Johnny Herbert doesn’t see Max Verstappen retaining his crown this year — but he does expect him to shape how it’s won.
With 10 races left, Verstappen sits 97 points behind Oscar Piastri despite two victories in 2025, and Red Bull’s form has drifted away from McLaren’s in recent rounds. Four consecutive races without a podium tells the story. Even so, Herbert reckons the reigning champion will still be right in the middle of the title’s weekly calculus.
“For the championship, yes,” he told Formula1.com when asked if Verstappen can be ruled out of the fight. “He’ll be in the mix, he’ll be causing trouble for the others, and he’ll have an influence — because he’ll be taking points away potentially from the others.”
That’s the spoiler role: not the protagonist, but the character who keeps altering the plot. McLaren’s pace — and the Norris-Piastri points spread up front — has created a two-horse race, and Herbert isn’t betting on an internal meltdown to hand Red Bull a late lifeline. “There could be an implosion at McLaren, but I don’t think so,” he added. “Max is just going to be in the mix and he’s going to be causing them to think in a slightly different way, because they’re fighting for a championship while fighting Max.”
That’s the headache for McLaren: every strategy call, every undercut attempt, every fastest lap risk comes with the Verstappen variable attached. Even on weekends when he’s not a title threat, he can take the kind of points that swing momentum.
As for how the intra-team battle gets settled, Herbert points to what you can’t see on the timing screens — the mental game. He praised both McLaren drivers for the way they’ve carried a season at the front, but believes the deciding margin will be upstairs.
“It’s going to be down to the mentality of both of them,” he said, drawing a line from their development to the same arc we’ve watched from the greats. “They’re only going to get better as time goes by, like Max has done, like Lewis did, Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost, Michael Schumacher… they have that wonderful ability to find a way of moving up every time the performance of the car gets better. With all the little ups and downs they’ve had, they’re still very, very close overall. It’ll only be one over the other come the end of the year.”
So no, Herbert doesn’t see Verstappen as champion-in-waiting. But as the guy ready to pinch points and force decisions? Absolutely. And that might be enough to tilt the balance between papaya teammates when it matters most.
