Verstappen’s charge puts McLaren on notice — but he’s not buying the hype yet
Max Verstappen has kicked the championship door back open, and McLaren know it. Andrea Stella put it bluntly on the eve of the United States Grand Prix: “Max is Max, Red Bull is Red Bull.” No one in papaya ever thought the four-time champion was out of this fight.
The numbers back that up. Since Zandvoort, Verstappen has carved 49 points out of Oscar Piastri’s once-cushioned lead, trimming it from 104 to 55 across three grands prix and a Sprint. He’s also only 33 behind Lando Norris in second. And in Austin, he lines up ahead of both McLarens, with Norris on the front row and Piastri starting sixth for the 56-lap slog.
The twist? Verstappen isn’t exactly crowing about Red Bull’s pace.
“It’s very simple: if you keep winning, that’s a good thing,” he told Sky after bagging Sprint victory and pole in Austin. “But the pace wasn’t where I wanted it to be. If we’re going to win, we need to be stronger.” Later, in the press conference, he added he felt “a bit happier” with the car than in Friday qualifying — not exactly a victory parade, more a raised eyebrow.
Make no mistake, though: the momentum swing is real. Verstappen’s wins in Italy and Baku, plus Saturday’s Sprint in Austin, have dragged him from long shot to live contender. And Red Bull smell an opening.
“We’re still 55 points behind — that’s a lot,” said Helmut Marko to Sky Deutschland, before offering a neat bit of paddock arithmetic. “Internally, I calculated we would have to make up 15 points here in Austin. It looks like it could work out. The temperatures will be even warmer in the grand prix, so it will be crucial how you use the tyres.”
McLaren, fresh off sealing the Constructors’ title in Singapore, have dropped points in the same window. Piastri banked win number seven at Zandvoort, Norris was running second before his engine cried enough, and since then the scoreboard has tilted orange to blue more weekends than not. Still, Stella’s not blinking.
“We’ve never been naïve about Verstappen,” the team boss told F1’s website. “He’s a super champion. But once you accept that reality, you focus on yourselves. I’m impressed by how much Lando and Oscar reduce the noise. If they extract their potential, they can have very strong weekends and be in control of their own destiny.”
That’s the crux of it. McLaren have had the class of the field for much of the year; Red Bull have found both execution and upgrades at the right moment. Verstappen’s candid assessment suggests the RB isn’t suddenly the rocket ship of old, but the Dutchman’s edge — his capacity to win from a less-than-perfect package — remains the most valuable weapon in the room.
Ask Fernando Alonso. The two-time champion didn’t hedge when pressed on whether Verstappen can really pull this off. Four titles aren’t “a casualty,” he said, pointing to 2021 as the example: a season where the Red Bull wasn’t always superior to the Mercedes, yet Verstappen bent the margins his way when it mattered most. This year, Alonso reckons, McLaren hold the superior car, and the two orange cars have enough pace to fight it out between themselves — but if the points are tight going to the finale, Verstappen becomes “the man to follow.”
There’s an important distinction buried in all of this. Stella’s tone is calm because McLaren can still win this by doing what they’ve done most weekends: qualify up front, control races, avoid self-inflicted wounds. Verstappen’s tone is cautious because he knows exactly how thin the line is when you’re coming from behind — every tyre drop-off, every undercut window, every Virtual Safety Car matters double.
So Austin looms as a stress test. If Verstappen converts pole and pockets another fat haul — and if McLaren’s Sunday management wobbles in the heat — the math gets properly interesting. If McLaren hit their marks, bank a double podium and keep Piastri’s cushion intact, the flurry since Zandvoort may read as just that: a flurry.
Either way, the fight’s finally got some bite. And for all the talk of pace and packages, the oldest truth in the book remains: when Verstappen is in the hunt, he tends to find a way to stay there. McLaren know it. The paddock knows it. Sunday will tell us whether this is a surge or the start of something more serious.
