Marko cools the hype as Verstappen lights up the title chase with Austin sweep
Max Verstappen has kicked the door back open. The Red Bull driver left Austin with the full 33-point haul — Sprint from pole, grand prix from pole, chequered flag eight seconds clear of Lando Norris — and a championship picture that suddenly looks a lot less orange and a lot more navy.
A month ago, Verstappen’s fifth straight crown felt like a long shot. He trailed Oscar Piastri by triple digits after Zandvoort and sat 70 behind Norris, having banked just two wins before the summer break. Four race weeks later, he’s carved 66 points out of Piastri’s lead and put a dent in Norris’s cushion too, trimming that gap to 26. What once looked like a McLaren 1-2 procession now has a big red bull charging up the order.
Even Verstappen, who all but waved off his chances not long ago, now admits there’s a chance. But inside Red Bull, the most bullish voice in the room is, intriguingly, the one hitting the brakes.
“Striking distance is a bit exaggerated with a 40-point deficit,” Helmut Marko told Sky Deutschland after the United States Grand Prix. “There are five races to go, two of them Sprints. If we keep up this form, it can still be really exciting.”
Marko’s caution comes with a knowing wink. Austin wasn’t just a win; it was command. Red Bull had the pace to manage the race from the front, and Verstappen looked more like the four-time champion of 2021–24 than a man scrambling in late October. Norris gave chase, Charles Leclerc tried to turn undercut threats into real ones, but the No. 1 car was always one or two chess moves ahead.
“The race was incredibly exciting — at least for us,” Marko added, saying the team controlled the gap to both Leclerc and Norris throughout. When Ferrari blinked first, it eased the pressure. When McLaren pressed, Verstappen simply had more in hand.
The bigger picture hasn’t changed completely. Piastri is still the reference point at the top, Norris still the closest foil. But this was the kind of weekend that shifts psychology. Red Bull’s traditional bogey track — the Marina Bay grind in Singapore — is in the rear-view mirror, and the RB21 looks happier the hotter and grippier things get. If you were writing a shopping list of places Verstappen tends to feast, several of the remaining venues are on it.
That’s why Marko’s message lands the way it does. It’s not pessimism; it’s math. Sprints can swing the pendulum, and the margins are small enough now that one misread Safety Car or a botched stop could bend the title narrative again. The form line says Red Bull are back in their groove. The points table, as it stands, still says there’s work to do.
There was a second subplot in Austin too, quietly significant for Red Bull. The car’s edge on tyre life looked back to 2023 levels, especially in clean air. Verstappen could extend without inviting undercut danger and then punch out lap times on command. That’s the sort of control that lets strategists be aggressive rather than reactive — and it’s what was missing earlier in 2025 when McLaren put them in a box.
So where does this leave the final five? Piastri, to his credit, has been relentlessly tidy all year, absorbing pressure and cashing big weekends. Norris has often been the faster McLaren on Sundays and remains right in Verstappen’s crosshairs. But neither can gift anything now. If Red Bull’s Singapore headache is truly solved, the champions don’t have a weak circuit left — and Verstappen’s current mood doesn’t suggest he needs an invitation.
Inside the garage they’ll keep the language neat, as Marko did in Texas. Put the laps in. Bank the sprints. Don’t get carried away. Outside, you can feel the temperature rising. The paddock’s been waiting all season for a proper three-way arm wrestle between Verstappen and the two McLarens. Austin gave us the opening chapter.
It’s still Piastri’s to lose. It’s still Norris’s to win if he strings together Sundays like his mid-season run. But Verstappen has kicked the hinges off the door and stepped in with his boots on. Momentum won’t win the title by itself — the next five weekends will. And on current form, he may only need one more McLaren wobble to turn “a chance” into something a lot more real.
