Max Verstappen isn’t pretending anymore. After another clinical win in Austin, the reigning champion finally said the quiet part out loud: the title fight is back on.
“The chance is there,” he admitted after dominating at Circuit of The Americas, a weekend in which he clawed 23 points out of Oscar Piastri’s lead. What was a triple‑digit mountain not so long ago is now a 40-point gap with five Grands Prix and two Sprints left on the 2025 calendar. For McLaren, who’ve held the cards all year with Piastri and Lando Norris, that’s the kind of number that starts to itch.
The United States GP was Verstappen at his most ruthless. While Norris and Charles Leclerc busied themselves with elbows-out stuff in the opening laps, the Red Bull slipped into clear air and simply disappeared. By the end of the first stint, Verstappen had built the kind of 11-second cushion teams dream about. From there, it was about tyre care and tidy pit windows, not heroics.
“It was an unbelievable weekend for us,” he said. “I think the pace between myself and Lando was really close, but that first stint is where we made the difference. After that, it was just managing. Not easy, but we kept it under control.”
No drama, no fuss, just a heavyweight flex. Norris chased, Leclerc clung on, and Piastri—on a day he needed to limit the damage—could only salvage fifth at the flag. Over the last month, Verstappen has been chipping away, four race weekends in a row, turning an outside shot into something that looks suspiciously like momentum.
And that’s the worry for McLaren. This wasn’t a fluke or a safety-car special. Red Bull were sharp from first practice to the last stop, and Verstappen’s tone has shifted from guarded to quietly hungry. He still won’t call himself the favourite—he rarely does—but the poker face is slipping.
“We just need to deliver these kinds of weekends to the end,” he said. “We’ll try everything. It’s exciting—very exciting—to the end.”
Let’s be real: a 40-point margin with seven points-paying sessions still to come is not a cushion you sleep well on, especially with Verstappen in this mood. Piastri has been superb all season, but Austin was a reminder that when Red Bull find their window—low degradation, clean air, strong out-laps—Verstappen turns every lap into a small, inevitable loss for everyone else.
Norris, for his part, fought hard and finished second, but the early scrap with Leclerc cost him the one thing Verstappen will always punish you for: time. Leclerc’s Ferrari had bite on fresh tyres; it just didn’t have the race pace to live with the front two once the opening rage settled.
The championship picture as we leave Texas is wonderfully tense. Piastri still leads the Drivers’ standings, Norris is in the frame, and Verstappen is now within one swing weekend of flipping the narrative entirely. He’s chasing a fifth title on the bounce, a run even he hinted might’ve been out of reach a month ago. Not anymore.
McLaren know where this goes if they let it: the small cracks become big headlines, strategy calls get second-guessed, and every Saturday feels like a must-win. Their car is quick enough to stop this surge, no doubt. But they can’t afford too many more Sundays like Austin, where Verstappen clears off early and leaves them playing catch-up with tyre offsets.
As for Red Bull, the message is simple: same again, please. Keep Verstappen in free air, keep the degradation in range, keep the calls clean. Do that, and this title fight is going to run right through the chequered flag in Abu Dhabi.
Five races, two Sprints, 40 points on the table between Piastri and Verstappen. The gap is shrinking, the pressure is rising, and the champion smells blood. Game on.
