Drivers’ Championship
max verstappen The latest accusation has thrown the battle for the 2025 Formula 1 World Championship wide open.
The defending world champion’s United States Grand Prix dominance, winning both the sprint and the main race, has reduced the deficit. oscar piastri Up to 40 marks.
During this time, lando norris Also closing the gap on the championship leader with just 14 points mclaren Team mates.
With five rounds still to go, including sprint races in Brazil and Qatar, our writers have their own take on who will win the drivers’ world title.
Norris: He’s doing all the right things – Oleg Karpov
lando norris, mclaren
Photo by: Kim Illman/Getty Images
Lando Norris has been criticized a lot this year for losing points and failing to maximize his opportunities to take advantage of his rivals’ mistakes. Canada comes to mind, where a bad decision following contact with Oscar Piastri led to a DNF, as well as China Sprint Qualifying, where an error on his final attempt proved costly.
However, as of late, Norris has possibly been as strong as we have seen. He didn’t make a big profit on Piastri in Baku – but you could argue that he was also wise not to take unnecessary risks. Any over-optimistic move in search of a big swing on your teammate could mean another DNF; Staying on the safe side was probably the right decision.
Since retiring from the Dutch GP, he has clearly been the stronger McLaren driver – outshining the team-mate who just a few weeks ago looked like his only title rival. After a disappointing Singapore qualifying, he made the most of raceday and took the only realistic start by overtaking Piastri on lap one – a move that should have been applauded, not talked about in ‘results’. This is exactly what you want from a title contender, and it’s absurd that he’s now getting fined for it.
Same story in Austin. McLaren was certainly very cautious on strategy, starting on medium rather than soft, yet Norris drove close to the maximum from that position. Some people say he could have attacked charles leclerc It was tough in the beginning, but his risk management seemed perfect in that fight. Competing with someone who has a slim chance of losing is difficult – Norris handled it well and kept it up when the opportunity arose.
That’s probably what it should have done all year – leave a little more margin, including in China and Canada.
He now trails Piastri by 14 points in the standings, with five rounds left so the playbook is simple: keep doing the same. Verstappen is right there in the mirror, but he still needs an almost perfect race to the flag – and there are tracks to come where McLaren should be stronger.
Ironically, the Zandvoort DNF may have helped reset Norris – while Piastri scored a big point, he looked less cool. Both remain serious contenders, but recent evidence suggests that Norris knows exactly what he is doing.
Verstappen: Piastri and Norris have more to prove than Dutch driver Philipp Klerken
lando norris, mclaren, max verstappen, red bull racing
Photo by: Clive Mason/Getty Images
I’m not a big believer in speed. This is one of those concepts that tempts you to exaggerate. In the summer, Red Bull died and was buried. Now that Verstappen has been the dominant driver in the last four races, this is his title loss. The difference in F1 is so small that nuances matter, and the world could look very different again on Sunday night.
Having said that, despite the points deficit, there are more reasons to put Verstappen ahead as the favorite than the McLaren driver.
If all else is equal, the biggest factor for me is experience. Verstappen has been there before – four times no less – including facing defeat in 2021. It’s easy to forget, but that memorable title fight Lewis Hamilton This was already Verstappen’s seventh season in F1.
Norris should also have plenty of experience by now, although he may not be able to rely on the assurance of already being world champion. But we’re also quick to gloss over the fact that points leader Piastri is still only in his third season.
So, Verstappen will have the advantage if, as I said, everything else is equal. but it’s not like that. He and Red Bull have shown that they can win on most circuits now, and if you look at the remaining five places I would actually put McLaren down as the favorite for the medium-speed twists and turns of Qatar.
Las Vegas is not going to be a happy hunting ground for McLaren, although Verstappen could also be beaten there again by Mercedes. george russell Mexico doesn’t have more corners than McLaren, while Brazil and Abu Dhabi are too close to call right now. I can see Verstappen winning at least three races while Norris and Piastri will keep taking points from each other.
I still think Piastri can do it if he can find an answer to Austin’s problems, and Norris has been performing strongly the last two races. But neither can afford any more slip-ups and as the heat heats up, they’ll have to prove to the world that they can do it. Verstappen already has plenty of times.
Piastri: Power is still in Australian hands – Owen Bellwood
oscar piastri, mclaren
Photo by: Jack Mauger/LAT Images via Getty Images
It cannot be denied that Max Verstappen and Red Bull have performed very impressively in recent times. Three wins from four races and the momentum this kind of momentum brings is not to be sniffed at – and given the start of the season it is the sign of a true champion. But I still don’t think it’s enough to overcome McLaren.
Certainly, the Papaya team has faltered in recent weeks, with its drivers clashing and results not matching the impressive form it showed earlier in the season. However, the likelihood of both Verstappen’s results and McLaren’s struggles continuing seems like a long shot.
McLaren’s Oscar Piastri still leads the standings and has a 14-point buffer over his teammate Lando Norris, with Verstappen 26 points behind Norris. When this is written,
That doesn’t seem like a big margin to overcome – especially considering that the Dutchman had already reduced that lead to triple figures a few races ago.
But McLaren knows this, and knows that if it messes up it is going to lose the title. If the team can find their footing once again and Piastri can regain his cool, calm and formidable demeanor, then doing the double this year and claiming the Constructors’ and Drivers’ crowns should not be too much of a ask. All the team needs to do is manage the growing tension between Piastri and Norris, prevent the pair from taking points from each other, and avoid any silly mistakes that open the door for Verstappen.
Then no big deal.
Verstappen: Max will win it unless McLaren makes final breakthrough – Jake Boxall-Legge
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Andrew Ferraro/LAT Images via Getty Images
Mexico, Sao Paulo, Las Vegas, Qatar, Abu Dhabi. Just five places remain for the circus of Formula 1 before we can take some rest and hibernate until the end of January.
I’m not just wishing you luck this year: each of those five venues offers very different circuits with very different characteristics. Next weekend we get the fast-paced, high-altitude Mexico City venue, followed by the more compact and rain-prone Sao Paulo. Las Vegas, again, is a very different prospect, with its cooler weather and less grip surface, followed by the abundance of medium-speed corners in Qatar and the stop-start DRS-fest in Abu Dhabi.
Before the US GP, one might have suspected that Verstappen would take some points from the McLarens in Mexico and Brazil, followed by a mercedes The cold-track special in Vegas then concluded with McLaren’s final triumph at F1’s final Middle Eastern stage. But the bottom line here is this: Verstappen could very realistically win them all.
The Dutchman’s performance at the Circuit of the Americas demonstrated that McLaren’s previous ability at medium speeds was no longer as advantageous as it had been during most of the season. Meanwhile, Red Bull have polished their diamond and forced their RB21 to deliver consistent results.
So, the question F1 people and followers should be asking is not “Can Verstappen win the title?” – It’s “How can McLaren stop him from winning it?.
It’s up to you, McLaren.
Verstappen: Red Bull has the pace while McLaren is sitting on its hands – Stuart Codding
max verstappen, red bull racing, oscar piastri, mclaren, lando norris, mclaren
Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool
It is always unwise to draw conclusions from a limited sample set, but given recent developments we can perhaps make an exception.
McLaren has had the advantage of having a car at most, if not all, of the circuits it has visited this year, which has enabled it to implement its policy of allowing its drivers to race. Or, rather, (i) given the assumption (i) that it might. What has happened is that the points have remained in the table and now the team is having to suffer the consequences.
This is very foresight. McLaren can still salvage the situation but the most logical course of action now is to consider putting their weight behind at least one driver. Given the growing threat, saying he will wait and let the mathematics decide is not proactive enough.
It would be easy to minimize the threat posed by Red Bull and Max Verstappen depending on your viewpoint, but it would be tempting to dismiss their recent turnaround as a random statistical cluster. While it is becoming clear that the most recent new floor upgrades since Monza have enabled Red Bull to run the RB21 at more advantageous ride heights while reducing the amount of rear plank wear. This is not a statistical group, this is a game changer.
As shown by all but one race this year – an expensive moment of madness in Spain – Verstappen will always find a way to extract the maximum available performance from his car. After the sprint race in Austin, if he won every remaining race of the season and Oscar Piastri finished second in all of them, Piastri would still win the World Championship.
The mathematics is developing differently now, and not just because Piastri has now had two consecutive weekends in which he has been underwhelming by his own standards. On a normal weekend he starts slower than Lando Norris, but peaks in the third quarter at the right time, then completes it on race day. He didn’t seem to be even close to that trajectory in Austin.
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella comes from an engineering background, so it makes sense that his approach would be to recognize that every performance factor can be predicted and managed to some extent. But motorsport, while technical, is also organic in the way races evolve along unpredictable lines.
There are difficult choices ahead for McLaren that can’t be solved by resorting to graphs and spreadsheets. It’s a question of which driver the team trusts the most. Pick one, and support him, otherwise Verstappen will be served a plate of Madeleine de Prost (1986).
