Max Verstappen was undoubtedly the star of the second half of the 2025 season. The Dutchman provided Formula 1 fans with a spectacular championship finale, fighting his way back into a Drivers’ Title race that—at the time of the summer break—seemed completely out of reach. In the end, by a razor-thin margin of just two points, the Red Bull driver’s incredible comeback wasn’t quite enough to secure his fifth consecutive World Championship.
During the final 10 Grands Prix of the season, those held after the summer holidays, Max Verstappen set a very peculiar record: he became the first driver in F1 history to achieve at least ten consecutive podiums without winning the title. From his home race in Zandvoort all the way to the grand finale in Abu Dhabi, Max never once finished outside the top three, racking up six victories, two second-place finishes, and two third-place finishes.
A bittersweet achievement in the history books
In the long history of Formula 1, there have only been seven other instances where a driver reached double figures for consecutive podiums, though these streaks almost always spanned across two different seasons. The absolute record belongs to Michael Schumacher, who secured 19 consecutive podiums between the 2001 US Grand Prix and the 2002 Japanese Grand Prix. Other names on this elite list include Lewis Hamilton (who features twice with streaks of 16 and 10), Fernando Alonso (15), and Sebastian Vettel (two separate streaks of 11 podiums each).
Verstappen himself had already achieved a similar feat between 2022 and 2023, putting together a run of 15 consecutive podiums starting from Abu Dhabi 2022 and ending at Monza 2023. However, among all the legendary names mentioned, only Sebastian Vettel in 2013 had managed to secure such a long string of podiums entirely within a single calendar year.
The sting in the tail for the Red Bull ace is that in every previous instance, the driver behind such a streak went on to be crowned World Champion. In fact, in every case where the sequence of podiums crossed over two seasons, the driver won the title in both of those years. While the 2025 crown slipped through his fingers, Verstappen can take solace in his staggering career statistics: the Dutchman has finished in the top three in over 54% of the races he has ever started. Among those who have collected at least 36 F1 podiums, no one else can boast such dominant numbers.
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