Piastri dismisses Horner’s concerns: McLaren will Remain strong in 2025

Dominika Jordan
Apr 11, 2025, 8:43 AM ET

Piastri dismisses concerns over McLaren’s performance, confident ahead of rule changes.

Red Bull Racing/Red Bull Content Pool

Oscar Piastri has confidently dismissed any suggestion that McLaren could be slowed by an upcoming rule change in June. The FIA, Formula 1's governing body, will introduce more stringent front wing load tests starting from the Spanish Grand Prix on June 1, aimed at reducing the allowed level of flex after having already addressed issues with rear wings.

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner commented last weekend in Japan that the change would be significant and that there was "an unknown" as to who would be impacted. "We have a big regulation change coming at race nine. You know, how is that going to affect the run of play?" Horner told Sky Sports television.

Piastri, however, downplayed the potential effects on McLaren, who currently lead both championships with Lando Norris a point ahead of Red Bull's four-time world champion Max Verstappen, the winner at Suzuka last Sunday. "I'm pretty confident we'll be strong all year," the Australian told reporters ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix, the fourth round of the championship. "I don't think it'll change too much. I've not spoken to the team about it massively, in all honesty, which probably tells you enough about that. Let's see when we get to Spain, but we've still got a lot of races until then and I think we'll be a strong team all year round."

Piastri, who claimed victory in China following Norris's win at the Australian opener, expressed his preference for driving his McLaren over a Red Bull. While Verstappen's Red Bull has proven to be a race-winning machine, he is already on his second teammate of the season as Liam Lawson was demoted back to Racing Bulls with Yuki Tsunoda taking his place.

"Clearly the car looks pretty difficult. We've seen that with Liam. We saw it with Checo (Sergio Perez) last year, even with Yuki in Japan," said Piastri. "I think going into an environment that has been so focused on the way Max drives for nearly 10 years now -- it would be a very tough environment to go into and have immediate success. I'm quite happy that I'm driving a McLaren and not a Red Bull at the moment."

Piastri noted that the McLaren was a challenging car to extract maximum performance from, but many of the ideas and philosophies remained similar to last year. "If I had to pick out of all 10 cars on the grid right now, I'd still pretty happily be choosing ours," he concluded.