McLaren send warning to Red Bull with ‘increased confidence’ message after Mexico

McLaren boss Andrea Stella says the team’s confidence in their title bid has grown following Lando Norris’ dominant win at the Mexico City Grand Prix.

Norris stormed to a comfortable F1 victory in Mexico, winning by over 30 seconds.

It means Norris now leads the championship standings for the first time since the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

Sunday also marked McLaren’s first win since Zandvoort in August.

With McLaren’s dominant showing, Stella is adamant they can now beat Max Verstappen to the title.

“The confidence in terms of the championship has increased,” Stella said.

“It’s increased because we have proven that we have a car that can win races and in some conditions can dominate races. This is the most important factor to put Lando and Oscar in condition to pursue the drivers’ championship. I don’t think it’s about mathematics.

“I think it’s about competitiveness. And it was important to confirm this competitiveness. And I think even when it comes to Oscar, even if he lost some points to Verstappen, I think Oscar has got a lot of learning from this weekend.

“And that’s sort of an investment that you make to make sure that you are competitive in every condition in the final part of the season. So overall, we definitely, team and drivers, we come out of this weekend encouraged and optimistic for the final part of the season.”

Norris “very convincing”

The 2025 Mexico City GP was arguably the most complete performance of Norris’ career to date.

He clinched pole by nearly 0.3s before controlling the race from the front.

Unlike in Texas, Norris nailed the start and kept the lead into Turn 1.

“I think when we look at Lando’s recent years, we have seen a weekend with this level of dominance also in some other venues. Like last year, I think we saw it in Zandvoort,” Stella added.

“We saw it in Singapore. So, it’s not the first time, I think, that Lando exhibits performances at this level. He was very convincing.

“I think he was just essentially fastest in every single session. He was able to capitalise on the performance and the strength of the car.

“In a way, these special low-grip conditions, they fit perfectly his natural way of extracting lap time, which is almost like opposite to Oscar’s characteristics.

“I think it will just strengthen Lando’s confidence and it will be important for the final four races. But I think both Lando and Oscar go into the final four races with reasons to be confident.

“And I think the team also goes into the final four races with more understanding of how to extract performance from the car consistently. Because over the last few races before Mexico, at times we have left some performance in the garage.”