Is Verstappen actually in the F1 2025 title fight?

Formula 1 may have a surprise third contender for its 2025 world title after Max Verstappen’s domination of the previous two grands prix compared to McLaren’s downfall.

The Red Bull driver won from pole in both Monza and Baku, marking the first time this year that McLaren had gone consecutive races without winning.

Its drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri respectively finished second and third in the Italian Grand Prix, before Norris only managed seventh in Azerbaijan compared to Piastri crashing on lap one. 

Piastri still leads the championship with a 25-point gap over Norris with seven rounds left, but now Verstappen is potentially in the mix.

The four-time world champion is 69 points off top and Norris, Piastri, plus McLaren team principal Andrea Stella have all refused to rule him out.

Verstappen’s capabilities are well known and it is only now that it seems as though he has a car capable of consistently fighting the MCL39.

So, does this translate into him now being a genuine threat in the title battle? Our writers have their say…

Verstappen’s chances are in McLaren’s own hands – Filip Cleeren

When Stella declared Verstappen as a title candidate on Saturday night, several journalists pressed the Italian on whether he was really serious about what he said, what with a 94-point deficit to overhaul in eight weekends.

That has now suddenly shrunk to 69 with seven left after another imperious drive from the reigning world champion, coupled with a mess of a weekend for McLaren.

That gap to Piastri should still be impossible to close given the intrinsic pace the McLaren has. It wasn’t as fast in Monza or Baku, but there are some high-downforce circuits coming up that have papaya written all over it, like Singapore, Qatar and arguably Mexico.

Even if Verstappen does take a fair share of wins on other circuits, then a couple of emphatic results for Piastri should be enough to stall the Dutchman’s momentum.

But that is really up to McLaren, as it still has its destiny in its own hands. Baku was exactly the kind of weekend that it cannot afford to repeat, with mistakes from both drivers, a slow pitstop and a car that wasn’t quite as performant as hoped.

Perhaps that’s why Stella was so keen to spell out Verstappen’s title credentials, a rallying call to the people in Woking not to get complacent. Yes, the constructors’ title is all but secure, yet against a resurgent Red Bull the squad cannot afford to let its drivers down, nor will Norris and Piastri just get their own way over the remaining rounds.

Verstappen is only in this if McLaren allows him to be.

Raikkonen’s turnaround of a comparable gap proves a Verstappen title tilt is possible – Jake Boxall-Legge 

Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari celebrates on the podium

Photo by: Sutton Images

From an existential point of view, it’s absolutely possible that Verstappen could deliver a comeback so seismic that both McLaren drivers would likely have to go into hiding for the winter. The odds aren’t high, but life does not cater to the bookies’ predictions. It’s also possible, mathematically, that George Russell could win it – the Mercedes man is fourth and 112 points behind Piastri. 

But we can also prove, mathematically, that there’s precedent for overcoming a similar disadvantage. This requires a bit of a lead-in, so bear with me.

With seven rounds to run, F1 has just over 29% of the season remaining. The maximum available points for any one driver is 199: seven grand prix wins totalling 175 points, plus the 24 points for winning the three sprints. Verstappen’s gap to Piastri is currently 69 points, which equates to 34% of the maximum score available. 

Let’s compare that to another title win from behind: Kimi Raikkonen in 2007. The comparable 29% (ish, actually 29.4%) mark corresponds to the point where there were five races left in a 17-race calendar. Raikkonen was 16 points behind Lewis Hamilton, a gap that seems tiny today, but more chasm-like in the old 10-points-for-a-win system. There were 50 points remaining, so Raikkonen’s deficit was worth 32% of the maximum score available. Now, that 2% swing between both percentages might correspond to Raikkonen’s single-point advantage versus the McLaren duo of the time, and it does demonstrate that Verstappen has a more arduous task ahead of him to recapture the deficit.

This data should be taken with more than a soupcon of salt, since it very much plays to the modern discipline of cherry-picking numbers to prove a point. The point is that comparable gaps have been closed down and reversed. And Verstappen can do so, if the McLarens continue to trip over walls, each other, or similar hurdles of its own design.

Raikkonen’s title is still fresh in mind proving stranger things have happened – Stuart Codling

F1 Racing 2007

Photo by: F1 Racing magazine

I recall well being on the staff of F1 Racing magazine in 2007, trying to wrangle the permutations of the drivers’ championship over the final months of the year into compelling covers that wouldn’t end up drastically out of date during each issue’s shelf life. Tricky when a decisive race is happening as you go to press. 

For the October issue we had four different versions of the cover depending on the outcome of the Belgian GP. Even then it was a long night labouring over PDF proofs of the news and ‘reaction feature’ section with one bar of wifi signal in a Spa B&B. Next time out it was a bit more straightforward, or so we thought. Kimi Raikkonen was seen as the outsider – handy for our graphic designers, since the Kimster was notoriously camera-shy so we had no suitably high-resolution of his fizzog to splash him on the cover anyway…

Oh.

The tumultuous events of the Brazilian GP forced a very last-minute change of plan, shoehorning a 35mm film image of Kimi into a ‘strap’ across a cover which had a portrait of Lewis Hamilton as the much more prominent element. Your humble scribe was charged with the task of composing a six-page feature to justify the new cover line: “Hamilton on Brazil: Defeat will only make me stronger”.

Not only that, the same feature was sold in the contents section as “THE ICEMAN COMETH… Exclusive analysis: How Kimi beat the odds to finish the season as world champion”.

With the magic of sidebars and other page furniture, it just about ticked both boxes. Sourcing imagery of Kimi that would stand up on a cover was a challenge which would vex the magazine trade for another decade and a bit.

And of course, Raikkonen isn’t alone as a Ferrari world champion who swept into contention against expectation. Different era, different number of races in the calendar, different points rubric, but at mid-season in 1964 John Surtees was a distant seventh in the world championship, behind the likes of Richie Ginther and Peter Arundell…

Baku was a blip, McLaren has got this – Ed Hardy

Race winner Oscar Piastri, McLaren

Photo by: Erik Junius

There has been a lot of talk from my colleagues about how stranger things have happened, how Raikkonen proved you cannot write anybody off and how that ‘anybody’ in this instance is F1’s best driver.

That is all true, but come on guys, two races doesn’t make a season. Short-term memory is a problem in today’s society as people love to ignore months, if not years, of data, and only react to recent events thinking they are gospel.

Apparently, Yuki Tsunoda is no longer F1 standard due to one bad season, Nyck de Vries was touted as a future Red Bull driver just because he landed an AlphaTauri seat after that one race in Monza, while two rounds ago many were saying Piastri has it all wrapped up following Norris’ retirement in Zandvoort.

My point is, not once this campaign has McLaren or its drivers shown they are capable of suddenly dropping so many points across very few rounds. Baku was poor from both of them, but it was only the second time in 2025 that the championship-leading outfit hasn’t finished on the podium – Canada being the other.

And Verstappen kind of needs McLaren to finish off the podium in most races to keep his hope alive. Yet, Piastri and Norris are solid enough to remain consistent for the rest of the year to deny that from happening. As Fil also said, many of the tracks left suit McLaren well, so how on earth will either of its drivers let this golden opportunity slip?