Opinion
Formula 1 Azerbaijan GP
Who slept best last night: Max Verstappen
By winning back-to-back races for the first time since last summer, Max Verstappen has the paddock wondering whether he still has a shot at this year’s title
Oleg Karpov
Edited: Sep 22, 2025, 9:41 AM
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Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Andrew Ferraro / LAT Images via Getty Images
He just knows it, doesn’t he?
Call it ego, call it self-confidence. But he just knows he’s the best driver in the world. Not many would disagree, either. Some would argue, but there’s nothing on this planet that can shatter Max Verstappen’s conviction in his own superiority over the rest. There are many good ones — excellent, even — in Formula 1. But there’s only one Max Verstappen.
“You never really got into a rhythm. Maybe that was a good thing about it all, that no one really got into a rhythm,” he quipped with a light smile, summing up his Baku qualifying as he faced the media on Saturday.
You can finish that thought for him. The more chaos there is, the more his brilliance stands out. The harder it is for others, the easier it is for him to make the difference. Take Brazil last year, the race that put him on the brink of his fourth title. It’s everyone else who needs to take a breath, fling open the curtains of a hotel room to raindrops on the window, knowing it’s going to be a tough one.
For Verstappen, any hint that a race might tip into chaos is the perfect stage for another standout performance.
Standout Saturday
Baku is called the City of Winds for a reason. The wind here moves everything not anchored to the ground. Standing in the media pen on Saturday, waiting for the drivers during a session that stretched to almost two hours and set a record for red flags, it wasn’t easy to ignore the scary sounds of garage panels shuddering, trash bins toppling, and hospitality umbrellas thwacking in the gusts. Plenty of people found themselves doing interviews earlier than planned after being blown into the Baku walls, including Charles Leclerc and Oscar Piastri. Missing braking points, overshooting apexes – that was Saturday’s theme. Six crashes, as many red flags. Long waits that killed that very “rhythm” Max mentioned.
But him… No, he doesn’t need to go looking for it. He’s there from the first lap of any FP1 until the last lap of the race. So it was no surprise he delivered the session’s most important lap after his competitors made it a two-hour mistakes-fest.
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Ozan Kose / AFP via Getty Images
You don't really have to believe in what Andrea Stella says... On Saturday after qualifying, he probably didn’t set out to make headlines when, in a throwaway line about Red Bull’s resurgence, he called Max a “very serious” contender in the drivers’ championship — and when asked to confirm if he wasn’t just tangled in his thoughts and really meant it, he joked we should write “YES” in capital letters.
After Sunday’s win — and with both McLarens having a tough day — the math still says, “Nah, not really.” Nothing is ever impossible, but frankly, it’s just not going to happen. And Stella probably isn’t fully convinced himself either. It’s going to be one of his drivers who wins this year’s title.
But it’s never a good idea to write Max Verstappen off…
It would be an overstatement to call Verstappen’s season perfect to date. He started well, stepping on Oscar Piastri’s and Lando Norris’s heels early on, but then dropped. In Barcelona he let his anger — the surgically unremovable appendix of his talent — cost him a chunk of points after an unnecessary, frankly inexcusable rage moment with George Russell. And that’s when, perhaps, most started to believe Max wasn’t going to play a role in the 2025 title fight.
His only real weakness, though, is perhaps just an extension of his talent and self-belief: at times he struggles to accept that his abilities alone aren’t enough to get what he feels he deserves. It’s that extreme conviction that leads him to shout at the team when it can’t keep up with his pace — or to call his car a “monster” when it’s simply not fast enough to let him fight for the positions where he belongs.
If not this year, or even next — Verstappen is going to win another championship. Because it’s not only him who agrees he’s the best driver on the grid. It’s people like Toto Wolff, who would happily trade George Russell’s loyalty for the faintest hope of signing the Dutchman.
For Wolff, as for others, having the best car represents the best chance of stealing the best driver.
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, George Russell, Mercedes
Photo by: Mark Thompson - Getty Images
Even most of the drivers accept that Verstappen is the best on the current grid, too — if not the best of all time — Russell included.
“I think any team wants to have the best driver line-up possible, and right now Max is the best driver on the grid,” he told journalists back in Bahrain even before the whole saga around Verstappen’s possible move to Mercedes unfolded again later on. “So if any team had a chance to sign Max they’ll 100 per cent be taking it.”
Recognition of that excellence makes Verstappen the undisputed owner of his future, despite any contracts, not only his with Red Bull but as the dust settles — for other drivers as well.
Speaking in Baku with De Telegraaf, Max’s manager Raymond Vermeulen didn’t say anything fundamentally new — he duly confirmed Red Bull needs to show Verstappen something convincing enough to keep him, and that the driver himself will decide where he spends 2027. Max will watch the first few races under the next-gen rules and make his call. Nothing is off the table, even temporarily switching to endurance GT racing if he decides F1 isn’t attractive enough anymore.
He can also decide to stay, and treat the F1 circus as a side quest to his new GT adventure, where he’s not only a driver but a team owner. Because he’s so good, he can easily do both at the same time. Ahead of Baku qualifying he had an online call with his GT drivers instead of meticulously going through data – and then, laughing after grabbing pole, told a group of Dutch journalists he was annoyed that qualifying took so long because it didn’t let him watch his guys win in Valencia.
Perhaps Red Bull can improve the software to let him watch races on his steering-wheel dash next year — they’d probably do it if he asks, the way they’ll do pretty much everything else to keep him happy.
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Mark Thompson - Getty Images
Even if the 2025 title isn’t on the cards, Verstappen can almost single-handedly haul Red Bull back up to second in the constructors’ championship. Mercedes holds that spot after Baku, with just 18 points covering Mercedes, Ferrari and Max’s own team.
You can perhaps forgive Russell for the slip during Sunday’s press conference — he wasn’t feeling great this weekend, after all — though it might also have been on purpose.
When Tom Clarkson asked the Mercedes driver how he sees the battle against Ferrari for second, Russell said: “Well, I think right now with the current form, there’s as much chance of Max finishing ahead of us as there is Ferrari, to be honest.”
“Red Bull, no?” Verstappen offered a cheeky correction.
“Yeah, team Verstappen!” Russell laughed. Whatever that was — consciously or unconsciously — everyone understands that Red Bull Racing doesn’t win much without Max.
It’s more than victories, or banking incredible laps one after another. It’s him calling the shots on set-up; it’s him deciding when the right time is to leave the pits for the crucial attempt; it’s him pushing through decisions on strategy. And when Lando Norris once again failed to capitalise on a perfect opportunity, Verstappen prompted the Briton’s boss to ask the media to remind the world that he’s still a factor to be reckoned with.
Faced with yet another faultless Verstappen result, perhaps Stella’s request to use capital letters was meant to get the McLaren drivers’ attention as well: YES, Max is still a threat.
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Bryn Lennon / Formula 1 / Getty Images
A windy weekend in Baku was the latest reminder that Max is right to see himself as the absolute best in F1. Even if a 69-point deficit with seven races to go proves too much of a gap to defend his title, he can relax knowing he’ll win one again before long.
Whether he stays with Red Bull or jumps ship after he gets a first taste of the 2026 machinery, Verstappen holds all the cards for his future. Simply because he is who he is. The best driver in the world.
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Formula 1
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