Max Verstappen looks back on the 2025 season, narrowly missing out on the championship by just 2 points after an incredible comeback. He spoke about the inherited issues of the RB21 from the 2024 car, as well as the dramatic finale, noting that he remained in contention mainly due to McLaren’s driver management and the double disqualification in Las Vegas.
The four-time world champion was extremely close to claiming his fifth F1 title. Despite clawing back from a 104-point deficit to finish just 2 points shy of the crown, Max Verstappen believes there’s little to complain about. The season began with a challenging RB21, carrying over mid-corner problems from the heavily revised RB20. Every adjustment to fix one issue often caused another, especially at the rear of the car.
“I realized it was going to be a tough year right from winter testing because the car behaved just like the previous one. It was still understeering mid-corner. If you tried to fix it, you lost stability at the rear. We tried so many things during testing. And yes, tailwind made it a complete disaster. It was really tough. Then you saw what the McLarens could do on long runs—they were running full load and you were at least half a second behind them,” Max explained.
“In the end, you never know how things will go or how other teams will develop. But we had already seen a very strong McLaren last year. The second half of the season was tough, so we knew that to win the title again we’d need to find something extra. Otherwise, it would have been very complicated.”
Max quickly understood that the season would be difficult. At one point, he even thought he might only win three races after dominating in previous years. In the end, he claimed eight victories.
“At a certain point, I thought I could win maybe three races all season. Improving took a lot of time. I never imagined I’d be fighting for the title—it never crossed my mind.”
“I think we can be happy we were able to compete. First of all, we were never leading the championship. We also received a lot of gifts. And the title wasn’t lost in Barcelona. You need to focus on where you had the chance to compete. That’s how you should look at it. And yes, there are always moments—you know, I got rear-ended in Austria. But we also had so many problems in other races before that. Even mistakes in pit stops. Weekends where nothing went right. So looking back, there’s a lot we could have done better.”
Max Verstappen has always been realistic. He knows that without McLaren’s internal rivalry—including the so-called Papaya Rules—and the double disqualification in Las Vegas, he would never have reached Abu Dhabi still in contention for the title.
“In the end, in Las Vegas, I won that race. And then McLaren got disqualified; otherwise, we wouldn’t even have been in the race. It depends on how you look at it. You can see it from an English perspective or a Dutch perspective. Of course, they had the second half, because they had two drivers, so they sacrificed some things in their strategy. Naturally, we benefited from that too.”
“And then, in the end, it’s just two points… It doesn’t matter if it’s one point, half a point, twenty points. Not winning is not winning. You’re either pregnant or you’re not—you can’t be halfway, right?”
Fans admire his no-excuses attitude. Max Verstappen knows gifts and rival mistakes extended the fight, but extracting those victories from a tricky car showcased his class. The off-season will focus on fixes, with eyes already on reclaiming the top spot in a new era.
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