Andrea Stella: McLaren's full focus is stopping Max Verstappen in F1 title fight

The reigning, four-time world champion has suddenly put himself in a fight against the McLaren pair for the 2025 F1 world drivers' championship title

McLaren ditched its ‘repercussion’ system to put full focus on stopping Max Verstappen in his Formula 1 title fight against Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris, revealed team boss Andrea Stella.

Verstappen has put himself in contention for the 2025 crown against the previously dominant McLaren duo by winning three of the past four grands prix, plus last week’s Austin sprint.

Piastri is still on top with five rounds remaining, 14 points ahead of Norris and 40 ahead of Verstappen, though that advantage to the reigning world champion stood at 104 just five rounds ago.

Verstappen’s resurgence is down to both upgrades on the RB21, plus Piastri and Norris fighting each other compared to the Dutchman being Red Bull’s undisputed number one driver.

In Singapore, for example, Norris overtook Piastri but collided in the process. McLaren felt Norris could have avoided the touch, so applied “minor consequences” for Austin at the following round.

That was understood to be Piastri receiving priority order in qualifying. But, in the Austin sprint, Piastri’s attempted cutback on Norris eventually caused the pair to collide and then retire with the Australian taking some responsibility for it.

Lando Norris, McLaren, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing

Photo by: Clive Mason / Getty Images

So Piastri revealed ahead of this weekend’s Mexico Grand Prix that the ‘repercussions’ on Norris had been removed, with Stella adding that McLaren just needs to complete its double championship.

“As usual, we review things, team, drivers, in a very open way, in a very constructive way,” said Stella, whose squad sealed the constructors’ title in Singapore.

“We thought that the best approach moving forward was to start with a clean slate and focus in the only direction on which we want to focus - to make sure that the drivers' championship is papaya.

“All the rest is less important and there's somebody that is coming with great momentum. Our mission is to stop this momentum and bring back the momentum to the papaya side.”