How will the Formula One Championship Turn Out ?

By Yahya Mahmoud

I was adamant that Max Verstappen didn’t have the car beneath him to challenge for the 2025 F1 World Championship. That was the case up until a couple of weeks ago, where Verstappen has gone five consecutive races on the podium for the first time since he went four podiums consecutively in the early part of 2024. In those five races where he’s stood on the podium, Max has won three of them plus a sprint race victory last time out in the USA.  

In hindsight, he's gaining on the top two in the drivers’ championship, Oscar Piastri on 346 points, and Lando Norris sitting on 332 points. Max’s now on 306 points which in turn makes it 40 points separating the top three in the drivers’ championship. With five races to go, Max Verstappen is within touching distance of taking his fifth straight world championship, and the first driver since Michael Schumacher in 2004 to go five straight drivers’ championships in succession.  

In the past five races, Max Verstappen has gained a total of 64 points on Oscar Piastri’s lead in the drivers’ championship. Over the past five races, out of a possible 133 points over those races, Max’s scored 119 of the total available points. But there’s a specific reason for this sudden change of performance by Verstappen and Red Bull. 

The 2025 Season began with Mclaren powering out of the gates, with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri winning the first five out of six races to lead Verstappen by 32 points and Mclaren ahead of Red Bull by a whopping 141 points. That is partially down to Lando and Oscar being on the podium in each of the first six races, while Verstappen had Liam Lawson and then Yuki Tsunoda struggling to come close to the top ten. By the end of the sixth race in Miami, it was an intra-team fight between the two Mclarens.  

Across the European season in the height of the summer, Lando and Oscar casually traded race wins between each other when the pair went four consecutive races, finishing first and second, Mclaren’s most one-twos since 1988. However when the F1 circus arrived in the Netherlands for the Dutch Grand Prix, it started to go downhill for the team in papaya. Towards the race’s conclusion the McLaren’s were casually leading first and second, on their way to their fifth one-two in a row, Oscar ahead of Lando. But Lando radioed into the team saying he smelt oil, and almost instantaneously his car suffered a mechanical failure. It was indeed an oil leak which sealed Lando’s fate in the Dutch Grand Prix. By this point, Max Verstappen was 104 points behind Oscar Piastri in the driver’s championship. 

 But the following week in Italy’s Monza Circuit, Red Bull took it up a notch, with Verstappen winning the race after leading much of the time and taking pole position. Mclaren didn’t have the overall pace to beat Verstappen but during that race, Mclaren were dealing with Papaya Rules, a code for, “You’re free to race, but be fair and clean to one another.”  

During the Italian Grand Prix, Oscar pitted for fresh tires on lap 46 with a time of 1.9 seconds stationary. This was to undercut Lando since before the pit stop, he was trailing Norris by four seconds. Lando then pits on lap 47, with the team struggling to fit the tires on his car, therefore he trailed his teammate. 

 Mclaren then orders Piastri to let Lando through to which Oscar was clearly vexed on the radio. In the next race in Azerbaijan, Mclaren had no pace whatsoever compared to Max who was dialled in compared to Mclaren. 

 It was even worse in qualifying, when Lando struggled to seventh on the grid, compared to Piastri who couldn’t even get a lap in the final session due to countless red flags and him crashing during the closing moments of the session. A massive blow there, but it gets worse. Mclaren struggled in the race as well, with Piastri getting anti-stalled on the start and eventually crashed out of the race on the first lap. Norris only managed to fight to seventh place while Verstappen cruised to victory.  

It just goes to show Mclaren’s losing out in the developmental race compared to Red Bull, but that’s mainly down to Mclaren focussing their development to the 2026 season, where new regulations will make all the difference between the 11 Formula One Team. But for Mclaren, if they keep this up, Max’ll take the title away from Mclaren, but if Mclaren change their ways in the next five races, then maybe, just maybe, Mclaren and either Lando or Oscar will win the 2025 Formula One Title for Mclaren. Only time will tell.