Max Verstappen’s 2025 Formula 1 championship campaign is increasingly complicated. The Red Bull driver now trails the championship leader by 49 points, with only three races and a Sprint Race remaining. The path to the title is not just uphill—it is becoming a steep climb. On multiple occasions this season, Verstappen has faced difficult weekends, often with a car that has struggled to match the pace of McLaren, with only a few exceptions.
Verstappen pays the price for a poorly developed Red Bull
The RB21 has certainly improved over the months, partly due to Woking’s slower development pace, which inadvertently helped McLaren. Verstappen may have been considered too far behind to truly challenge Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, but he still managed to put pressure on the two McLaren drivers, particularly the Australian, whose season has been disrupted by errors and a less-than-ideal relationship with the team.
Up to the Mexican Grand Prix, Verstappen remained technically competitive, although Red Bull’s upgrades on the RB21 clearly did not yield positive results. Starting from the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, the Dutch driver no longer had the same feeling with his car, a situation that continued in Brazil.
It appears that Milton Keynes may have overreached in their development, attempting to extract more potential from the car to challenge the superior McLaren. Unfortunately, ambition did not translate into results. The harsh reality of the Brazilian GP showed that even for Red Bull, introducing upgrades that genuinely improve performance in the 2025 F1 season is far from straightforward.
A heroic recovery in Brazil still falls short
At Interlagos, Verstappen executed a near-miraculous comeback from the pit lane to the podium. Despite this effort, he lost 13 points to Norris over the weekend, including the Sprint Race, leaving him far behind the British driver. Verstappen himself seems to have resigned to the reality, as he indicated in his post-race comments in Brazil.
Max: “Championship lost from Melbourne to Zandvoort”
Verstappen reflected: “We are now 49 points behind. This isn’t a championship lost in Brazil, or in this race—it was lost from the first race in Melbourne up to Zandvoort. There were many weekends where we simply weren’t fast enough, creating a significant gap. There were positive moments where we recovered some points, but not enough. That’s how a season goes.”
Looking ahead: Las Vegas, Qatar, Abu Dhabi
The next stage of the F1 championship takes the Circus to Nevada for the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the first of three consecutive races leading to Qatar and Abu Dhabi. This triple-header will be strategically challenging, testing teams’ ability to manage pressure. On paper, the RB21 could perform well in Las Vegas, but the Middle Eastern rounds are likely to be more difficult.
Verstappen added: “Will we be competitive there? The tracks are very different, so it’s hard to say for sure. We are still struggling a bit with tire management, so much will depend on the circuit layout and temperatures we encounter. We can get good results, but not always. That’s what we need to focus on, and what we will work on in the coming races.”
Title hopes shrinking as math becomes the reality
For perhaps the first time since the start of the 2025 season, Verstappen’s optimism seems to be fading. There are 83 points still available, but he trails the leader by 49 points, with Oscar Piastri also in between. To realistically challenge for the title, Max must hope for misfortunes for both McLaren drivers. This is not about jinxing them—it’s simply math and logic. While Max Verstappen is unlikely to give up, his championship ambitions are clearly diminishing.
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