Autobayng News Team
After last year’s constructors’ championship fight went down to the final round, the 2025 contest has been a disappointment.
The season was only a few races old when people stopped asking whether McLaren would repeat their 2024 triumph and started wondering just how early they might take the title.
As long ago as May, McLaren looked set to clinch the crown with seven rounds to go. That would be the earliest championship win for any team since McLaren’s famously dominant 1988 performance, when Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost won all bar one of the races in their all-conquering MP4/4s.
Incredibly, that was almost starting to look conservative at the summer break. McLaren’s scoring rate has actually dipped in the two events since then, due to Lando Norris’s late retirement in the Dutch Grand Prix and Max Verstappen’s crushing win at Monza.
Nonetheless they are poised to put a lock on their second championship in as many years at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix next weekend. Their rivals can stop them, or at least delay the inevitable, but the numbers point to a Baku coronation for McLaren.
With eight rounds remaining, three of which are sprint events, the maximum score available for any team is 389 points. McLaren’s lead over closest rivals Ferrari stands at 337 points, with Mercedes 357 behind and Red Bull 378 adrift. Simply put, if it was possible for each team to score its average points haul for 2025 in Baku, McLaren would clinch the title.
Ferrari have the best chance to delay McLaren’s coronation. If they win this weekend, McLaren won’t be able to take the title until Singapore. But Ferrari haven’t won a single race this year.
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Mercedes could throw a spanner in the works, too. If they manage to score a one-two, McLaren won’t win the title at Baku either.
But with both McLaren drivers regularly finishing in the podium places, there is a strong likelihood the team will win the world championship next weekend, for the 10th time in their history. Should McLaren’s closest rivals fail to score, they would only need nine points to clinch the title, for which a single car finishing fifth would more than suffice.
Winning the title with seven out of 24 rounds remaining would rank among the most dominant performances by a constructor ever seen in F1. It would be the earliest constructors’ championship victory for any team since McLaren won the 1988 world title at the Belgian Grand Prix.
*If McLaren win the championship in Baku
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That was the 11th round out of 16 that year. At a time when points were only awarded to the top six (9-6-4-3-2-1), McLaren left Spa-Francorchamps with 147 points, 103 more than their closest rival. Then as now, it was Ferrari.
But that season is a reminder that nothing can be taken for granted in F1. McLaren’s dominant run of victories ended at the very next race where both drivers retired and Ferrari swept to a one-two.
The constructors’ championship is vitally important as it determines how much prize money each team receives and how much aerodynamic development time they are permitted. However to many it doesn’t carry the same prestige or significance as the drivers’ title.
That will almost certainly be won by one of McLaren’s drivers. But the team has made it clear it won’t change how it governs the battle between them once their constructors’ championship victory is assured.
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2025 Italian Grand Prix
- McLaren can clinch F1’s earliest title win since 1988 with as little as fifth place
- How did Verstappen know about Norris’ slow stop in Italy? Red Bull told him
- Stats: Red Bull now five wins away from matching Mercedes’ victory total
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- “We’re not idiots”: Norris denies McLaren’s team orders set “stupid” precedent
