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"Rather lose the title": McLaren's wild claim on Piastri-Norris battle
Emily Benammar • November 7th, 2025 10:19 am
As conspiracy theories of preferential treatment at McLaren continue to swirl, team boss Zac Brown has broken his silence to announce they would rather lose the world title to Max Verstappen than elect a No.1 driver.
With Oscar Piastri a point behind teammate Lando Norris in the driver standings and just four races remaining on the calendar, McLaren are edging closer to a 2007 scenario which saw both Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso miss out on the title to Kimi Raikkonen in the final race of the season.
A decline in performance and results in the last our Grands Prix has seen Australian driver Piastri relinquish a solid lead in the race to become world champion while Norris has surged.
Creeping up behind them both is four-time champion Verstappen who, back in August was more than 100 points adrift of then leader Piastri.
The Red Bull driver is now just 36 points behind Norris.
McLaren have come under significant pressure to elect a No 1 driver amid relentless speculation they have been favouring Norris, but as the season draws to its climax, Brown has put the rumour mill to bed insisting the drivers will be allowed to duke it out under “papaya rules”.
“We're well aware of 2007,” Brown said on the Beyond the Grid podcast. “Two drivers tied on points, one gets in the front. But we've got two drivers who want to win the world championship. We're playing offence; we're not playing defence.
“"I'd rather go - 'we did the best we could with our drivers tied in points, and the other beat us by one,' than the alternative - telling one of our drivers right now, when they're one point apart, 'I know you have a dream to win the world championship, but we flipped a coin and you don't get to do it this year'. Forget it!
"That's not how we go racing. If 2007 happens again, I'd rather have that outcome than any other that involves playing favourites - we won't do it."
F1 is in Sao Paulo this weekend for the Brazilian grand Prix where there is also a sprint race meaning ample opportunity for Piastri to reclaim the title race lead, for Verstappen to narrow the McLaren lead or Norris to extend his.
The main issue for McLaren will be ensuring Norris handles the pressure – which historically he has not and that Piastri rediscovers his form.
F1 expert Chris Medland backed Piastri to emerge victorious over Norris in the race to become world champion despite a run of bad form.
For Hedland, Piastri has one clear advantage over Norris which is his capacity to be cool under pressure.
“Of the two McLaren drivers I would be backing a fight to the end given what we have seen, I think Oscar has the better chance. He is still more consistent (than Norris) despite the drop off,” Medland told SEN Breakfast.
“I wouldn’t change too much from Oscar's point of view, the last two races I’m saying were a blip.
“I expect him to be stronger this weekend. He has a history of learning from his errors very quickly. He is only in his third year in F1 and he is on track to the champion.
“He’s been the leader and dealing with the pressure. Lando is more up and down when the pressure is on.
“Norris now has something to lose. If Oscar stays within touch of Norris, the question is how will Norris handle the pressure, will he do it as well as Oscar has?
“Oscar is in uncharted territory, not because he’s going for a title, but because when he was driving in F3, the same thing happened and he didn’t give his best performances in the final rounds.
“He took confidence from that, even not at his best he can scrap for a title.”
BRAZIL GP TIMES AEDT
- Sprint qualifying: Sat Nov 8 5:30am-6:15am
- Sprint race: Sunday Nov 9 1am-2am
- GP qualifying: Sunday Nov 9 5am-6am
- GP race: Monday Nov 10 4am
