Sometimes in sport you get a reversal that makes everyone wonder what might be possible. This weekend’s flawless performance by Max Verstappen, while McLaren laboured, was just such a moment.
Now some bookmakers have Verstappen as a join favourite for the world championship, when a month ago we were all saying that 104 points was too big a gap to bridge.
Verstappen has had three wins and a second place from the last four races, cutting 64 points out of Piastri’s championship lead, which had seemed insurmountable at the end of August. If he carries on like this and McLaren don’t respond, he can win his fifth world championship in December.
This was a sensational result for the drivers’ standings with just five rounds to go. Verstappen won the sprint and grand prix in Austin, both from pole position. Championship leader Oscar Piastri crashed out with McLaren team-mate Lando Norris in the sprint and finished a distant fifth in the grand prix. Norris at least managed to salvage second place on Sunday.
The Red Bull engineering team has unlocked the potential from the car since Laurent Mekies became team principal. He’s also an experienced engineer. It cannot be said the Red Bull is now the fastest car in the field, as his team-mate Tsunoda is seven tenths off the pace and not even close to finishing on the podium alongside him. But in Verstappen’s hands it is the fastest.
Part of unlocking the ‘ultra-performance’ from the car is logical, data-driven work, the kind engineers earn their money for. But in F1 the human side is always equally important. What Mekies has been able to do quickly since taking over in July is get the engineering team working in the same direction, where previously there were tensions and a blame culture. It is similar to what Andrea Stella, another engineer turned team principal, did at McLaren two years ago.
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, Laurent Mekies, Red Bull Racing Team Principal
Photo by: Zak Mauger / LAT Images via Getty Images
Now it’s getting tougher for McLaren and their team spirit is being severely tested. I was in Austin and the mood is tense in the camp, while Red Bull has got its swagger back, pumping out tunes on their garage stereo as the mechanics work into the evening, like the old times.
The car now gives Verstappen what he needs everywhere; high downforce tracks, low downforce and street circuits.
What we are seeing is a driver and team combination that is ‘in the zone’. It’s almost inevitable that he’ll grab pole, win the start and control the race. He and his team are used to winning and they are up against a squad that hasn’t won the drivers’ championship since 2008.
The year before that memorable success with Lewis Hamilton, came a moment of acute pain for McLaren, which is instructive when we look at how this year’s championship is developing.
Hamilton and Fernando Alonso were McLaren team-mates and Kimi Raikkonen was at Ferrari. There was a great deal of other distraction for McLaren that year with the Spygate scandal, tensions between team boss Ron Dennis and Alonso and between Dennis and FIA president Max Mosley. There was also an unwillingness to prioritise one driver for the title. I was commentating for ITV Sport at the time and it was incredibly tense and exciting in the closing rounds.
Raikkonen came from a long way back and clinched the drivers’ title by winning the final two races.
It is an episode which still haunts McLaren, even though many people in the team were not there then. The team must regroup this weekend in Mexico and take back control of the championship. If Verstappen wins again, the calls for McLaren to prioritise one of its drivers for the title will grow deafening. McLaren really do not want to do this, but admit that they have not ruled it out.
Like a slow burn grand prix that comes alive the last few laps, this championship is now truly on fire.
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– The Autosport.com Team
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