris through in the Brazilian Sprint race, his willingness to go toe-to-toe with Norris on occasion was only tempered by the fact he had started the season more slowly than Norris – leading to a points deficit that set Norris up as the lead McLaren.
For F1 2025, this deficit is reset and, with Piastri entering his third season in F1, he’ll be eager to prove he is capable of the same highs as Norris.
With no team orders in place, Anderson believes McLaren will need to keep a close eye on the dynamic between their two drivers in order to make sure tensions don’t escalate.
“From my point of view, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri are the most evenly matched pairing on the grid,” Anderson wrote.
“Both are fast and still learning, but it will depend on how the start of the season unfolds as to how the relationship builds.
“However, I’m sure there will be some mild fireworks at some point during the season and McLaren needs to be there to put out the fire immediately.”
Having attempted to run its 2024 season by way of letting the drivers race each other until long into the season, Anderson suspects a different plan will be in place this season.
“Managing the drivers from day one will be important,” he said.
“At times in 2024, it made a bit of a mess of that and left too many decisions up to the drivers. It will have learned from it and I would suggest McLaren needs to have a plan in place before race one.”
An example of tension in F1 2024 was in the Hungarian Grand Prix when, due to McLaren’s pit decisions, Norris ended up ahead of Piastri on-track for the final stint after the Australian had had a convincing lead. Norris initially appeared reluctant to move over for Piastri, with his race engineer Will Joseph pleading with him over team radio to keep the team in mind as “he’d need it” for his championship bid.
Norris eventually yielded the place to Piastri and explained afterward that it had always been his intention to do so.
The season ended on a positive note, with Norris yielding position to Piastri in the Sprint race in Qatar, returning the favour Piastri had done for him in Brazil.
More on McLaren in Formula 1
? Who is Andrea Stella? From Michael Schumacher’s engineer to McLaren team principal
? Zak Brown car collection: The legendary machines owned by the McLaren boss
Gary Anderson on where McLaren still needs improvement
McLaren enter F1 2025 – a season with stable regulations from last season – as the favourites for another title, such was their level of speed and versatility last season.
Anderson predicted the Woking-based squad will follow up on their return to the top with another title, and urged the team not to get complacent as he pointed to the example of Red Bull.
Having won the 2022 and ’23 titles, Red Bull fell off the boil in ’24 as the development path of the RB20 proved the wrong direction and introduced instability by way of narrowing the performance window as well as making the car less pliable.
“If McLaren keeps doing what it did in the latter part of 2024, which was built on a sound understanding of what these ground effect cars need to go quickly, then it will be the favourite for this year’s title,” Anderson said.
“Improving in slow corners is a target, but you have to be careful that it doesn’t come at the expense of high-speed stability.
“I don’t think it will rest on its laurels. It did that when it ran the Honda power unit and it really set McLaren back for quite a few years, and you are only as good as your next result so keeping your head down is critical.
“As team boss Andrea Stella has already pointed out, McLaren can’t get complacent now it’s at the top in F1. The top four are so tight that even a small slip-up can send you from first to fourth in the pecking order.
“Red Bull’s sudden decline in 2024 is a reminder that even a team with a healthy buffer can soon be in big trouble if the necessary development strides aren’t taken.”
Read Next: Esteban Ocon splashes cash on dream Ferrari purchase after Haas move