14/07/2025 10:10
Charles Leclerc has conceded that he "wish he knew" what made
McLaren so dominant this year, in an F1 campaign which was
predicted to be one of the closest in the history of the series.
From the very beginning of the season, McLaren has boasted a clear
advantage over all its rivals, with the Woking-based outfit having
built a staggering 238-point lead after 12 rounds. In addition,
Oscar Piastri has an eight-point buffer over Lando Norris in the
drivers' title, whilst Max Verstappen in third is 69 points
adrift. Nine grands prix have already been won by McLaren this
year, with Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull having all failed to
consistently take the fight to the papaya squad. Bizarrely,
neither George Russell nor Leclerc know why their teams have fallen
so far adrift of McLaren. As a result, Russell is looking forward
to a fresh start in 2026 with the new power unit regulations. "If
we knew, we wouldn't have fallen back, to be honest," Russell told
media, including RacingNews365 . "We don't really know exactly why.
They seem very good on the tyres. "They seem very good in hot
races. Clearly, their updates are working as they expect. And I
think when you find yourself on the right tracks of this
development slope, the rewards are endless, and they've clearly
found that perfect path. "Like Charles was saying before, these
cars, these regs are not easy. I think we're all looking forward to
a change of regs. It's not going to be easy next year, but the cars
do seem a little bit more conventional. "But then obviously we're
going to have the challenges with the PU and the batteries, so
that's a secondary factor." McLaren dominance not down to 'one
thing' Of the top four teams, Ferrari is the only one without a
victory this year. The Maranello-based outfit has been the most
inconsistent of the big names, a complete contrast to McLaren.
Leclerc is certain that the step made by McLaren is not down to
just "one thing", but rather several details which has continued to
push it onwards. In Bahrain, Piastri delivered a pole position lap
which still leaves Leclerc speechless, due to the staggering
performance which was extracted from the MCL39. Following on from
Russell, Leclerc said: "I mean, I agree with everything that George
said. I wish I knew what made McLaren so fast this year. "For
sure, they've done a significant step forward, something that I
don't think many of us expected, exactly for the reasons you
mentioned because when you get to the last year of those
regulations, everything tends to converge a little bit. "But this
year they just did a big step forward. I doubt that it's coming
from one thing. It never comes from only one thing. I think it's
just many different things that they are doing better than others,
which makes a big difference at the end. "But it is true that one
of the characteristics that significantly improved since last year
is hot weather. I think I remember there was an FP3 in Bahrain this
year where I'm still wondering how did Oscar do that lap time in
that heat, which was very impressive. "There are these kinds of
laps that you look and you say, you're just a bit lost for words
and you don't really understand where the performance comes from.
So they found something, especially whenever it's warm and on
tyres, that we're still trying to figure out."
