McLaren Humiliates Rivals in F1: Wolff Makes an Impact with Statement

Toto Wolff calls McLaren’s advantage “humiliating”

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has called McLaren’s advantage over the other top Formula 1 teams “humiliating” after McLaren secured their twelfth win of the season at the Dutch Grand Prix on Sunday. Last year, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen secured the drivers’ title, while Ferrari and McLaren battled for the constructors’ crown, leading to the belief that 2025 could be the most competitive season in years. However, McLaren has dominated the first 15 races of the season and now leads the constructors’ standings by 324 points, while Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris are maintaining a private battle for the drivers’ crown. The magnitude of McLaren’s advantage became clear at last weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix, where their drivers fought for the win until an oil leak forced Norris to retire. Wolff pointed to the last safety car restart at Zandvoort as a clear example of the gap between McLaren and the rest of the field, as Piastri and Norris, using the slower hard tires, easily pulled away from the chasing group with faster soft tires.

“You can see that in the end, the McLaren with the hard tire, against all of us with the new soft: this is a humiliation for everyone,” he said.

Toto Wolff

“You have the headline, right?” Wolff added: “That’s not really good. I think this weekend, between Max, the Ferraris and us, it’s a bit balanced at the moment. Max was the fastest, but Ferrari was equal. I would say that is not satisfactory.”

Wolff’s quote that made headlines was also made to Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur after the Dutch Grand Prix, and although he added that McLaren’s advantage was clear throughout the race and not just after the last safety car, he did not go so far as to describe it as humiliation. “It’s not just the last stint, I think if you take a look at the rest of the race, in the middle of the second stint, I don’t know if they decided to push or not, but they were also much faster than everyone else,” said Vasseur. “I think they managed their pace in the first 10 laps of the second stint before the VSC, and when they decided to push, they were kilometers ahead. Clearly, they are a step ahead in quality, but much more than that in the rest. But humiliation, I’m not going to go that far with that.”