Max Verstappen missed the 2025 championship by two points, and somehow still left Yas Marina looking like the guy who’d won it.
Red Bull’s late-season surge turned a scrappy RB21 into a title-fighting weapon, and Laurent Mekies – the team principal who stepped in mid-year – says what we saw from Verstappen in that stretch was beyond even his already brutal standard.
“It’s you guys who judge the history,” Mekies told media in Abu Dhabi. “But I think it’s fair to say the world discovered an even more extraordinary Max this season after his fourth world title.”
Context matters here. After Zandvoort, Round 15, Verstappen was third in the standings and a hefty 104 points behind Oscar Piastri. The car had pace in flashes – Imola, Suzuka – but none of the repeatable consistency Red Bull built its last era on. Then came the reset. Over the next nine weekends the team found rhythm, Verstappen found that cold-blooded groove, and McLaren’s internal dynamic flipped: Piastri faded as Lando Norris rose to the lead role.
Verstappen won six of those final nine races and owned the Abu Dhabi finale. It wasn’t enough to reel in Norris’ 12-point buffer going into the decider, but the chase was audacious and relentless. You could feel the garage change vibe. It stopped being crisis management and started looking like Red Bull again.
Mekies has been careful not to reduce the season to the two points that got away. “Some of that turnaround is going into the history books,” he said. “It’s the magnitude of the comeback, but also how relaxed and rooted in the team Max was while embracing the challenge with the right spirit.” He even smiled about Verstappen’s off-weekends – being a new dad and hopping into GT cars – as a reminder of how comfortable the Dutchman felt amid the chaos.
Verstappen wasn’t hiding from the imperfections. “I’ve hated this car at times, but I’ve also loved it,” he admitted. “I always tried to extract the most from it, even in the difficult weekends. The last eight, nine rounds were a lot more enjoyable. We’re on a roll now – positive energy, belief, confidence – exactly what you want heading into next year.”
He also went as far as calling 2025 the highest level he’s driven at. Hard to argue. The margin for error was microscopic and he still threaded the needle almost every Sunday. In a sport that often rewards those who front-run with clean air and low stress, Verstappen did the opposite: he fought uphill, made the car better, and made the team better.
Red Bull’s development push was unapologetically aggressive. There will be an opportunity cost as F1 heads toward the 2026 rules, but Mekies was clear: they had to learn. “It allows us to go into the winter with confidence in our tools, methodologies and approaches,” he said. “Some of that carries into next year’s regulations, some doesn’t. But the real-world correlation work has been sensational. The girls and guys back at home should be proud.”
As for the great “where did the two points go?” debate – a pit stop here, a safety car there – Mekies waved it away. Red Bull will do the forensic work internally, he said, but the season won’t be defined by a scavenger hunt. The bigger picture is that the team turned a wobbly car into a serial winner under maximum pressure, which is the kind of muscle memory you want before a rules reset.
Verstappen, for his part, was surprisingly zen about the near miss. “Of course it’s nicer to win it,” he said, “but I’m sitting here now with a better feeling than last year at this time. We’ve been struggling for a year – the second half of last year and the first half of this year – and I actually feel a lot better now. For a long period I wasn’t even thinking about the title. I never felt like I was in it until a few rounds ago. That’s pretty crazy.”
That’s the thing about 2025. It wasn’t neat. It wasn’t pretty. It was a rollercoaster that somehow ended with Verstappen looking sharper, Red Bull looking smarter, and the rest of us wondering how close he came to stealing it at the death. Norris is a deserving champion, but the shape of the chase says plenty about the hunter.
Was it Verstappen’s greatest season? Depends on your taste. If you like domination, 2023 is sitting right there on the shelf. If you like defiance, resilience and a driver bending a turbulent year to his will, then Mekies might have a point. This Max – the one who can love and hate his car in the same sentence and still find lap time when it matters – is a problem for everyone.
And the scary bit? He sounds like he can’t wait to do it all again.
