Max Verstappen has resoundingly dropped his hat into the title fight once again after winning the 2025 Formula 1 United States Grand Prix.
The Dutchman romped to a sensational win from pole position at the Circuit of the Americas, securing a fifth win of 2025 and his third in four races.
Since the summer break, the RB21 has started looking like a car capable of fighting at the sharp end of the field, and Verstappen made the most of it during the weekend at Austin.
After taking pole positions in Sprint Qualifying and qualifying, the four-time F1 Champion won both races to make further inroads into Oscar Piastri’s points lead.
As things stand, going into the final quarter of the season, the 28-year-old trails the Australian by just 40 points.
Looking back at the 56-lap race, Verstappen credited his opening stint on the yellow-walled Medium tyres for maintaining his lead from lights to flag.
“Yeah it was an unbelievable weekend for us,” he said.
“I knew that the race was of course not going to be super straightforward. I think if you look at the whole race the pace between myself and Lando [Norris] was really close.”
At the start, Verstappen was quick off the mark and closed the door on Norris, who lost out to Charles Leclerc.
Starting from third on the grid, Leclerc’s call to start with the Soft tyres paid dividends for Verstappen instead, as the Monegasque pipped Norris.
“I think just in that first stint that’s where we made the difference,” conceded the 28-year-old.
“I could eke out a little bit of a gap and that’s basically what we kept till the end.
“[It] wasn’t easy to manage also the tyres on both of the stints, but we kept it in the lead and just incredibly proud of everyone to deliver a weekend like this.”
Verstappen makes title declaration
McLaren’s dominance this season had Red Bull and Verstappen writing off any title ambitions they had coming into the season.
Even after the Milton Keynes-based squad’s resurgence post the summer break — that saw Verstappen win back-to-back races in Monza and Baku — the four-time World Champion was tentative at best about his chances to fight the Papaya duo of Norris and Piastri.
That said, the dominant weekend that he was able to conjure up with a rejuvenated RB21 has finally made him believe that a fifth consecutive title could well be in the offing.
“Yeah, for sure the chance is there,” he replied when asked if he now believes he can dethrone Piastri in the remaining five races.
“We just need to try and deliver these kind of weekends now till the end, so, yeah, we’ll just try whatever we can.
“I think it is exciting and I’m just very excited to the end.”
READ MORE — Max Verstappen makes big F1 title statement with dominant US GP victory
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