The tides of the F1 2025 championship took a dramatic turn on Lap 65 of the Dutch Grand Prix when smoke erupted from the Mercedes power unit of Lando Norris’ McLaren. Within moments, the championship contender had abandoned his car, clutching his head in his hands as he watched the end of the race from the foot of a sand dune.
With teammate Oscar Piastri carrying his own MCL39 through to a seventh victory of the year, the points gap between the title rivals increased to 34 points with nine races to go. And it begged the question: Have we just witnessed the defining moment of the F1 2025 championship?
McLaren at the Dutch GP: A tale of two results
A glance at the timing charts throughout practice for the Dutch Grand Prix would have suggested a very clear story: Lando Norris of McLaren seemed set to carry his winning streak through the summer break and into the final 10 races of the F1 2025 season, seeing he’d topped each practice session in Zandvoort.
Then came qualifying, and the tides turned. Oscar Piastri snagged pole position by a slim 0.012-second margin. At the race start, the Australian held that pole position advantage to lead into the first corner, while Norris had to do battle with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who had snuck into second at the dimming of the lights.
Yet the field soon sorted itself out. Piastri held the lead, and Norris worked his way back up to second. The Briton wasn’t able to carve down the gap by any appreciable amount, and it seemed likely that the duo would notch yet another one-two, with Piastri leading Norris across the line. though truth is, we’ll never know if a late challenge was on the cars.
That’s because, on Lap 65 of 72, smoke began pouring out of Norris’ cockpit, with the driver reporting “failure.”
He pulled off the road, parked the car, and climbed from the cockpit. Lando Norris’ Dutch Grand Prix was over, the result of an oil leak.
“Sorry, mate,” came the call from race engineer Will Joseph. “Mate, you fast today, you were really fast.”
“Doesn’t matter,” was the response from a defeated Norris.
“I know. But you were fast,” Joseph replied.
“I know, I know.” Norris sighed. “Unlucky, boys. Unlucky.”
Within moments, Norris went from podium contention to out of the race. Worse, the title gap had widened sharply. What could have been a two point deficit, if he’d managed to pass Piastri late on, had instead blown out to 34 points.
More McLaren analysis from the F1 2025 Dutch Grand Prix:
👉 Uncovered: McLaren deploy update tactic for Dutch GP performance gains
👉 Data highlights incredible details of Oscar Piastri pole lap in Zandvoort
The cost of a failure in F1 2025
In modern motorsport, the cost of failure is higher than it’s ever been. In this final year of this regulatory era, margins are slim, and at a team like McLaren, drivers are not only evenly matched but also handled with the same amount of respect.
One failure, then, could be decisive — not just for the on-track problems, but for the repercussions in coming events.
Andrea Stella, McLaren team principal, has stated that the team doesn’t know yet what went wrong, and that “it would be unfair to speculate whether it was a chassis problem or an engine problem.” If it is an engine issue, though, Norris will have an uphill battle ahead of him.
F1 drivers have four combustion engines within their pool per the 2025 regulations; anything beyond that requires a driver take a grid penalty. Should Norris have lost one of those it does not automatically mean he’ll pick up a penalty, he has others in his pool he could use, but it also increases the potential for the need to add a new element at some point – and that would come with a penalty.
It’s also critical to consider the emotional or mental toll this kind of failure can cause.
Norris wears his heart on his sleeve. He is open and honest about his emotions, and feels them deeply. While plenty of pundits have speculated that Norris’ emotions will be his undoing, it’s more likely that it will simply serve as a bump in the road — but it is entirely reasonable to imagine that Norris is going to be nursing this pain as we head into Monza.
Yet the pressure of the incoming F1 2026 regulatory change is great. Norris and Piastri aren’t just battling for a title; they’re in the midst of a race against time, desperate to secure their spot in the history books before the incoming season inevitably shakes up the running order. This could be their only shot a word championship. The pressure is immense.
“I think today we experienced the two sides of motorsport,” McLaren team principal Andrea Stella told Sky Sports after the race.
“We have the joy and satisfaction of another victory. And on the opposite side we have the disappointment and the pain for a retirement. Lando was in the mix to win the race.
“But this is modern racing.”
Has the F1 2025 championship been decided?
Every truly great Formula 1 season had a turning point. In 2016, it was the collision between Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton at the Spanish Grand Prix. In 2021, the aborted Belgian Grand Prix left many wondering what would have happened at the title decider had the field been allowed to compete — or had no points been awarded.
Lando Norris’ retirement from the Dutch Grand Prix could be one of those moments.
Adding 25 points to the nine-point lead Piastri held coming into the weekend has created the largest gap between first and second in the drivers’ championship standings that we’ve seen so far this year, with just nine grands prix remaining in the season.
If McLaren continues its one-two run, albeit with Norris winning each race, it will take five events for the Briton to reassume the championship lead with a gap of just one point. It’s not glamorous, but it’s certainly the state of play in modern motorsport.
That doesn’t mean the title has been decided by any means, because in Formula 1, anything can happen. If there’s was a weakness in Norris’ Mercedes power unit, it could equally easily emerge in Piastri’s machine, turning the tides at a later date in the season.
Yet it’s also entirely possible that that failure never comes — or that it emerges in a less decisive session than the race.
Piastri has the momentum heading into the Italian Grand Prix, and it’ll take hard work from his teammate to whittle that gap away and move into the lead of the championship.
The Australian racer cannot rest easy, even for a moment. But it’s quite possible that we’ve just witnessed the defining moment of the F1 2025 season.
Read next: Dutch GP: Piastri clinches Zandvoort win as Norris retires, Ferrari suffers double DNF