McLaren boss Andrea Stella has observed that Oscar Piastri‘s ability to learn things “very rapidly” could ultimately see him crowned Formula 1 champion this year.

The Australian arrives at this weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix, F1’s post-summer break resumption, nine points clear at the top of the Drivers’ Championship.

His advantage is now more precarious than it had been previously, with team-mate Lando Norris slowly chipping away as the European leg of the season has progressed.

This leaves both the papaya squad’s drivers sitting pretty, a country mile clear of everyone else, and a minor miracle now needed for a non-McLaren driver to emerge champion.

Despite Norris’ recent upturn in form, it is clear that both drivers are perhaps more equal than they have ever been since becoming team-mates two years ago.

When asked if one might hold any advantage over the other, Stella stated they are are “similar levels”, but observed Piastri has, in his third season, reached Norris’ standard.

“As you say, Lando may have a bit more experience in terms of number of races,” he said.

“He started the season in Australia with a strong result, but ultimately, in Australia, Oscar was there with Lando.

“Oscar lost points in Australia just because we had the sudden rain in the final part of the circuit.

“I think one of Oscar’s qualities is to learn very fast, very rapidly. He has demonstrated it in his career, winning pretty much first year in all the junior categories. He has demonstrated it at McLaren.

“Now we have Lando and Oscar driving and operating at very, very similar levels.”

How MCL39 changes have seen McLaren title battle gap close

The MCL39 soon became apparent to be a car Piastri was more adept at tackling, with Norris struggling with areas of it, despite its clear advantage over all other challengers.

But revisions to it, including a new front suspension configuration, have seen Norris claw back Piastri’s earlier advantage.

Stella was quick to acknowledge that the first incarnation of the car was something Norris struggled with.

But with both men now seemingly equally as comfortable behind the wheel, it sets up a potentially momentous battle between now and the season’s end.

“This season, what we have to acknowledge as a team is that we have made some modifications to the launch version of the car that actually affected Lando’s driving style,” he explained.

“We made some upgrades which mean that right now some of the settings used by Lando and Oscar are slightly different, but we are pleased that now both drivers can drive to a certain extent in a natural way.

“They can express their talent, and we see that they are very, very close. This makes it a great spectacle for Formula 1, this is what we wanted to achieve as a team, and I think it’s going to be very interesting until the end of the season.”

READ MORE – Where Oscar Piastri thinks Lando Norris F1 title fight will be won and lost

The post McLaren highlights the Oscar Piastri trait pivotal to F1 title bid appeared first on Motorsport Week.

McLaren has signalled its intent for the second half of the Formula 1 season, with boss Andrea Stella confident the team can continue to assert dominance at next weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix.

After signing off before the summer break with four straight 1-2 finishes, Stella pointed to Zandvoort as a circuit where McLaren expects to be especially strong, having already excelled there last year with a less competitive car.

McLaren currently leads both championships, with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri delivering dominant performances at the Hungaroring, Spa-Francorchamps, Silverstone, and the Red Bull Ring.

The form has raised expectations for Zandvoort, where Norris claimed the second victory of his career in 2024 with one of the most commanding performances of the year, winning by over 22 seconds.

Asked whether he saw any threat from rivals after qualifying in Hungary – where McLaren missed out on pole but still converted it into a fourth straight victory on Sunday – Stella pointed to the team’s relentless upgrade programme and consistent pace as proof their advantage is real.

“I think we have seen a very positive trend in terms of our competitiveness, especially I would say over the last three events in which we have finished in 1-2,” he told media including Motorsport Week.

“And like I said in some other interviews, this is not only because we started with a competitive car, but actually, we have upgraded the car since Canada with what was in the past a single instrument upgrade, so it would have been very noticeable.”

“McLaren bring a new car and improves by a few tenths of a second, but in the recent races, we have upgraded the car with some parts at pretty much each race. I think here, the Hungaroring, despite the result in Q3, has actually proven that the car is faster.”

“In every single session, we will have a P1-P2 by a decent chunk compared to the next team. This makes us very positive about the remainder of the season. We look forward to starting racing again after the shutdown.

Stella warns rivals of McLaren dominance at Zandvoort

With the team’s pace and consistency established, Stella turned his attention to the circuits where McLaren anticipates performing at its best in the remainder of the season.

He highlighted Zandvoort as a track where the team could dominate again, while also pointing to targeted adaptations for Monza and Las Vegas to ensure competitiveness across a variety of challenges.

“I think we have some tracks that will be favourable to us again, like Zandvoort,” he added. “And we have also done some specific work for some tracks like Monza or Vegas, in which not necessarily last year we were dominant, and we knew that we needed to do some work for the performance of the whole track.

“So we definitely look forward to the second part of the season, and we expect to be competitive.”

Mercedes’ George Russell has already branded McLaren the “runaway force” of the season – a claim Stella was asked to respond to in Hungary.

The Spaniard seems to share Russell’s view, sending a clear warning to rivals that more Papaya dominance is on the way.

READ MORE – How McLaren survived the brink of bankruptcy to return to F1 pinnacle

The post McLaren sends worrying warning to rivals about F1 dominance appeared first on Motorsport Week.

Oscar Piastri insists he has the pace and consistency needed to beat McLaren team-mate Lando Norris for the 2025 Formula 1 championship, despite a few imperfect weekends so far.

The Australian driver will soon have to defend his lead in the standings after the end of the summer break, with the Dutch Grand Prix next week offering Norris the first opportunity to reassert his claim for glory this season.

After the British driver took the spoils in the season opener at Albert Park, Piastri delivered near-flawless performances to establish himself as the front-runner for the title. He claimed wins in China, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Miami before Norris eventually returned to the top step in Monaco.

However, Piastri needed a superb drive at Spa-Francorchamps to deny Norris a clean sweep in the last four races, as the championship fight remains tightly contested as a result.

After Budapest, Norris has five wins to Piastri’s six, with only nine points separating the pair after 14 rounds. Ahead of the weekend at the Hungaroring, despite holding a 16-point lead, the former Alpine Academy driver was asked if he felt he was still the fastest driver and confident in coming out on top in the intra-team battle.

“I think I have a lot of confidence in myself that I can do it, yes,” he told media including Motorsport Week. “Not every weekend has been perfect, but there’s not many weekends in my whole life that have been perfect.

“So I think just trying to put together a solid, consistent year is ultimately going to be an important thing. But I think the pace in the last few weekends, I think, especially Spa, I’ve been very confident in and very proud of.

“I think I’m more than capable of continuing that for the rest of the year. So, yeah, I’m confident that I can do it, but it’s not going to be easy.”

Piastri on the balance between speed and consistency in the 2025 title fight

Norris has faced challenges with consistency this season. Earlier in the year, he admitted to making “too many mistakes” during the Bahrain Grand Prix, despite finishing third.

He admitted these errors cost him valuable points and stressed the need to improve. In Austria, Norris also said that whoever makes fewer mistakes will win the title, highlighting the critical role of consistency in the championship battle.

Put to him what will ultimately decide the 2025 title — raw speed or minimising mistakes — Piastri was clear that both qualities will be essential.

“Both, ideally,” he replied. “Yeah, I mean, you can make an argument for either one. You can be consistent, but if you’re consistently coming second, then that’s not very useful for you. So you do need to have both.

“And the level of the field and the level of my team-mate, you need to bring your best. Inevitably, when you’re pushing that hard, there are going to be mistakes here and there because it doesn’t come without risk.

“But you can’t just afford to take things easy and try and be consistent. You need to be consistent – you need both to win the championship – you can’t just rely on one.”

READ MORE – Why Oscar Piastri is not prepared to play the percentages in 2025 F1 championship battle

The post Where Oscar Piastri thinks Lando Norris F1 title fight will be won and lost appeared first on Motorsport Week.

McLaren CEO Zak Brown says the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic gave the team a crucial chance to push for a lower budget cap in Formula 1 and avoid bankruptcy.

By 2020, the Woking-based team’s future in F1 was precarious. Struggling to match the enormous budgets of rivals like Mercedes, McLaren lagged behind on track, with the demands of the hybrid era only amplifying the pressure.

Then COVID-19 hit. While the pandemic wreaked havoc across the sport, it also created a rare opportunity: a chance to push for tighter budget controls that would protect struggling teams. For McLaren, that window may have been the difference between survival and bankruptcy.

From languishing at the back of the grid, the team could now dream of returning to competitiveness with the new financial rules.

Brown has credited the timing of the pandemic with giving the team a critical lifeline that allowed McLaren to rebuild and aim for the top.

Speaking on the How Leaders Lead podcast, the American explained how the crisis created the perfect conditions to advocate for a lower budget cap — one that would prove vital for McLaren’s survival.

“That was huge,” he said of the budget cap conversation. “And we were lucky on timing from a COVID point of view.

“Obviously, COVID was a terrible thing, but it put the sport under an immense amount of pressure. And that was right when we were talking to the budget cap, which was actually going to be significantly higher.

“So we got a little bit lucky with the timing because it allowed me to push even harder to get the budget cap down.”

How the budget cap propelled McLaren back to the front of F1

According to the McLaren chief, the lower budget cap has transformed both the sport and his team’s prospects.

Before the pandemic, the British squad had not finished as high as third since 2012, but the team climbed back up the order amid the disruptions of the 2020 season.

After a brief slump, McLaren soared once again in 2024, securing its first Constructors’ Championship since 1998. This season, McLaren is on track for back-to-back success, with a strong chance of claiming a first Drivers’ Championship since Lewis Hamilton in 2008.

Brown believes last year’s results highlight just how much the cost cap has levelled the playing field.

“Last year we had seven multiple winners,” he added. “First time I ever recall that amount of winners in Formula 1.”

“Four different teams that won races. The top three teams swapped the Constructors’ Championship late in the year. And that’s because now we’re all playing with the same size bat.”

READ MORE – How McLaren avoided possible ‘dictator’ scenario with F1 structure

The post How McLaren survived the brink of bankruptcy to return to F1 pinnacle appeared first on Motorsport Week.

McLaren boss Andrea Stella has detailed how branching out leadership roles within the team’s technical setup has paid dividends in the 2025 Formula 1 campaign.

Since 2023, the Woking-based squad has been rapidly adding performance to its ground effects cars.

Last season, it hit a breakthrough with the MCL38 at the Miami Grand Prix – helping Lando Norris to his maiden win.

Not only did McLaren clinch a first Constructors’ title since 1998, but this season, the duo of Norris and Oscar Piastri have won 11 races between themselves, which sees the team comfortably en route to a championship double.

Stella, who has overseen the team’s meteoric rise alongside CEO Zak Brown, revealed how all of this started from a crucial decision about the team’s structure.

“The first step was to look at the team with a map, and understand what is world championship material and what is not,” he told Motorsport.com.

“But also, to identify who are the key leaders that will have to lead their own areas. And the final bit was believing in a model based on collaboration.”

The idea was to promote collaboration within the technical setup back at the factory. This meant the Technical Director role was split three ways.

“I still remember when we announced that we were going from one to three technical directors, there were so many questions about who makes the decisions,” Stella continued.

“For me, who makes the decisions has never been a problem, because my normal way of looking at things is so collaborative that who doesn’t have those kinds of attributes is just not, simply, at the table in the first place.”

Human collaboration at the heart of McLaren’s success

Both Brown and Stella also went on a shopping spree in terms of making key hires across the board at McLaren.

One of the biggest acquisitions they made was that of Rob Marshall, the man who was critical to Red Bull’s success, winning four titles with Sebastian Vettel and two with Max Verstappen, effectively as Adrian Newey’s right-hand man.

Since he arrived at Woking, he has been seamlessly inducted into McLaren’s technical setup.

“Decisions normally tend to be just a critical mass of information accumulated, rather than having a dictator that at some stage will make a decision,” Stella asserted.

“Zak and I believed that this is possible. And since then we have added Rob Marshall, which is then a fourth TD, and the dynamics have not changed.

“So, it requires a lot of presence, a lot of understanding of what’s going on in the business to protect this way of working.

“It’s the human interactions that give real meaning to what we achieve.”

READ MORE – Motorsport Week’s F1 2025 Mid-Season Team Ratings

The post How McLaren avoided possible ‘dictator’ scenario with F1 structure appeared first on Motorsport Week.

Lando Norris has explained how he mentally approaches different Formula 1 circuits, revealing he was “s**tting himself” prior to the Monaco Grand Prix this season.

The Briton has recovered from an early-season lull to be within nine points of team-mate Oscar Piastri once F1 resumes from its summer break at Zandvoort next week.

Norris has appeared to benefit to some extent from the bespoke alterations to his front suspension, and some sterling drives have seen him reinvigorate his title challenge.

Wins at Austria and Hungary saw Norris at his very best – fast, measured and combative when necessary, and will have surely settled the psychological woes that afflicted his performances in some earlier races.

When asked if he has a win that stands out in correlation with a particular circuit, Norris said it was difficult to know for sure, as he has recently performed on tracks he usually has less affinity with.

“That’s tricky,” he told media including Motorsport Week. “I mean, I think there’s been a mix of ones I just feel a bit better at, just because it does generally align with just tracks I’ve always been better at.

“So if you look back to Red Bull Ring and things like that, they’re tracks I’ve just always enjoyed, I’ve always clicked with.

“I think a lot of the time it does also align with feeling, and I think that’s why I’ve been quite vocal about my feelings, because the better I do feel in the car, the better I’m going to do.”

The circuits where Norris struggles the most

After his triumph at the British Grand Prix, Norris, when asked by Motorsport Week, denied that the front suspension change on his MCL39 was wholly responsible for his upturn in form.

However, the revisions made to it were to enable Norris to gain more feeling in the cornering, something he explained is an area where he has previously struggled.

“It’s quite linear, they’re one-to-one, and part of my job is trying to prove that they’re not a good feeling and try and make that as good as when I’m feeling good, but that’s the trickier times.

“So, China, things like that, generally more front-limited tracks are ones that you rely more feeling from the steering.

“That’s where I’ve struggled a bit more this year, and those are the times I’ve struggled more.

“Tracks that… and at times I’ve done well, even like Monaco, I was s**tting myself before Monaco. Massive front graining, terrible last year.

“Turned into one of my best performances this season.

“So there’s been plenty of cases where I’ve expected worse and I’ve done better than an expectation, but the places where they’re normally front-limited, just leaning on the front tyres a lot, require a good steering feel, those are generally the places I struggle more.”

READ MORE – Why Oscar Piastri is not prepared to play the percentages in 2025 F1 championship battle

The post Lando Norris explains why he was ‘s**tting himself’ before victorious Monaco F1 weekend appeared first on Motorsport Week.

Oscar Piastri has insisted that he is not in a position where he can consider “banking points” over chasing race victories in his Formula 1 title battle with Lando Norris.

Piastri heads into the remaining 10 rounds – beginning with next weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix – with a mere nine-point lead at the summit over his McLaren team-mate.

The Australian’s cushion had been as high as 22 points when Norris clashed with him late in Canada and retired, but the Briton has rebounded well since that setback.

Norris won three times in four races in the build-up to the summer break to ensure that Piastri is not in a situation where he can be cautious and play the percentages.

McLaren’s stance has remained unchanged when it comes to letting Norris and Piastri race, providing the two avoid incidents that are detrimental to the team’s result.

But with both drivers in the running to win the Drivers’ Championship, Piastri revealed that there has been a small change to McLaren’s racing rules compared to 2024.

“I think there’s definitely been some changes. Even still now it’s too early to kind of just bank points and finish races for the sake of finishing races,” he told Autosport.

“You still need to try and put your best foot forward and score points. Obviously now in the Drivers’ Championship it’s very much a two-horse race, so there is kind of some one-on-one racing in some ways, which is probably a little bit of a change from what we’ve done previously.

“But a lot of what we’ve done previously has been to try and win Constructors’ Championship, and get the team the most points.

“When you’re fighting for first and second, you’re still getting the same amount of points.

“So there’s probably a few changes with that, but a lot of the rules of engagement and the general philosophy of how we go racing is still very much the same.”

How Piastri is handling maiden championship bid

Piastri, who has attained six victories to date in his third campaign, expressed that he subscribes to the cliche that the best approach is to take each race as it comes.

“I think the saying of ‘taking it race by race’, it sounds boring and kind of is boring in some ways, but it is very true,” he contended.

“You can’t worry about what’s going to happen in Abu Dhabi and take your focus off what you’re doing in the weekend, especially at the top of Formula 1.

“You’ve got to be on top of your game every single time and any focus you take away from that, it means you’re not at the top of your game.

“So as cliched as it is, it is genuinely about focusing on the race you’re in, trying to score the most amount of points.

“You could say I need 18 points every weekend for the rest of the year, which is finishing second, but if you’ve got a clear opportunity to win the race and you don’t take it, that’s not a great way of going racing in my opinion.

“So that’s how I always try and look at it. And that’s what I based my whole career off basically, leaving each weekend knowing that I’ve done the absolute maximum I can.

“Whether that looks like finishing fifth, whether it’s finishing second, whether it’s winning the race, ultimately trying to be happy with the performance I’ve put in, that’s all you can ask for.”

READ MORE – Why Helmut Marko thinks Oscar Piastri has the edge over Lando Norris in F1 title battle

The post Why Oscar Piastri is not prepared to play the percentages in 2025 F1 championship battle appeared first on Motorsport Week.

Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko has predicted that Oscar Piastri will edge out McLaren team-mate Lando Norris to win the Formula 1 Drivers’ title in 2025.

The Woking-based team has emerged as the runaway leaders this season in terms of both the Constructors’ and Drivers’ Championships.

Heading into the final 10 rounds of the season, only nine points separate Norris from Piastri, with their closest title rival, Max Verstappen, sitting a mammoth 97 points back.

And while Marko has already thrown in the towel as far as the Dutchman’s title chances this year are concerned, the Austrian was quick to observe a clear favourite.

“Piastri has the nerve, is more consistent, and always gets the best out of himself,” he told F1 Insider.

As things stand, Piastri has secured six wins this season compared to Norris’ tally of five – giving him a slender mathematical advantage in the standings.

However, on track, the Australian has seemed more in command of the MCL39 than the Briton, whose struggles with the 2025-spec McLaren have been well-documented.

“I’ve never seen him [Piastri] so emotionally charged [as compared to Norris],” he continued. “Norris may be faster per lap, but overall I see Piastri ahead.”

Marko insists Verstappen still top dog

With the inherent deficiencies of the RB21, Verstappen hasn’t been able to replicate the results that propelled him to four consecutive titles between 2021 and 2024.

Yet, even this season, the 27-year-old has shown flashes of his undeniable brilliance, such as his spectacular pole lap in Japan, setting him up to take a stellar victory.

Looking ahead to 2026 – when new regulations will be introduced – Marko hopes that the Milton Keynes-based squad can ameliorate the issues impeding its success.

And if the team can do so, he is more than happy to bet on the Dutchman over Piastri.

“Piastri has had an incredible career and is improving year after year,” he assessed.

“He had some major fluctuations last year, depending on the track. That’s no longer the case.

“But Verstappen is Verstappen. He [Piastri] still has a long way to go. The potential to become a truly great driver is there, though.”

READ MORE – The McLaren design philosophy that could ensure success under 2026 F1 regulations

The post Why Helmut Marko thinks Oscar Piastri has the edge over Lando Norris in F1 title battle appeared first on Motorsport Week.

McLaren boss Andrea Stella believes the engineering principles behind the team’s recent success in Formula 1 will continue to guide it through next year’s regulation changes.

The Woking-based squad have been unstoppable recently, with the papaya pairing of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri frequently pulling away from the field and trading blows in intra-team battles while the rest of the grid trails in its wake.

Rivals Ferrari, Mercedes, and Red Bull have struggled to keep pace as McLaren enters the summer break with a commanding 299-point lead in the Constructors’ Championship.

Piastri has claimed six victories while team-mate Norris has five, with only George Russell and Max Verstappen interrupting McLaren’s streak of Sunday dominance.

The transformation undertaken by the team since the start of 2024 is somewhat remarkable, but heading into the last season before a regulation overhaul, there are always questions over whether it can continue its success beyond such a reset.

Red Bull underwent a similar process, denying Mercedes a clean sweep from 2014 to 2021, before dominating the early stages of the ground effect era until McLaren curtailed its grip on the sport.

Stella is confident McLaren can do the same and transfer its recent learnings into next year.

“I think there’s a couple of things that carry over, independently of the technical regulations, and I hope that that will be a good position to be in for McLaren,” he told Motorsport.com.

“One is the technical fundamentals whereby we pursued aerodynamic efficiency, interaction with the tyres, efficient cooling. It is universal.”

What McLaren can take into 2026 amid regulation reset

Stella acknowledged that while much of McLaren’s recent engineering know-how can carry over into 2026, certain elements will need to be reinvented to adapt to the new regulations.

“There’s a part of the know-how that is transferable to the work on 2026 and there’s a part of the know-how that you have to reinvent,” the Italian added.

“Now we know how we can pursue aerodynamic efficiency on this generation of cars, but this is the result of many, many elements, iterations, an accumulation of knowledge.

“Part of which is relevant for this floor, which works in ground effect with the fences and with the side wings, but next year’s floor is completely different.

“So, you have to generate this knowledge again. From this point of view, that’s not transferable.

“But some aspects of the methodology or how you generate this knowledge, I think that will be transferable.

“So, the fundamental reasons why we are in this strong position now, I think there’s a large quantity that is transferable, and there’s a certain amount that somehow will be lost.

“And that will be a ground in which there will be, potentially, a levelling out among all teams, independently of where they were in 2025.”

READ MORE – How McLaren plans to approach an intra-team F1 title decider

The post The McLaren design philosophy that could ensure success under 2026 F1 regulations appeared first on Motorsport Week.

Motorsport is often portrayed as a cold, mechanical science: engineers crunching data, drivers following strategy sheets and teams investing millions to shave off tenths of a second.

But at its heart, motor racing has always been about audacity. Some of the sport’s greatest legends are not the ones who had the best cars or the biggest budgets, but those who stared down impossible odds, made a gamble and came out victorious.

Just like the unpredictable spin of online slots, racing history is littered with stories of those who embraced risk when others played safe. Sometimes it ended in heartbreak, but other times it rewrote the record books.

James Hunt – The playboy who became Formula 1 World Champion

James Hunt (pictured above) was never meant to be the corporate-friendly face of Formula 1. He was scrappy, unpolished and more likely to be photographed with a cigarette and a pint than in the gym. When he entered the 1976 season, few believed he could seriously challenge the might of Ferrari and Niki Lauda.

But Hunt thrived on chaos. He gambled with daring overtakes, sometimes brushing wheels and dancing on the edge of disaster. The season culminated in one of the most dramatic finales in motorsport history.

Lauda, having miraculously returned after a near-fatal crash at the Nürburgring, withdrew from a rain-soaked Japanese Grand Prix. Hunt needed to finish third to take the championship. He went all-in, clawing through the field with a puncture, barely securing enough points to be crowned FIA Formula 1 World Champion by a single point.

It was a victory defined by risk, resilience and timing. The perfect metaphor for fortune favouring the bold.

Ayrton Senna at Donnington – Rain masterclass of ’93

Few drivers embodied risk like Ayrton Senna. While his three championships already cemented his place in history, one particular race in 1993 remains the stuff of legend.

The European Grand Prix at Donnington was a wet and miserable affair, the kind of conditions that terrify even seasoned pros. On the opening lap, Senna started fourth but unleashed an assault so breathtaking that it is still considered the greatest opening lap in Formula 1 history.

He passed four cars in less than a minute, carving through Michael Schumacher, Damon Hill, Alain Prost and Karl Wendlinger with a mixture of raw instinct and razor-thin margins.

That day, Senna didn’t just win a race. He showcased how intuition and daring can make miracles. It was calculated madness, a reminder that in motorsport, sometimes instinct can be worth more than strategy.

Brawn GP – The miracle of 2009

In modern motorsport, where billions back the top teams, the story of Brawn GP feels almost mythical. When Honda suddenly withdrew from Formula 1 in late 2008, the team’s staff faced unemployment. Enter Ross Brawn, who led a management buyout, rebranded the team and showed up at the first race with a car few took seriously.

Then came the shock. The BGP 001 was a rocket, aided by a controversial “double diffuser” that rival teams had overlooked. Suddenly, this supposed underfunded outfit was leading the championship.

Against all expectations, and despite limited resources, Jenson Button won six of the first seven races, riding the wave of risk that Ross Brawn had staked everything on. By the season’s end, Brawn GP had claimed both the Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championships.

It was a Cinderella story for modern racing. proof that even in an era of corporate giants, daring innovation can still tilt the odds.

Fernando Alonso – Valencia’s masterstroke in 2012

By 2012, many thought Fernando Alonso’s Ferrari career was winding down. The car was not competitive enough to win consistently, and the championship looked out of reach. Then came the European Grand Prix at Valencia.

Starting from 11^th on the grid, Alonso needed something extraordinary. Through aggressive overtakes, perfect timing during safety cars and sheer determination, he fought his way to the front in front of his home crowd. Tears streamed down his face on the podium as the Spanish fans roared.

It wasn’t a championship win, but it was the ultimate underdog performance. Alonso had risked everything in a car that shouldn’t have been on the podium, let alone first place.

Risk, reward and the allure of the unexpected

What unites these stories is not just victory, but the willingness to embrace risk when others hesitated. Motorsport has always thrived on its unpredictability (i.e. a sudden rain shower, a mechanical gamble a daring strategy). For fans, that’s part of the allure: knowing that the odds are never fully set in stone.

It is the same thrill that draws people to games of chance. The spin of online slots, like the lap of a race, is a dance between precision and unpredictability. Sometimes the favourites win. Sometimes the outsiders change history. But in both arenas, it’s the uncertainty that keeps people coming back for more.

Why these stories still matter…

In an era where teams increasingly rely on data simulations and risk-averse strategies, these underdog tales remind us why fans fell in love with motorsport in the first place. They celebrate human daring, ingenuity and the courage to chase glory against improbable odds.

From Hunt’s chaotic championship to Brawn GP’s impossible fairytale, the legends of risk-taking endure because they capture something universal: the idea that even in the most controlled environments, fortune still favours the brave.

The post Motorsport’s greatest risk-takers are legends who beat the odds appeared first on Motorsport Week.