Formula 1 Lenovo Japanese Grand Prix 2025Formula 1

[sillybilly]

Nah. Have you seen last season? He totally would have - he just couldn’t. Said as much in the post race interview.

I'd say there's a difference between an audacious move at a track where a pass was possible, compared to Suzuka that would be a very risky move.

I know McLaren have swapped and swapped back drivers before. 2 key differences here:

1. They knew Piastri didn’t have the pace to overtake Norris let alone Versappen.

Putting pressure can lead to mistakes, Lando lacked willingness or ability to put any pressure on Max, while Piastri seemed to have the pace and clearly had the willingness.

Sure a pass is 1% or less, Max making a mistake from pressure is probably 1%, but F1 is about narrow margins and sometimes 1% is the difference so I think putting the pressure on would have been worth it. Look at the latest race, it took until the first corner for Piastri to pressure Max into a mistake...

Lando was putting zero pressure and there was zero chance of Max making a mistake and zero chance of a win for McLaren.

2. (this is the big one) they weren’t in a title fight with both their drivers before.

And are they really now?
Lando has Saturday pace, but on race day he was holding up Piastri in Australia and in Japan, the other races not so much...