Why Verstappen looks like the calmest man in Abu Dhabi
Max Verstappen strolled into Thursday’s press conference looking like a man out for a coffee, not a fifth world title. Across from him, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri carry the weight of a first championship shot; Verstappen brings muscle memory.
Experience isn’t just a line on a CV in title deciders — it’s a tool. And two men who’ve worked closely with Verstappen reckon it’s the one that will matter most under Yas Marina’s floodlights.
“Not his first rodeo,” is how long-time Red Bull operator Jonathan Wheatley put it. You could see what he meant. Verstappen’s body language said: this is familiar. “He’s been here before,” Wheatley added. “He has a coolness and a calm and I think that permeates through the team. If everyone in the team seems calm, starting with the driver, the team gains confidence from it.”
This place holds its own piece of F1 mythology for Verstappen. Four years ago, he arrived without a title to his name and faced down Lewis Hamilton in a finale that still lives rent-free in the sport’s head. Wheatley was asked if the parallels hold. He shook his head. The driver has changed.
“It was a different Max,” he said. “There was a hunger about him. I think that whole season had a frisson of energy about it… and it came to a crescendo here. We’re looking at another crescendo on Sunday.”
Different, but dangerous all the same. That 2021 version was pure flint. The 2025 edition is sharper, more measured, and just as ruthless. Verstappen’s own message was as understated as ever: pressure is background noise, nothing more.
And if you want the cold, hard case for why he’s the favorite in a three-way fight, Laurent Mekies — now in Red Bull colours — didn’t bother dressing it up. “Max just never gets it wrong,” he said. “He keeps surprising us every day. Sometimes the car is great. Sometimes it’s a touch less great than what we would hope and he doesn’t miss a start. He doesn’t miss tyre management. He doesn’t miss an overtaking.”
The praise ran deeper than the usual driver-management platitudes. Mekies pointed to a cultural alignment: Verstappen’s comfort with taking maximum risk when it matters, and the team’s willingness to wear the pain when the line gets crossed. It’s the kind of trust that gets forged the hard way, during the late nights back in Milton Keynes — “2,000 people… doing the magic in the shadow,” as Mekies put it — when a car has to be turned around mid-season and the margins get razor-thin.
That’s not to dismiss McLaren’s hand. Norris and Piastri, both chasing a first crown, have been walking the line all year and — crucially — have each other to deal with as much as Verstappen. Team orders, radio chess, strategic compromises: the orange garage has lived that reality for months and will again on Sunday. Somewhere in those choices may lie the title. But nothing tests a team’s nerve like a live-fire finale, and this is where Verstappen’s calm becomes a collective asset.
The Dutchman doesn’t do grand theatre off-track, but there’s a reason rivals keep mentioning his starts, his tyre life, his refusal to blink in traffic. When you’ve already climbed this mountain, you know which bits are loose underfoot.
If there’s a twist coming, it’ll be because the three protagonists pull each other into unfamiliar territory — strategy bait-and-switches, safety cars at awkward times, pressure points arriving when tyres are on the edge of their window. That’s where a champion’s habits tend to show up. The right pit window. The right out-lap. The right decision to pass now, or to wait one more corner.
Wheatley, who’s lived more than one title decider from the pit wall, sounded almost like a fan for a beat. “For the sport, it’s such a great news story to have three great drivers in contention for a World Championship,” he said. “I hope I can have a bit of time to enjoy that, as well as our own race on Sunday.”
He probably won’t get much time. Neither will Mekies. Norris and Piastri will be sleepless, too, because that’s what the last night of a season does, especially when a first championship is staring back at you.
Verstappen? He’ll sleep. That, more than anything, might be the point. When the visor goes down and Yas Marina’s neon turns the brake dust into glitter, he tends to hit the same notes he’s been hitting for years. No fuss, no drama, just the sort of execution that makes a finale feel like any other Sunday — until you see the trophy.
Three drivers, one night, and one man who’s been here before. If the mood around Red Bull is anything to go by, that’s the advantage they believe will matter when it counts.
