Four-time Formula 1 World Champion Max Verstappen looks likely to be thwarted in his bid to defend his championship run by a dramatically improved McLaren team. After the first ten rounds of the 2025 championship Verstappen sits in a distant third place on 155 championship points, behind both McLaren drivers Lando Norris (176 points) and Oscar Piastri (198 points). With a resurgent Mercedes team and a podium-grabbing Ferrari, Max faces the biggest challenge of his career just trying to peel points away from the Papaya pair. With a spate of car upgrades coming for the Red Bull team, Verstappen hopes it'll be enough to help him fight at the front.
"A lot needs to happen for that, to be honest," Verstappen tells Racer Magazine. "We need to start winning races more often. And how do we do that? By being more competitive. Now, [Canada] was a good weekend, but again, not competitive enough." Max finished second to Mercedes' George Russell in Canada, building a valuable points gain on fourth-placed Oscar Piastri and capitalizing on a self-inflicted no-points day for Lando Norris. Despite the win, Russell still trails Verstappen in the standings by 19 points.
When asked what Red Bull can do to help Max get the points he needs, the Dutchman responded "...(W)e just need to make the car faster." Verstappen tempered his expectations of the car's upgrades, apparently unsure whether the new parts would be enough and calling McLaren's accomplishments "quite extraordinary and difficult to beat" and saying that the orange team is "still by far the favorites" and not "something that is easily beaten."
Even compared to Verstappen's 2024 season, which saw several non-podium finishes for the Red Bull star, he seems quite a lot more negative about his chances in 2025. Thus far in 2025 Max has secured just two wins and a trio of second-place finishes, though the season hasn't yet reached its halfway point. By this point in the 2024 season Max had dominated the first ten rounds with seven wins before Mercedes, McLaren, and Ferrari all found their stride in the back half of the season to close the gap. If Max and Red Bull experience a turnaround like their competition did in 2024, the 2025 championship is hardly out of reach, especially if McLaren continues to throw away points to teammate infighting as they did in Canada and Max drives like a terrorist.
Red Bull has seemingly put all of its eggs in the Max basket, building a car that no other driver can seemingly get a handle on driving quickly. This strategy cost the team a constructors' championship in 2024 and puts them solidly in fourth behind McLaren, Mercedes, and Ferrari so far this season. Having lost Adrian Newey, who designed the team's championship-winning RB18 and RB19, it seems less likely that Red Bull can mount a proper turnaround this season for the constructors' title, but with the right combination of upgrades and luck, Max could make his way back to the front in the drivers' standings. In the meantime, I'm happy to watch the once-dominant team fumble around the margins.