F1 2025 Abu Dhabi F1 Grand Prix

[Sixpence]

People love to give Zac shit. He's an easy target. Overweight. American.

But he's dragged McLaren from a team that finished 9th in the Constructors in 2017 to one that won this year. I don't like him much, but you can make the argument that without him McLaren don't have a championship-winning car.

He didn't build the car, the engineering team did. This is a classic case of the person at the top getting all the credit for those doing the actual work.

 

[Australian Randall]

Would Oscar have been champion without Zac's influence?
I say yes.

No.

 

[The Flying Belgian]

He didn't build the car, the engineering team did. This is a classic case of the person at the top getting all the credit for those doing the actual work.

So contrary to what the conspiracy theorists would believe, he doesn't have any control over doctoring one car over another?

He's the one who replaced Seidl with Stella. Compare the results before and after. Would the results still be the same this year if Seidl was TP still? He shouldn't get all the credit, no. But to ignore his role in McLaren's resurgence is blinkered ignorance. He's been a good CEO, at least as far as McLaren F1 is concerned - I don't pay much attention to IndyCar or Formula E.

 

[Forward Press]

People love to give Zac shit. He's an easy target. Overweight. American.

But he's dragged McLaren from a team that finished 9th in the Constructors in 2017 to one that won this year. I don't like him much, but you can make the argument that without him McLaren don't have a championship-winning car.

Came in when McLaren were the laughing stock of the competition. Remember all the complaints from Button and Alonso? GP2 engine etc etc? This was when Zak Brown came in.

Like him or loathe him, he deserves credit for helping return them to the summit of F1.

 

[Forward Press]

So contrary to what the conspiracy theorists would believe, he doesn't have any control over doctoring one car over another?

He's the one who replaced Seidl with Stella. Compare the results before and after. Would the results still be the same this year if Seidl was TP still? He shouldn't get all the credit, no. But to ignore his role in McLaren's resurgence is blinkered ignorance. He's been a good CEO, at least as far as McLaren F1 is concerned - I don't pay much attention to IndyCar or Formula E.

We like to make fun of Pommy fans for being horrendously one-sided and prone to buying into conspiracies against their own beloved athletes, but Australian F1 fans this past year have proven it's not confined to Brits.

 

[Eaglemaniac]

We like to make fun of Pommy fans for being horrendously one-sided and prone to buying into conspiracies against their own beloved athletes, but Australian F1 fans this past year have proven it's not confined to Brits.

It’s not a conspiracy when the team deliberately chooses to make decisions that cost Oscar 14 points which was enough to win him the title.
Too many people try so hard to appear impartial on here that they deliberately ignore facts to virtue signal and make out that others who call out McLarens deliberate bias are stupid, when in fact they only make themselves look ridiculous for ignoring the obvious incidents that cause people to be upset with the team.

Situation 1 - McLaren made the deliberate decision to swap Oscar in Monza due to a mistake the team made, which cost him 6 points. They did this to benefit Lando as they didn’t want him to lose points as he’d driven a good race up to that point and was in front of Oscar. This is not Oscar’s fault that the team messed up the pitstop so should not have been penalised.

Situation 2 - in Qatar the team deliberately held the two cars out in order to not double stack as they were worried once again about Lando being disadvantaged by double stacking the cars under a safety car. Oscar had driven a brilliant weekend up til that point in the weekend, so should not have been penalised 8 points for the win because the team was once again worrying about Lando.

The total of these two deliberate decisions by McLaren is 14 points, which is the amount Oscar needed to win the WDC. You can try to bring up Verstappen Spanish incident but that was his own decision, it wasn’t his team deliberately making a call to cost him points.
Sure Oscar made mistake in Baku and Brazil, but so did Lando in Canada and Max in Spain, so if they’re allowed to make mistakes and not have their title claims delegitimised then neither should Oscar.

I’ve been watching F1 since the 70s and I’ve never seen a team treat the guy leading the drivers championship for them like McLaren did to Oscar this year. It was disgraceful.

 

[BomberFan355]

People love to give Zac shit. He's an easy target. Overweight. American.

But he's dragged McLaren from a team that finished 9th in the Constructors in 2017 to one that won this year. I don't like him much, but you can make the argument that without him McLaren don't have a championship-winning car.

No one is arguing that he has been good for bringing McLaren back to the top. What's argued is whether he has favored Lando over Piastri. From what we have seen this year, many will say yes(didn't he also state that this is the Lando era on DTS?) I mean, just look and listen to Piastri himself the last part of the season, it's far from a conspiricy theory.

 

[Father Jack]

It's hard not to be a bit conspiratorial when Oscar's performance plummeted after he got what was shaping up to be a championship-winning lead, and only returned once Lando had overtaken him and established a comfortable lead of his own. It could very well be just one of those things, but you can't blame us for wondering

 

[Forward Press]

No one is arguing that he has been good for bringing McLaren back to the top. What's argued is whether he has favored Lando over Piastri. From what we have seen this year, many will say yes(didn't he also state that this is the Lando era on DTS?) I mean, just look and listen to Piastri himself the last part of the season, it's far from a conspiricy theory.

Zak Brown does favour Lando. It's common knowledge. Mentored him since he was in junior series.

Doesn't mean he intervened to sabotage Oscar's car to make sure of it. That's the conspiracy theory.

 

[Forward Press]

It's hard not to be a bit conspiratorial when Oscar's performance plummeted after he got what was shaping up to be a championship-winning lead, and only returned once Lando had overtaken him and established a comfortable lead of his own. It could very well be just one of those things, but you can't blame us for wondering

I don't think it's that unreasonable to hold the view that Oscar's form slipped as he is a third year driver - second in an actual race winning car - and the pressure got to him. People forget he's still very young and that it was always a tough ask to maintain his form from the first half of the year. Even so, he still showed a lot of pace at times - post Monza, he still outqualified Lando immediately after in Singapore, for example.

It's not unreasonable to also hold the view that Lando ironed out his mental game (well documented that he was seeing a sports psychologist) and this resulted in improved and more consistent race results. He was often made fun of in previous years for being fast but inconsistent.

Additionally, it's not unreasonable to also hold the view that McLaren's mid-season development assisted Lando's driving style more, which again is understandable as Lando is the favoured driver (I don't disagree there) - it was also well documented that McLaren stopped car development many races before the end of the season as they had the constructor's virtually sewn up and the 2026 car will obviously need a lot more work compared to 2025 due to the new regulations, so there was nothing from McLaren in the back end of the year to tweak the car to better suit Oscar.

Anyway, this maybe going around in circles, I blame myself for being bored. Bring on Melbourne 2026.

 

[happy_eagle]

It’s not a conspiracy when the team deliberately chooses to make decisions that cost Oscar 14 points which was enough to win him the title.
Too many people try so hard to appear impartial on here that they deliberately ignore facts to virtue signal and make out that others who call out McLarens deliberate bias are stupid, when in fact they only make themselves look ridiculous for ignoring the obvious incidents that cause people to be upset with the team.

Situation 1 - McLaren made the deliberate decision to swap Oscar in Monza due to a mistake the team made, which cost him 6 points. They did this to benefit Lando as they didn’t want him to lose points as he’d driven a good race up to that point and was in front of Oscar. This is not Oscar’s fault that the team messed up the pitstop so should not have been penalised.

Situation 2 - in Qatar the team deliberately held the two cars out in order to not double stack as they were worried once again about Lando being disadvantaged by double stacking the cars under a safety car. Oscar had driven a brilliant weekend up til that point in the weekend, so should not have been penalised 8 points for the win because the team was once again worrying about Lando.

The total of these two deliberate decisions by McLaren is 14 points, which is the amount Oscar needed to win the WDC. You can try to bring up Verstappen Spanish incident but that was his own decision, it wasn’t his team deliberately making a call to cost him points.
Sure Oscar made mistake in Baku and Brazil, but so did Lando in Canada and Max in Spain, so if they’re allowed to make mistakes and not have their title claims delegitimised then neither should Oscar.

I’ve been watching F1 since the 70s and I’ve never seen a team treat the guy leading the drivers championship for them like McLaren did to Oscar this year. It was disgraceful.

But the thing is that your hypothetical scenarios only ever look at the places where Oscar could have scored more points, and ignore instances where Lando could have scored more points, or ignore any other possible combination of results.

It's built on a foundation of bias, which is why I have described it as a pointless exercise. Because if you are attempting to say "What if x" or "What if y" then you could extrapolate this to ridiculous degrees. You could say "what if Lando didn't have the yips early on in the season, he would have won the championship by even more".

You could realistically look at each of the 24 races and rewrite a possible narrative that could have happened, but at that stage its worth asking what is the point, and isn't it better to just move on and accept that Lando won the championship.

 

[Rod Stroker]

 

[Tiger_Of_Old]

It’s not a conspiracy when the team deliberately chooses to make decisions that cost Oscar 14 points which was enough to win him the title.
Too many people try so hard to appear impartial on here that they deliberately ignore facts to virtue signal and make out that others who call out McLarens deliberate bias are stupid, when in fact they only make themselves look ridiculous for ignoring the obvious incidents that cause people to be upset with the team.

Situation 1 - McLaren made the deliberate decision to swap Oscar in Monza due to a mistake the team made, which cost him 6 points. They did this to benefit Lando as they didn’t want him to lose points as he’d driven a good race up to that point and was in front of Oscar. This is not Oscar’s fault that the team messed up the pitstop so should not have been penalised.

Situation 2 - in Qatar the team deliberately held the two cars out in order to not double stack as they were worried once again about Lando being disadvantaged by double stacking the cars under a safety car. Oscar had driven a brilliant weekend up til that point in the weekend, so should not have been penalised 8 points for the win because the team was once again worrying about Lando.

The total of these two deliberate decisions by McLaren is 14 points, which is the amount Oscar needed to win the WDC. You can try to bring up Verstappen Spanish incident but that was his own decision, it wasn’t his team deliberately making a call to cost him points.
Sure Oscar made mistake in Baku and Brazil, but so did Lando in Canada and Max in Spain, so if they’re allowed to make mistakes and not have their title claims delegitimised then neither should Oscar.

I’ve been watching F1 since the 70s and I’ve never seen a team treat the guy leading the drivers championship for them like McLaren did to Oscar this year. It was disgraceful.

Can you add Silverstone to the equation where Oscar got that penalty.
Oscar was right where if the team felt it was the wrong decision then why not get Lando to give the place back.

 

[lionbear]

It’s not a conspiracy when the team deliberately chooses to make decisions that cost Oscar 14 points which was enough to win him the title.
Too many people try so hard to appear impartial on here that they deliberately ignore facts to virtue signal and make out that others who call out McLarens deliberate bias are stupid, when in fact they only make themselves look ridiculous for ignoring the obvious incidents that cause people to be upset with the team.

Situation 1 - McLaren made the deliberate decision to swap Oscar in Monza due to a mistake the team made, which cost him 6 points. They did this to benefit Lando as they didn’t want him to lose points as he’d driven a good race up to that point and was in front of Oscar. This is not Oscar’s fault that the team messed up the pitstop so should not have been penalised.

Situation 2 - in Qatar the team deliberately held the two cars out in order to not double stack as they were worried once again about Lando being disadvantaged by double stacking the cars under a safety car. Oscar had driven a brilliant weekend up til that point in the weekend, so should not have been penalised 8 points for the win because the team was once again worrying about Lando.

The total of these two deliberate decisions by McLaren is 14 points, which is the amount Oscar needed to win the WDC. You can try to bring up Verstappen Spanish incident but that was his own decision, it wasn’t his team deliberately making a call to cost him points.
Sure Oscar made mistake in Baku and Brazil, but so did Lando in Canada and Max in Spain, so if they’re allowed to make mistakes and not have their title claims delegitimised then neither should Oscar.

I’ve been watching F1 since the 70s and I’ve never seen a team treat the guy leading the drivers championship for them like McLaren did to Oscar this year. It was disgraceful.

Maybe you are right, but at the end of the day, Lando is driver number 1 and he won the championship by two points, Love or hate Brown, he achieved the goal the team wanted.

Oscar was driver number 2 and his confidence driving with a lead in the world championship showed he is not ready yet.

His turn will come but 2025 was not it.

 

[Barrybran]

Maybe you are right, but at the end of the day, Lando is driver number 1 and he won the championship by two points, Love or hate Brown, he achieved the goal the team wanted.

Oscar was driver number 2 and his confidence driving with a lead in the world championship showed he is not ready yet.

His turn will come but 2025 was not it.

I think most would understand if McLaren publicly backed Norris as their number one driver. We wouldn't like it but we would understand it.

That's not what McLaren did though. They publicly stated they had two number one drivers while their actions were clearly favouring Lando.

Oscar's confidence wasn't driven by inability. He was frustrated with McLaren. Oscar's only genuine mistake all season was in Baku. Even when he couldn't sync with the car in Austin and New Mexico, he had figured the car out by Sao Paolo.

Oscar would have won the championship this year if McLaren were genuinely fair.

 

[imadodgyumpire]

I've yet to address the other post, and will do, but this had to be done now.

Oscar was driver number 2 and his confidence driving with a lead in the world championship showed he is not ready yet.

You are misinterpreting what you were seeing.

The guy's a winner, and his improvement was unforeseen on here with he exception of Skam and Skull Face.

(Man, the stuff I read on here...)

 

[Pure_Ownage]

Came in when McLaren were the laughing stock of the competition. Remember all the complaints from Button and Alonso? GP2 engine etc etc? This was when Zak Brown came in.

Like him or loathe him, he deserves credit for helping return them to the summit of F1.

He deserves credit for that but he is still an absolute ass hat.

 

[Cold Ghost]

God I hope we boo the living shit out of Zak and Lando when they come to Melbourne next year .

I know that is poor form and crass , but seeing a fellow Melburnian getting shafted in the manner he has doesn't sit well with me.

Not going to happen. The Oz media will fall over themselves to be a part of the big show and the majority of Albert Park attendees will just be happy to say they were there, there'll be limited vitriol.

 

[happy_eagle]

Not going to happen. The Oz media will fall over themselves to be a part of the big show and the majority of Albert Park attendees will just be happy to say they were there, there'll be limited vitriol.

Hope so, booing Lando would be embarrassing for the country.

 

[Duck Farmer]

Hope so, booing Lando would be embarrassing for the country.

We should keep it outsourced to the Italians and Mexicans.

 

[satty]

We should keep it outsourced to the Italians and Mexicans.

Lygon Street is only 30 minutes from albert park. Should be able to round up a fair few Italians.

 

[skam85]

I've yet to address the other post, and will do, but this had to be done now.

You are misinterpreting what you were seeing.

The guy's a winner, and his improvement was unforeseen on here with he exception of Skam and Skull Face.

(Man, the stuff I read on here...)

Every year in F1 so far Oscar has improved on his deficiencies. A lot of us forget he’s only in his third season. His ceiling is far higher than Lando’s IMO

Tyre management 23-24
Qualifying vs Lando 24-25

Look forward to -

Championship Management 25-26

 

[Gasometer]

I need to unwatchable this thread

It just keeps reminding me of disappointment

 

[imadodgyumpire]

Every year in F1 so far Oscar has improved on his deficiencies. A lot of us forget he’s only in his third season. His ceiling is far higher than Lando’s IMO

Tyre management 23-24
Qualifying vs Lando 24-25

Look forward to -

Championship Management 25-26

I don't think this is even a problem for him. It might look that way from this year, but he led the championship for 20 races. That's plenty of championship management from him.

His biggest problem is getting any favouritism. To win an F1 championship, you need everything going your way, including the team backing you. All the guys with the big stats, including Schumacher, I'm afraid, have had the team favouring them. How is Piastri going to get it?

The difference between Schumacher/Vettel/Hamilton/Verstappen, and Norris is that the others won by such big margins that team favouritism can be overlooked, or not even considered.

My concern next year is that the team now knows what he's capable of, so they might take extra steps earlier in the season we might not see what we we say of him in the first 2/3s of this year.

 

[hotchilli]

I don't think this is even a problem for him. It might look that way from this year, but he led the championship for 20 races. That's plenty of championship management from him.

His biggest problem is getting any favouritism. To win an F1 championship, you need everything going your way, including the team backing you. All the guys with the big stats, including Schumacher, I'm afraid, have had the team favouring them. How is Piastri going to get it?

The difference between Schumacher/Vettel/Hamilton/Verstappen, and Norris is that the others won by such big margins that team favouritism can be overlooked, or not even considered.

My concern next year is that the team now knows what he's capable of, so they might take extra steps earlier in the season we might not see what we we say of him in the first 2/3s of this year.

What a load of dribble.

Yes he led for 20 race but he made mistakes on his own in the back half of the year in both races and qualifying that kept the door open for Max to be still in the championship & Lando to completely close the gap.

Luckily Oscar isn't delusional to blame all his short comings on where it all fell from a team favourability standpoint. You know he's going to put in the work and improve on the areas he came up short on this year.

They might not end up with the fastest car to start the new regs, there is no way that the team is going to take steps to limit him...