McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has remarkably suggested that this season's crop of F1 drivers is the most competitive in the sport's history.
The suggestion followed Stella's analysis of the performance of his drivers, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, in qualifying for the São Paulo Grand Prix.
It also followed the fact that the top 10 on the grid for the 71-lap race at Interlagos was covered by just 0.528s, the closest field ever in F1.
On the current grid, there are three world champions - Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton, and Max Verstappen, with half of the field having won a grand prix, and a further five drivers having finished on the podium at least once in their career, including four during the 2025 season.
Alpine is currently last in the constructors' with 22 points, but the Enstone team is set to become F1's best 'worst' team, with no team that has finished last in the constructors' ever scoring more than 20 points.
Analysing the closeness of the field, Stella detailed the strengths of the new generation of drivers, including the likes of Kimi Antonelli, who replaced Hamilton at Mercedes and Isack Hadjar, who is tipped for promotion to Red Bull to partner Verstappen after just a single season of grand prix racing.
"What we have seen this season in Formula 1, in terms of competitiveness - and this is something you may pick for a little bit of analysis - is that I don't recall there being such a competitive pool of drivers in any other season," Stella told media, including RacingNews365.
"The new generation of drivers, they are just so good. You have seven or eight drivers who are at a world championship [winning] level. Like I say, I'm not sure this has happened before.
"Potentially, this is because of how good the junior categories now are. These guys go karting, and they have the data. They train at a certain level when they are adolescents.
"This has made the competitive field extremely tight, and, therefore, the difference is in this last one per cent."
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