Fans split as Verstappen’s late charge turns 2025 title fight into a knife-edge thriller
Max Verstappen has dragged himself back into the fight. What looked like a long, lonely chase a few rounds ago is now a proper three-hander with Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris — and the maths is finally interesting again.
The headline number is simple: Verstappen sits 40 points behind championship leader Piastri with Norris wedged between them, and we’ve got five Grands Prix and two Sprints left on the board. That’s enough runway for a comeback, but not enough for any mistakes. Call it dramatic, call it cruel — either way, every session now matters.
We asked readers how they see it, and the responses were as sharp as the margins.
– The “no room for error” crowd: A lot of you landed on the same point — Verstappen’s form gives him a shot, but one DNF and the lights go out. When you’re hunting two McLarens, you can’t afford even a single scruffy weekend.
– The McLaren dilemma: Several of you zeroed in on the uncomfortable truth at Woking. With both Piastri and Norris in the hunt, team orders aren’t straightforward. If one of them blinks — or the pit wall picks a lane — it could tip the balance. As one reader put it, if Mexico swings Verstappen’s way and Piastri finishes ahead of Norris, McLaren may have to decide who they’re really racing for.
– The momentum line: Others see this as the beginning of the inevitable. If Verstappen keeps carving seven points per weekend out of the deficit, it’s curtains. But if he leaves Mexico behind both McLarens, that momentum narrative gets punctured fast.
– The precedent players: There were nods to Kimi Räikkönen’s 2007 heist, a reminder that a late-season title theft isn’t fantasy — but it usually requires the leader to wobble, the chaser to be perfect, and a few plot twists in between.
There’s also the political side, which tends to arrive right on cue this time of year. McLaren’s car has often looked like the reference over one lap and on Sundays. That cuts both ways. When you’ve got two drivers in it, they naturally start taking points off each other — and you could sense readers clocking that as Verstappen’s invisible wingman. One fan spelled it out: if Norris were out of range, he’d be shuffling points to Piastri. He isn’t, so he can’t.
On pure execution, Red Bull look like Red Bull again: clean weekends, tidy strategy, maximum damage when the win isn’t on. Verstappen has done the heavy lifting with just enough help from Ferrari and Mercedes occasionally muscling their way into the podium fight to nick points off papaya cars. That third-party interference might end up being as decisive as anything McLaren or Red Bull do themselves.
Mexico now looms large. The high altitude tends to shake up the pecking order and exposes any cooling, drag or deployment quirks a car thought it’d hidden. It’s also the kind of place where a strong Friday rolls downhill into an unstoppable Sunday — or a scrappy Sprint Saturday throws everything off-balance. If Verstappen trims the gap again and keeps Norris between himself and Piastri, the pressure at McLaren becomes a tangible thing. If the McLarens lock him out, the elastic could snap back the other way.
There’s a line from the mailbox that stuck: “We’ll look back and say it was never in doubt, of course Max was going to win.” Maybe. Or maybe we’ll point to one late pit call, a safety car that picked sides, or a single reliability gremlin and say, “That was it.” That’s the charm of a title race that’s finally on the limit again — it invites both prophecy and peril.
What we know:
– The deficit is real but manageable.
– Verstappen can’t afford a zero.
– McLaren’s biggest rival right now might be the mirror.
– Ferrari and Mercedes are more than background noise; they’re potential kingmakers.
If you’re McLaren, the cleanest path is obvious but awkward: pick a lead driver if one emerges, and do it before the paddock decides for you. If you’re Red Bull, keep the weekends boring, the car reliable, and let Verstappen do Verstappen things.
Knife-edge? Absolutely. And that’s exactly how it should be with a handful of races left and a world title on the line.
