Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris are “mainly muddling through” to a 1-2 in this year’s Drivers’ Championship, but if Max Verstappen were behind the wheel of the MCL39, there’d be a “true champion”.
That’s according to Dutch racing driver Michael Bleekemolen.
Max Verstappen would be a ‘true champion’ in the McLaren
McLaren have emerged as the dominant force in the F1 2025 championship, with Piastri and Norris winning nine of 12 Grands Prix, including five 1-2 results.
Piastri sits P1 in the Drivers’ Championship on 234 points, eight ahead of his team-mate in an intra-team battle that looks set to go down to the wire.
But despite the results, the McLaren team-mates have not seen off the competition as they’ve taken points off one another. It means that Verstappen in third is only 61 points down.
Should Verstappen, or the drivers lined up behind on the log, launch an attack on the standings, it may force McLaren to question their driver policy after CEO Zak Brown declared to PlanetF1.com’s Mat Coch that he’d rather lose the title than compromise one of his drivers.
F1 2025: The season’s winners and losers
👉 The results of the F1 2025 championship
👉 The updated Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championship standings
“I’m comfortable with that because the other scenario is, how do you take a driver out of the championship that’s competing for the championship? That’s not right at all.
“When you’ve got two drivers first and second in the championship and are separated by less than one second place finish, how do you possibly even consider standing one down into a supporting role? There’s just no way we will.”
However, Dutch racing driver Bleekemolen believes McLaren’s hand could be forced.
“If one of the two is clearly in front, they would be crazy not to say anything about it,” he told F1Maximaal.nl. “It’s very difficult to say what’s going on, but there comes a point where you have to make a choice.
“There comes a time when you have to let someone go for the championship, then you just have to grab a driver and aim for that.”
But, he continued: “If both drivers don’t make mistakes, they will be first and second in the championship. Piastri is just a little better than Norris if he does everything right.”
Should McLaren win a first Drivers’ Championship title since Lewis Hamilton in 2008, whether it is Piastri or Norris, the 75-year-old says the driver can thank McLaren for the MCL39 as it has proven to be the pick of the field this season.
So much so, he reckons Piastri and Norris are “muddling” their way to a World title, whereas if Verstappen were behind the wheel, he would have dominated like a “true champion”.
“Of course they have the advantage of the car, and they are not at Max’s level either, but they are not very far away from it either,” he said. “I think they are both worthy, even if they have a good car.
“If Max had been in it, it would have been the same as in recent years; then you have a true champion. There is a difference. For Norris and Piastri it’s mainly muddling through actually.”
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