Max Verstappen faces rare slump: three straight races off the podium for first time since 2019. Max Verstappen finished fourth at the 2025 Belgian Grand Prix.

At the 2025 Belgian Grand Prix held at the iconic Spa-Francorchamps circuit, reigning Formula 1 World Champion Max Verstappen finished in fourth place, behind the two McLaren cars and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. Max Verstappen had started the weekend strong by winning the Sprint race on Saturday, but he was unable to replicate that success on Sunday’s main event, marking his third consecutive Grand Prix without a podium finish. This statistic is particularly notable considering Verstappen’s dominant presence on the grid over the past several years.

Since winning his first World Championship title in 2021, Max Verstappen had never gone more than two consecutive races without finishing inside the top three. Even during the second half of the 2024 season — when Red Bull Racing’s performance started to decline compared to their main rivals — Verstappen’s worst streak of podium misses was limited to two consecutive race weekends.

The Last Time: Six Years Ago in 2019

To find a similar sequence of three consecutive races without a podium finish for Verstappen, one must look back to 2019 — a completely different era in Formula 1 history. During that season, Max Verstappen had a fourth-place finish in Sochi, a retirement at Suzuka, and a sixth place in Mexico City. Interestingly, these results closely resemble what he has experienced in the recent three races of 2025: a retirement in Austria, fifth place in Great Britain, and fourth place in Belgium.

Looking ahead, Max Verstappen will aim to break this negative streak at the Hungarian Grand Prix, a circuit that holds special significance for him. It was there in 2019 that Verstappen secured his first-ever Formula 1 pole position, marking a milestone early in his career.

If this sequence of races without a podium were to extend to four consecutive events, the comparison would take us even further back in time — all the way to the opening four races of the 2018 season. That period was arguably one of the most challenging stretches in Max Verstappen’s career, when the young Dutch driver faced numerous setbacks before eventually rising to become a multiple World Champion.

As the 2025 season progresses, Verstappen and the Red Bull Racing team will be focused on regaining their dominant form and returning to the top step of the podium to end this rare downturn in performance.