Alonso’s verdict on Verstappen’s surge: the car will call it
Max Verstappen has just torn 64 points out of McLaren’s title lead in four race weekends, banking 101 of a possible 108. That’s a statement. But if you ask Fernando Alonso, the World Championship still won’t be decided by who blinks first — it’ll be decided by who’s got the faster car from now to Abu Dhabi.
With five rounds to go in 2025 — two of them Sprint weekends — Oscar Piastri leads the standings on 346 points. Lando Norris is 14 back, Verstappen a further 26 behind Norris. The maths is tidy: Verstappen needs to outscore Piastri by an average of eight points per weekend, and Norris by just over five, to make it five titles on the bounce.
That felt impossible after Zandvoort, where Verstappen trailed by 104. It doesn’t now. He’s won Monza and Baku, split the McLarens with P2 in Singapore, then swept Austin with pole-to-flag wins in the Sprint and the Grand Prix. That run has dragged Red Bull back from the brink and, more crucially, dragged Verstappen back into the conversation.
Is he in McLaren’s head? Toto Wolff floated the idea in Austin, noting that underdogs often enjoy the cleaner psychology. You could see Norris wrestling with risk in battle — go for it, don’t go for it — while Piastri, so polished all season, finally coughed up a few unforced errors.
Alonso isn’t buying the mind games angle. To him, this title fight is fluctuating on pure performance. “It changes day by day,” he said in Austin. “There is a feeling that there is a championship, and then maybe tomorrow Lando wins by 30 seconds and Oscar is second and then Max has no chance, because the car is not really up to speed. Max’s performance is great, but ultimately the car from now to Abu Dhabi will dictate who wins.”
Read that how you like, but Alonso’s point is sharp: Verstappen, as relentlessly complete as he’s looked lately, can only go as far as Red Bull’s RB21 lets him. If McLaren lands another step with the MCL39 on any given weekend, Verstappen’s ceiling lowers no matter how hard he pushes.
For the first time in months, Verstappen agrees the door’s open. “For sure, the chance is there,” he said after Austin. The caveat? “We need to be perfect ‘til the end.” That’s set-up, execution, no mistakes, and a car that’s finally behaving after a scratchy mid-season. Red Bull has layered in upgrades, but the champion’s more interested in the understanding that came with them. “We just understood our car a bit better — where we wanted it to perform better. In general, it’s been way more straightforward the last few weekends.”
The title arithmetic is both simple and brutal. Against Piastri, Verstappen needs to average eight more points per weekend across five events. Against Norris, 5.2. On current form, that’s not a fantasy: across the last four weekends, Verstappen’s averaged +16 on Piastri and +11 on Norris. But those numbers are the product of near-flawless weekends — and with two Sprints left, the margin for error tightens. One messy shootout, one slow stop, one Safety Car at the wrong moment, and your eight-point swing becomes two.
McLaren’s biggest vulnerability isn’t raw speed; it’s pressure. Both drivers have carried the leader’s mantle, both have shown fragments of strain. Norris has had moments of hesitation in combat. Piastri, the more quietly ruthless of the pair, finally bled points in a stretch where Verstappen didn’t. That’s the psychological wrinkle Wolff was pointing at — not that Verstappen is living rent-free in Woking, but that Red Bull’s charge is forcing McLaren to operate at a championship tempo they haven’t had to sustain before.
Alonso’s take slices through the noise. If Red Bull’s car remains in its current window, Verstappen will keep carving. If McLaren finds another gear, the Dutchman’s rallies will look heroic rather than decisive. That’s the razor’s edge now: five weekends, two Sprints, and very little daylight between three drivers who’ve delivered the season on three distinct wavelengths — Piastri’s economy, Norris’s flair, Verstappen’s hammer.
What’s clear is that Verstappen’s stopped pretending. After the Dutch GP he’d have “told himself he was an idiot” for thinking the title was possible. Today he’s leaning into the hunt, demanding perfection, and extracting it more often than not. Red Bull, for its part, is back to looking like Red Bull: sharp on strategy, clean in the pits, and finally giving its lead man a car he can bully through any phase of a race.
So is he being held back? Only in the sense Alonso means: by physics, not fear. When the RB21 sings, Verstappen’s ceiling vanishes. When it doesn’t, even he can’t drive past it.
Five races to find out which version we get. And whether the story is about McLaren closing out a generational title, or Verstappen turning a 104-point canyon into the most Max thing of all — inevitability.
