The new season is upon us; the intrigue of the reshuffled driver line-ups about to play out, Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari, some exciting new rookie talent, etc. But at the business end of the opening two races in Australia and China was the unchanged McLaren line-up, with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri taking a win apiece in Melbourne and Shanghai respectively.

Conforming to the pattern of pre-season testing, these races suggested McLaren had increased its advantage over the competition since the end of 2024. Early days yet, but the prospect of an intra-team fight for the world championship beckons.

The MCL39 and its tighter chassis and clever front suspension helping to boost airflow to the tunnel inlets rode like a limo around Albert Park compared to the opposition. The Red Bull and Mercedes showed comparable high-speed downforce through the super-fast Turn 9-10 sequence, but the greater energy being fed into their rear tyres meant the McLarens had around a 0.3sec advantage in the tight twists and turns of the final sector. Norris shaded Piastri by just under 0.1sec to take pole, quicker in the tighter turns, Piastri faster in the fast ones.

“Good drivers can deal with whatever car they get given”

Norris accepted that the car was a performance upgrade on what was last year’s fastest, but it comes with a price: “It’s difficult to execute those qualifying laps and to put things together perfectly because the car can be tricky. Especially in the winds.

“I think it’s what happens when you’re getting to that boundary of another year of the same regulations. You’re trying to improve everything and you’ve got to weigh up, do you want a bit more load? Do you want to make it maybe a bit more driveable?

“It’s a difficult balance to get especially at this kind of point when you’re in a lot of competition and you’re trying to find everything possible. You can’t always have a perfect car and good drivers are ones who can drive a difficult car at times, and deal with whatever car they get given.

“Of course, you always prefer a quick car. It’s a price we pay for trying to push those boundaries, which is what we’re doing at McLaren.”

Piastri was more succinct: “It’s quick, but it bites at times.”

Sunday was wet enough that two of the support races were cancelled. But it was light drizzle for the start, with almost everyone on intermediate tyres. The rookies Isack Hadjar (Racing Bulls) and Jack Doohan (Alpine) plus the experienced Carlos Sainz (Williams) lost control of their cars and crashed before the race was even properly underway. Once it did get going Norris and Piastri were being closely tracked by Max Verstappen. But as the Red Bull’s rear tyres finally overheated after about 17 laps, those on the McLarens were just fine and their advantage ballooned dramatically as a result.

This phase of the race was all about Piastri applying the pressure to Norris. Piastri was in Norris’s DRS zone as they came to lap the Haas pair Esteban Ocon and Oliver Bearman. Piastri sensed opportunity. If he could somehow out-smart Norris here and put himself ahead, he’d get pitstop priority when the time came. And that time was fast approaching, but it was going to be a complicated call. More rain was on the way but it wasn’t clear if it would arrive soon enough to replace the worn inters with new ones or whether it would hold off long enough to need a set of slicks in between.

“The tyre-choice dilemma was answered by Alonso crashing”

The team, wishing to minimise jeopardy in this high-pressure moment, called Piastri off Norris until they had cleared the backmarkers, further instructing Piastri to hold station even after they’d gone by the two Haas cars. Shortly he ran through the edge of the Turn 6 gravel trap with his rear wheel, losing him around 1.5sec and the DRS advantage. By the time Piastri was instructed that he could race again, Norris had pulled out a crucial gap on him.

The tyre-choice dilemma was answered by Fernando Alonso crashing his Aston Martin at Turn 6 and bringing out the safety car. The rain wasn’t due to hit for a few laps yet, so everyone took the opportunity of the safety car to switch to slicks. Norris eased out a gap on Piastri at the restart but the latter was just beginning to reel him back in as they were the first to hit the heavy rain which had suddenly descended at Turn 12. Both McLarens had major moments, with Piastri’s spinning across the track onto the wet grass and getting stuck there for around a minute before he was able to reverse out. Norris had caught his car and immediately headed for the pits for a set of intermediates. He was followed in by Alex Albon’s Williams, which had been running with Tsunoda between the Ferraris.

In response, Red Bull kept Verstappen out for an extra two laps, see previous page. Ferrari kept Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton out an extra lap beyond even that, as did Racing Bulls with Tsunoda (who’d been between the Ferraris from the start). Leclerc spun and restarted, meaning that Hamilton assumed the lead for a lap as Verstappen finally pitted for inters. But that extra lap on slicks in rain which had now spread throughout the track was costly for the red cars (and Tsunoda). Leclerc (who’d been running fifth before the rain) rejoined ninth and immediately re-passed Hamilton in robust fashion.

This new inters-shod phase saw Norris pulling away from Verstappen, George Russell’s Mercedes and Albon. Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes), Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) and Nico Hülkenberg (Sauber) had benefited from pitting immediately and were running fifth, sixth and seventh respectively. Antonelli had started way down after damaging his floor in qualifying but had made good progress, lapping as fast as Russell in the wet phase.

Piastri was embarking on a recovery drive and catching the Ferraris and would go on to pass Hamilton for ninth around the outside of the very fast Turn 9 on the last lap. Antonelli had done the same to Albon for fourth.

“Oscar Piastri had quite a relaxed run to his third career victory”

Norris looked to have it all under control but then came yet another moment of jeopardy for him as Liam Lawson (Red Bull) and Gabriel Bortoleto (Sauber) each spun out (separately but within seconds of each other) and beached their cars, bringing out the safety car again. There were just six laps left as it pulled in – and this time Verstappen was tracking Norris’s every move. As Norris dipped a wheel in that Turn 6 gravel, so it brought the Red Bull into his DRS range and Verstappen even got partially alongside at one point, but ultimately didn’t have quite the straightline speed to pass. Like that, Norris hung on to lead the world championship for the first time.

McLaren eventually prevailed again in the Chinese Grand Prix a week later but there was a Rubik’s puzzle of set-up for everyone to work through as the resurfaced fast corner track threw up different challenges from one day to the next.

In the small window of flux, Hamilton created a little bit of history by qualifying his Ferrari on pole for the sprint race and winning it comfortably the next day. Front tyre graining was what everyone was grappling with on Saturday as the fast, long corners and new surface combined to rip the rubber to shreds. Hamilton’s Ferrari seemed less severely afflicted, something only exaggerated by the clear air his pole had bought him. Piastri finished runner-up to the Ferrari after catching and passing Verstappen. After a few set-up tweaks Piastri proceeded to set pole for the grand prix proper, though only narrowly from Russell, the Mercedes coming alive in the dying moments as George finally decoded the tyre preparation lap enigma. Norris, third-fastest, was not happy. His driving style is particularly punished when front graining is the limitation and he was studying Piastri’s telemetry overnight. The Ferraris had faded, their set-up changes in anticipation of looking after the front tyres in the race having hurt their balance. Hamilton and Leclerc lined up fifth and sixth, behind Verstappen.

Piastri was very muscular in fending off Russell’s challenge down to the first corner and this created the opportunity for Norris to go around the Merc’s outside, putting McLaren 1-2 within seconds of the start. In the sprint race Norris had finished a dispirited eighth, six places behind his team-mate. But now, as the McLarens eased away from Russell and the Ferraris, so he realised the graining was no longer a serious issue. The track had rubbered in enough to solve the problem. This was going to transform his prospects, he believed. He became even happier after the switch to the hard tyre at the pitstops. “Suddenly I had a front end. [The track] had come to me.” He had a plan to steal the win from under his team-mate’s nose as it was confirmed they wouldn’t need to stop again. He’d conserve the rubber until the last 12-15 laps then go on the attack. “I felt I had better pace than anyone.”

Hamilton found the changes he’d made to his car had messed up its balance and such was his struggle that he volunteered to surrender position to Leclerc who, despite damaging his front wing bouncing off Hamilton’s car in the opening few seconds, was faster. Once past, Leclerc proceeded to leave the other Ferrari well behind and to catch up with Russell. “It’s a shame,” said Leclerc over the radio, of both the front wing damage (estimated to be a loss of around 0.2sec per lap) and the delay in passing Hamilton, “because the pace is there.” He couldn’t find a way by Russell, mainly because, “It was like a dragster out of Turn 12. It has so much traction.” Eventually the damaged wing impacted upon the Ferrari’s front tyres and he fell back to be passed by Verstappen.

The McLaren battle never quite materialised. Around 10 laps from the end Norris felt his brake pedal travel getting longer. It got worse each lap. There was a leak in the system at the rear. Advised to reduce the peak pressure on the pedal, it was going almost to the floor by the end and Norris was lifting off at 300m for the Turn 14 hairpin rather than standing on the brakes at 100m. He just managed to keep Russell off his back before the flag. So Piastri had quite a relaxed run to his third career victory in the end. “This one has been the most satisfying,” he said, “not just as a race, but as a weekend for myself. The two wins I had previously were very different, and I think this one’s been the most complete.”

There are almost certainly going to be more to come. From the evidence of these opening two salvos, this could be an exclusively McLaren driver title fight.