Vettel’s verdict: the “scary” part is Verstappen’s still getting better
Sebastian Vettel has seen this before. The four-time World Champion recognises the look of a driver hurtling into a season’s end with everything sharpened and nothing wasted — and he says Max Verstappen is that driver.
“He’s getting better,” Vettel said on the Beyond the Grid podcast, delivering the line with the ease of a man who’s been there, beaten everyone and felt the walls closing in anyway. “We know he’s good, but he’s still improving. He’s still hungry… the key ingredient is his head.”
It’s one thing to praise Verstappen’s speed. It’s quite another, with a World Championship on the line in Abu Dhabi, to call out his mind as the decisive weapon. According to Vettel, that’s the bit that should worry McLaren most.
The story arc has been pretty blunt. After the summer break, post-Zandvoort, Verstappen trailed Oscar Piastri by a canyon – 104 points. That’s usually lights out for title hopes. Yet here we are: the Red Bull driver rolls into Yas Marina just 12 points off the lead, with Lando Norris now the man at the top of the table and Piastri right behind him. It’s a three-way decider to close 2025 — and a potential all-timer if Verstappen completes the escape he’s engineered over the final third of the season.
Vettel’s warning lands because it’s rooted in his own experience. The German won four in a row during the Red Bull glory years and knows what a late-season groove feels like, the calm amid the chaos. And he’s adamant Verstappen has that same serenity when it counts.
“In the situations where it matters, he keeps his head,” Vettel added. “Hardly ever makes a mistake. Delivers when he needs to. He feels the pressure — we all do — but he’s able to put that aside and focus on what matters.”
That last bit also feeds into why Vettel believes Verstappen’s shoulders may be looser than his rivals’. He’s already climbed the mountain. Norris and Piastri haven’t — not yet.
“Yes,” Vettel said when asked if Max will feel less pressure than the McLaren pair. “The biggest relief for me came with the first one… you don’t need to prove to yourself that you can win a championship. In the position he’s in right now, being in the hunt, it’s like: just do everything perfect. If it works, it works. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t.”
It’s a deceptively simple framing for a finale loaded with small margins. Norris has been relentlessly consistent and quick enough under any lights; Piastri, punchy and unflappable, has turned peaks into points across the run-in. But form is loud, and Verstappen’s is deafening. The gap that was once a cliff is now a step.
There’s also the matter of execution across a weekend that offers no hiding. Yas Marina is a place where track evolution is huge, where communication and timing matter as much as traction out of Turn 7. A driver who can tidy up Q3, manage traffic, hit delta and resist the red mist is worth their weight. That’s the version of Verstappen Vettel is talking about — the one who turns pressure into process.
If Verstappen does nick this championship at the last, it will live in the pantheon for the nature of the swing alone. From 104 down to striking distance, against a McLaren package and driver line-up that’s been the benchmark for long stretches, is the sort of storyline that usually gets told in documentaries with ominous strings. But all of that needs a sunday to land. And if Abu Dhabi has taught us anything, it’s that finales have a way of writing their own chaos.
What’s clear is Vettel’s view from the grandstand of champions: Verstappen hasn’t peaked. The speed is there, the polish is there, and the mind — in Vettel’s words — is the difference. For McLaren, the job is to ignore the aura, hit their marks and make the maths irrelevant. For Verstappen, it’s to keep doing the simplest thing in the hardest moment: be inevitable.
Title picture at a glance
– Leader: Lando Norris
– Verstappen: 12 points back heading into Abu Dhabi
– Oscar Piastri: in the hunt as McLaren’s second bullet
However it falls, it’s one to savour. And if you trust a four-time World Champion’s radar, the most terrifying thing for the rest of them is that Max might only be warming up.
