McLaren accuse Red Bull of creating false F1 ‘narratives’

McLaren say F1 rivals Red Bull are “extremely good” at creating narratives which suggest they are a bigger underdog than they really are.

Max Verstappen beat the McLaren pair to secure pole position for the Miami Grand Prix, with Lando Norris ending up 0.065 seconds from the Red Bull driver. It marked the Dutchman’s third pole from six races in 2025.

McLaren had been tipped as the pre-race favourites coming into the weekend and despite Norris leading a 1-2 in the sprint race, the team could only manage P2 and P4 in qualifying for Sunday’s grand prix.

Red Bull have repeatedly downplayed their chances at events this year with McLaren being seen as the outright favourites at most circuits.

And McLaren team principal Andrea Stella believes Red Bull have been creating narratives to suit their agenda. 

“Red Bull, they are very good at making fast cars, they are very exceptionally good I would say at driving fast cars and they are extremely good also in creating the narrative to their advantage,” Stella said at the Miami Grand Prix, where Crash.net are on the ground.

“They exploit every possible opportunity to stay in the competition and some of these opportunities sometimes is to create the narrative like: 'oh we are making miracles here, the others should win every single practice session and qualifying and race’.

“But this is the narrative created by some of our competitors which we read occasionally and then we change the page, and we focus on ourselves and when we focus on ourselves we look at the numbers, we look at the facts, we look at what we should be improving and there's a lot that we should be improving.

“So for me when I look at the facts. I also look at what Lando and Oscar deliver and deliver quite consistently, so yeah, well done to Red Bull even in terms of the way they manage their non-technical opportunities.”

Lando Norris eyeing Max Verstappen challenge

Despite narrowly missing out on pole, Norris remains upbeat about his chances of challenging Verstappen for the win at the scene of his maiden grand prix triumph 12 months ago.

"The DRS helps a lot around here with the overtaking. It's what you need. You also have some much bigger braking zones than you have in Suzuka, so I hope so anyway," Norris said.

"I hope that's the case and we can have a good race tomorrow. But I don't just expect competition from Max. Kimi [Antonelli]'s been quick all weekend and Oscar [Piastri] has been as well. So yeah, I just expect a tough race from all accounts.”

Oscar Piastri goes into Sunday’s race with a nine-point championship lead over Norris, with Verstappen a further 10 points back in third.