McLaren won't prioritise a driver in F1 title fight despite "too close" Max Verstappen

Zak Brown denied claims that the team will favour one driver over the other in the title fight with Verstappen breathing down their necks as F1's most in-form driver

McLaren boss Zak Brown has rejected claims his team will favour either one of Oscar Piastri or Lando Norris in the 2025 Formula 1 title fight - claiming Max Verstappen is “too close for comfort”.

The British outfit has dominated the season and it clinched the constructors’ crown with six rounds remaining by finishing third and fourth last time out at the Singapore Grand Prix.

But the drivers’ fight made the headlines at Marina Bay, as Norris beat Piastri to third by overtaking him down the inside of Turn 3 and controversially collided into him in the process.

It annoyed Piastri, who asked the team to revert the positions, yet McLaren rejected it despite the so-called ‘papaya rules’ that state the two mustn’t crash into one another.

McLaren claimed it was a consequence of Norris trying to avoid the back of Verstappen’s Red Bull and it led to Mario Andretti, for example, saying the team is favouring the Briton and not Piastri.

That is despite Piastri leading the championship by 22 points over Norris, while a resurgent Verstappen is third with a 63-point gap to the top after two wins in the last three races.

Lando Norris, McLaren, Oscar Piastri, McLaren, Zak Brown, McLaren

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Formula 1 via Getty Images

Brown has denied McLaren is favouring a driver because it isn’t in the team’s nature. Last year is an example of that, as McLaren only prioritised Norris in his fight against Verstappen once F1 reached Baku for round 17, which was eventually won by Piastri.

So Brown is keen to keep things as they are, particularly as he reckons Verstappen is still in the fight, citing Norris’ sudden Dutch Grand Prix retirement after an oil pipe leak.

“We're one race at a time,” said Brown in Austin at this weekend’s United States Grand Prix. “I've been asked a lot to kind of predict the future.

“Where we're sitting right now is, Max is too close for comfort. Lando is one win, Oscar one DNF away. We saw what happened in Holland, how quickly things can change, so we're just focused on this weekend, which is trying to get our drivers to finish first and second in the race.

“We'll just continue to evaluate on a race-by-race basis if we get to a situation. That's what we did last year in Baku to start helping Lando and then what ends up happening is Oscar goes and wins the race.

“So this is a pretty unpredictable sport, but where we're sitting here right now, we're going to give both drivers equal opportunity to try and win the drivers' championship.”

Lando Norris, McLaren, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing

Photo by: Zak Mauger / LAT Images via Getty Images

Red Bull boss Laurent Mekies was less eager to talk about Verstappen’s chances of a fifth consecutive title though, despite the Dutchman himself joking “it’s 50-50”.

When asked about his chances, Mekies replied: “I won't put a number on it. But I don't think it changed anything to the way we are going racing.

“We love pure racing. We go to a race weekend like here in Austin and there is probably four teams that can win the race on Sunday.

“It's going to be down to the last half a tenth, tenth between making pole or being third row and only scoring very little points. So we are focused on that and the percentage really doesn't change much for us.”

Verstappen will start on pole for Saturday's sprint race at Circuit of the Americas ahead of Norris and Piastri in second and third respectively.