After what he called a “perfect” weekend in Austin, Max Verstappen admitted his championship chances look increasingly realistic.
He has gained an astonishing amount of ground on the championship-leading McLaren pair since the summer break. He may still be 40 points behind Oscar Piastri and 26 behind Lando Norris but the bookmakers now have him a close second favourite for the title behind the leading McLaren driver.
It’s been a remarkable turnaround for the driver who was over 100 points – more than four grand prix wins – off the points lead after his home race at the end of August.
Former Red Bull team principal Christian Horner called Verstappen’s championship hopes “unrealistic” when he was taken out by Andrea Kimi Antonelli in the Austrian Grand Prix and dropped 61 points off the lead with 13 rounds to go. But it only got worse after that.
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In Belgium Verstappen recorded his third consecutive finish off the podium – his worst run for six years. But Red Bull’s nadir in terms of performance came at the Hungarian Grand Prix, less than three months ago.
At the Hungaroring Verstappen could only qualify eighth on the grid and, shockingly, fell to ninth in the race, losing a position to Liam Lawson. His deficit to Piastri peaked when he followed the McLaren driver home in the next race.
After the Dutch Grand Prix Piastri’s lead over Verstappen stood at 104 points and the Red Bull driver’s title chances were hardly being discussed by anyone. Instead, Norris’s retirement from second place due to a technical problem convinced many that Piastri, now 34 points ahead of his team mate, was cruising for an early coronation.
Verstappen’s progress since then has been nothing less than phenomenal. Monza was a shock result: Red Bull simply dominated. He won as he pleased in Baku, too, and reaped the benefit of a dire weekend for McLaren in Azerbaijan.
Still, he remained 69 points adrift of Piastri. “Basically, everything needs to go perfect from my side, and then a bit of luck from their side I need as well,” Verstappen reckoned. “So it’s still very tough.”
If McLaren hoped a return to high-downforce tracks would play into their hands, it wasn’t the case in Singapore. Verstappen out-scored them again and was only denied a maximum score by an unexpectedly in-form Mercedes (and potentially some cunning tactics by Norris in qualifying).
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Last weekend Verstappen got the extra dose of luck he was looking for. The McLaren drivers were eliminated on the first lap of the sprint race, which not only cost drivers points, but robbed them of running on a weekend when practice was limited. Norris salvaged second place behind Verstappen in the grand prix but Piastri struggled to fifth.
Over the past four rounds, Verstappen’s results have looked less like the early stages of this season and more like his dominant 2023 campaign. Over the past five races (including the Austin sprint race) he has four pole positions, four wins and a second place.
Most importantly, he has finished ahead of the McLaren drivers every time. This is why his championship chances now look so strong.
Verstappen is not quite at the point where he would definitely win the championship if he takes victory in all seven remaining races (including sprint races). In that scenario, second place for Piastri every time would secure him the title by three points.
But while Verstappen looks quite capable of winning all the remaining races, Piastri has hit a rough patch lately. He may still be ahead of Norris in the points but his team mate has finished ahead of him more often than not this year. And over the last six races where both cars finished, Norris was ahead on five occasions.
Verstappen knows he cannot afford any missteps over the remaining races. “We need to be perfect ’til the end to have a chance, so that’s what we just need to focus on,” he said after yesterday’s race.
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“It’s super close and just attention to detail will make the difference: trying to get the best set-up on the car every weekend and then try not to make mistakes. So that’s what we’ll try to do.”
It would be an exaggeration to call Verstappen the championship favourite now. But based on what we’ve seen after the summer break, if he can sustain his current rate of progress, he has an undeniably strong chance to win a fifth consecutive title.
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