As McLaren continues to dominate the Formula 1 season, winning five out of the first six races, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner believes the championship leaders will face heightened scrutiny and questions about their cars due to their unrivaled performance.
In the Miami Grand Prix on Sunday, McLaren secured a commanding one-two finish, with Oscar Piastri leading teammate Lando Norris, while George Russell’s Mercedes, which finished third, was more than 30 seconds behind the leading pair.
Following the race, discussions arose regarding tyre temperatures and how McLaren managed to keep them under control better than their competitors. Last year, unsubstantiated suspicions circulated that McLaren might be using water to cool down the rear tyres, although no formal protest was lodged.
In response, McLaren team boss Zak Brown playfully sipped from a drinking bottle labeled ‘tire water’ and emphasized that anyone suspecting the team of wrongdoing should file an official protest.
Horner, whose driver Max Verstappen started on pole but finished fourth, clarified, “I’m not suggesting that there’s anything illegal on the car. Well done to McLaren, they were in a league of their own.”
He added, “Of course in Formula 1 there are always going to be questions that are raised. [McLaren] did exactly the same about the front suspension on our car last year. So it’s inevitable when you’re running at the front, as we have for the last few years, you always come under more scrutiny.”
With McLaren already holding a substantial 105-point lead over second-placed Mercedes, Toto Wolff, the Mercedes team boss, acknowledged McLaren’s superiority, stating, “We’re just not good with the tires over an extended run. And McLaren shows how it’s being done. They are definitely doing an excellent job by being able to go fast around the corners without overheating them [the tyres]. So this is what we need to look up to and engineer our way out.”
Wolff expressed his confidence in the integrity of McLaren’s leadership, saying, “I have no doubt that these guys stay within the rules. It’s just really good development. They’ve understood how to manage the tire much better than everybody else. And in my opinion, it’s totally legit.”
He traced McLaren’s resurgence back to an update introduced in Austria two years ago, which exceeded expectations and set the foundation for their current success.
Wolff stressed that Mercedes is fully committed to identifying the key areas for development and performance gains, stating, “And we are on it. Completely on it. So it’s not like we are looking at it like Bambi in front of the headlights. We are on it. We are in there. We are trying to find out, we are experimenting. And we are going to definitely be able to challenge.”
