McLaren Racing heads into Sunday's Singapore Grand Prix as Formula 1's hot new darlings, the papaya-drenched team that just may be the ones to finally dethrone Red Bull and Max Verstappen.
Red Bull and its Dutch driver have had ironclad grips on both the drivers championship, and, the more lucrative constructors title for best car, since Verstappen won his first title in 2021. Verstappen now has three consecutive titles and leads the driver standings; Red Bull has back-to-back constructors titles but, headed into the weekend, no longer leads the standings.
McLaren took the top spot with Oscar Piastri's win last Sunday. Coupled with Lando Norris' fourth-place finish, McLaren is now the constructors leader for the first time since 2014. McLaren last won the constructors' championship in 1998.
McLaren starts the weekend in Singapore with a 20-point lead over Red Bull, which had led the carmaker competition since 2022.
"I think we've got as good a shot as anyone," Zak Brown, the chief executive of McLaren, boldly declared Sunday at IndyCar's season-ending race.
