McLaren still flying despite F1's version of Samson's haircut

The Spanish Grand Prix, the ninth round of the Formula One world championship, was, according to some people in the paddock who don't wear papaya orange shirts, the race at which McLaren were going to be found out.

- David Tremayne

When their super-flexible front and rear wings — supposedly the secret of their domination in 2024 and 2025 and their first world championship for constructors' success since 1998 — were going to be outlawed once and for all.

It was going to be the F1 equivalent of Samson's biblical haircut.

Except that it wasn't.

For the fifth time this season, Oscar Piastri put it across everyone else, increasing his world championship points lead to 10 after teammate Lando Norris' splendid success in Monaco had cut it to just three.

I remember a conversation that land speed record rivals Art Arfons and Craig Breedlove once had in the 60s when they met in Wendover, the little town just outside the Bonneville salt flats in Utah, where they raced their 965kmh jet-powered speed monsters.

"If you break my record, am I going to come back and then you come back and we keep going until one of us crashes?" Arfons asked. "So it'll be like a game of Russian Roulette?"

"Yeah, I guess so," Breedlove replied.

Arfons nodded. "Well, okay. I just wanted to know."