McLaren, who won three of the first four races of the season, will aim for a new success this Sunday on the ultra-fast urban circuit of Jeddah, where Red Bull will try to bounce back after a calamitous performance in Bahrain last weekend.
Papaya -colored single -seaters, dominating since last summer, seem to be well left to monopolize the podium this year and in particular the highest steps.
In the manufacturers’ classification, the British team has already widened a substantial gap since it has 58 points ahead of Mercedes and 80 on Red Bull, while Ferrari already points to 94 lengths.
But if the vice-champion of the British world Lando Norris is still at the top of the pilot ranking, he is now followed by his teammate Oscar Piastri (77 points against 74).
Winner without trembling in Bahrain on Sunday, the Australian, who already has two victories and two pole positions in 2025, is now in the main opponent of Norris for the world crown.
The McLaren stable, not always very wise in terms of strategy in recent months, will now have to intelligently manage this growing internal competition while none of the two pilots is officially number one.
“With confidence”
“Thanks to the very good work of the team to make a quick car, we approach this race in confidence and we hope to get a new good result,” said the director of the team Andrea Stella.
On the spectacular Saudi route placed by the Red Sea, Norris and Piastri will therefore still be a favorite. But like the other pilots, they will be permanently on the wire because the Jeddah circuit does not tolerate any error.
With no less than three DRS zones and many possibilities for exceeding, the fastest urban circuit of the season promises a beautiful spectacle between the McLaren and the pack of pursuers, Mercedes in mind.
The German stable has made a superb start to the season, like its Italian recruit Andrea Kimi Antonelli, which impresses for its beginnings in F1 alongside the British leader George Russell, even faster since he came out of the shadow of his former teammate and compatriot Lewis Hamilton.
Red Bull expected at the turn
Red Bull will however be expected at the turn after the Bahrain fiasco. A week after its success in Japan, the quadruple Dutch reigning world champion Max Verstappen had indeed been in difficulty throughout the weekend on the small island of the Gulf.
If he managed to finish sixth in the Grand Prix after riding in the last position, it was largely thanks to the intervention of the security car which allowed him to return to his opponents in front of him during a platoon restart.
The Austrian stable had also summoned a crisis meeting in the wake of the race between its main leaders, the director of the stable Christian Horner, the influential advisor Helmut Marko, the technical director Pierre Waché and the chief engineer Paul Monaghan.
“This race has revealed very clear problems that we have to solve very quickly,” said Horner.
“You can hide the problem with the settings a bit and we were able to achieve it in Suzuka (Victoire de Verstappen, editor’s note). We understand where the problems are, it is finding solutions that takes a little more time, ”he added.
