McLaren Racing enters the Singapore Grand Prix as
Formula One's newest sensation, the vibrant papaya-clad team that could finally challenge Red Bull and Max Verstappen's dominance.
Since Verstappen clinched his first title in 2021, Red Bull and the Dutch driver have held an iron grip on both the drivers' championship and the lucrative constructors' title.
Verstappen has secured three consecutive championships and currently leads the driver standings, while Red Bull boasts back-to-back constructors' titles.
However, as they head into the weekend, they find themselves no longer at the top of the standings.
That honor now belongs to McLaren, following Oscar Piastri's impressive victory last Sunday.
Coupled with Lando Norris' fourth-place finish, McLaren is now the constructors' leader for the first time since 2014. McLaren last won the constructors’ championship in 1998.
McLaren starts the weekend in Singapore with a 20-point lead over Red Bull, which has led the carmaker competition since 2022. The race is Sunday.
"I think we’ve got as good a shot as anyone," Zak Brown, the chief executive of McLaren, boldly declared last Sunday at IndyCar's season-ending race.
He watched Piastri win and McLaren move to the top from Nashville, Tennessee.
Even with the big-talking American half a world away, McLaren still managed to make tongues wag at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
McLaren arrived in Baku and admitted it would prioritize Norris and the drivers' championship over Piastri for the final eight races of the season. Norris trails Verstappen by 59 points in the standings ahead of Singapore, and Piastri accepted the team order in stride by winning the race.
"Obviously no racing driver wants to compromise their own race, so of course he doesn’t love it, but he’s a great team player, totally understands, and also knows the role could be reversed in the future," Brown said of Piastri being given the wingman role for the remainder of the season.
"Also, it’s not totally out of the question; it can be reversed later this year. If Lando goes out and has a couple of DNFs and Oscar goes out and wins a couple of races – all of a sudden," Brown shrugged. "So I think (Piastri) recognizes that what goes around comes around, and it can very much come around his way."
Norris and Piastri have combined to win two of the last three F1 races for McLaren, while Verstappen hasn't won since the Spanish Grand Prix on June 23.
While the team has said it wants Norris to dethrone Verstappen, Brown knows it is a long shot unless Norris can consistently chip away at Verstappen's lead every race.
In Baku last Sunday, Verstappen finished one spot behind Norris in fifth, and Norris only gained three points on the champion.
"Lando made some points, but he needs to double the amount of points he got (in Baku) every race to catch him," Brown said. "I think that’s a tall order, but we’re going to try."
Make no mistake, though, McLaren is hyper-focused on the constructors' title, which pays big money. The payout to the winning team is set by variables each year but is typically worth at least $140 million in prize money.
Red Bull's falloff has been so dramatic that Brown doesn't even consider the team to be the top rival for best constructor this year.
"I think Ferrari has shown how quick they are, so I actually think Ferrari might even be a bigger threat than Red Bull as we sit here right now because I think Ferrari will be really strong in Singapore," Brown said.
Red Bull, between Verstappen and Sergio Perez, won 38 races over 2022 and 2023. Verstappen, through 17 races this season, has seven wins; Perez is winless.
Brown praised McLaren's rise under team principal Andrea Stella, who was hailed as "a wonderful team boss" by Brown.
"Andrea and the leadership team have been able to unlock the potential and the people," Brown said of his young team's turnaround. McLaren is one of racing's most popular brands globally, and Brown has been clawing the team back toward the top tier of F1 after a long drought.
It's been a sometimes bumpy climb since Brown was named CEO of McLaren in 2018. He is, after all, the American who loves to stir the pot as much as he loves talking about his own racing career. Some of Brown's moves have been chaotic, particularly in 2022, when he successfully snatched Piastri and thought he had IndyCar champion Alex Palou locked down, too.
Palou – after a mediator said he couldn't join McLaren until 2024 – changed his mind last year and decided to remain with Chip Ganassi Racing in IndyCar. He didn't want to move to McLaren's less competitive IndyCar team, hoping either Norris or Piastri's seat would open in F1.
Palou won his third IndyCar title in Nashville and is headed to another mediator late this year in McLaren's $30 million breach of contract suit against the Spaniard.
The driver signing carousel became comical even among die-hard McLaren fans, and that was before this year went wild before the season even started. David Malukas, the guy Brown hired last minute to take Palou's saved seat, broke his wrist a month before the IndyCar opener in a cycling crash, and the team used three different drivers in that car this year.
Malukas was not one of them, as McLaren had a contractual clause to fire him once he missed four consecutive races. The saga of that seat hurt the team, which didn't give Pato O'Ward a consistent car to fight for the championship. Brown has again overhauled the driver lineup ahead of 2025, and O'Ward will have two new teammates next year.
It's taken a long time to get McLaren back in F1, and Brown is pleased with the pace because where the team stands heading into Singapore is a far cry from its disastrous and uncompetitive 2023 season.
Brown wants the IndyCar team at the top now, too.
"I want to get the IndyCar team where the Formula One team is," Brown said. "I think we’re still a young team. We’re continuing to hire, continuing to make changes in the offseason. I kind of feel like the IndyCar team is on the same trajectory as the Formula One team, but the Formula One team is just ahead at the moment."