Verstappen still in title fight!

By Darian Lee Crowley

How Verstappen can be the 2025 World Champion

After back-to-back wins and a miserable Baku weekend for McLaren, there is hope for Team Verstappen that a miracle may happen.

For Max to win the championship, though, he’ll need more wins and more problems for Piastri, who had gone two years without a DNF before Baku.

With 7 races to go, including 3 sprint weekends, the championship looks like this.

1. Piastri-324
2. Norris-299 (+25)
3. Verstappen-255 (+69)

For Verstappen to catch both McLarens at the Abu Dhabi Finale, he would need to gain an average of 6.3 points over Lando Norris and 9.9 points over Oscar Piastri every weekend.

That might seem more manageable, with the Red Bull upgrades, sprint weekends offering more points, and the internal battle at McLaren for the No. 1 status.

However, to keep gaining about 10 points on Piastri for 7 races is very difficult. Verstappen may need to win every race if McLaren don’t experience too many problems, and even that might not be enough.

Despite the recent wins, the RB21 has proven unpredictable in performance at certain races this year, which has seen Verstappen off the podium many times.

McLaren’s biggest advantage over Red Bull is their tyre wear. Verstappen has struggled with the pace of the McLaren drivers with higher tire wear.

All of Verstappen’s wins have come in 1-stop low tyre wear races (except Imola due to a late safety car). As recently as Zandvoort, Verstappen was no match for both McLarens, as he lapped 1 second off the pace during long stints.

Looking back on the season so far, it would be pretty remarkable if Verstappen could win 6 or even all 7 of the remaining races.

Last year, it was a role reversal, with Verstappen having a large championship lead over the gaining Lando Norris. Norris needed to gain points every weekend and seemed as though he had a chance until Verstappen’s drive at the Sao Paulo GP.

That’s the difficulty for Verstappen. One bad weekend for him and a strong one for Piastri puts the championship out of reach, and that’s why it will be so hard for the Dutchman to match Michael Schumacher’s record of 5 in a row.