Max Verstappen believes that the 2025 Formula 1 season was his best in terms of overall driving and performance. Motorsport Week examines how that might be true.
Verstappen’s 1,456-day reign as World Champion came to an end as Lando Norris crossed the line in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix to take the title from him by just two points.
Norris, backed by the dominant McLaren MCL39, was able to finally achieve his own personal dream of being #1, a number that Verstappen will now relinquish.
Without context, or to the layperson, Verstappen may have cut a miserably, icy or downcast figure after being forced to hand over his crown after such a dominant period.
But quite the contrary. Content, relaxed and smiling, Verstappen conceded the title with grace and with a smile, and when asked if this year had been the year in which he had driven the best in his career, he agreed.
“Yeah, I think so. I mean, I have no regrets about my season,” he told media including Motorsport Week. “I think the performance has been strong.
“I’ve hated this car at times, but I’ve also loved it at times. And I always tried to extract the most from it, even in the difficult weekends that we’ve had.
“But, yeah, it’s been, like I said before, a proper rollercoaster with the car. Luckily, the last, I would say, eight, nine rounds in general have been a lot more enjoyable.
“And also, in the team, we have a great atmosphere at the moment. We’re really on a roll – positive energy, belief, confidence – and that’s exactly what you want heading into next year.”
Verstappen is, without question, one of F1’s greats, whether it be this era or any.
In 2021, he proved himself to be more than just a ‘talent’ by going toe to toe with seven-time F1 champion Lewis Hamilton and coming out on top – a feat that often failed.
2022 and 2023 were demonstrations of a newfound dominance, partly via a Red Bull machine that enabled him to do so, but with your team-mate as the best marker, Verstappen did that by easily finishing clear of Sergio Perez.
2024 provided a new challenge, as he began to lose any sort of car advantage midway through the season, as McLaren and Norris posed a significant threat.
Verstappen, though, also rose to this challenge, too, closing out the title in Las Vegas, after one race in particular, where the wet weather – often a great leveller – showed his superiority. In Brazil, he comprehensively outdrove his rivals to win from down in 17th place on the grid, a milestone moment which helped him seal the deal.
The Dutchman entered this year without, for the first time in three seasons, the status of title favourite. Red Bull played its expectations down, McLaren always looked supreme in testing, and off the back of its mid-to-late 2024 run, it went in as the most likely to dominate.
After two races, that was exactly what happened. Norris and Oscar Piastri took a win each, but Verstappen got his way back into contention with a superb victory at Suzuka with an inch-perfect pole position and holding off both McLarens to the finish.
A winless three-race streak ensued before the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix, when he scythed his way around the outside of Piastri at Turn 1 at the start, and dominated proceedings to win again.
And that was apparently as good as it was going to get for Verstappen. A contentious collision with George Russell in Spain placed him at the centre stage of a furore over his conduct, and one race later in Canada, he went up against the Briton again, finishing second.
An uncharacteristic mistake cost him at Silverstone, but he managed to win the Sprint in Belgium. However, he was unable to find an answer to McLaren come race day. In Hungary, the RB21, a car that had been the cause of his more modest results, saw him comprehensively outperformed by a number of cars, only finishing ninth.
Red Bull had work to do during the summer break. With Christian Horner sensationally removed as Team Principal and CEO, new boss Laurent Mekies was now in an unenviable position of leading the team at what was its lowest ebb in years.
The first race back, in Verstappen’s homeland, provided a semblance of relief, finishing second to Piastri after Norris retired, but it was still clear that the McLarens held a significant advantage. That was, that is, until Monza.
With a new floor fitted to the car, Verstappen was able to completely obliterate the competition. In qualifying, he set, in terms of average pace, the fastest lap of all time, and the next day, won the fastest race of all time, completing it in one hour and 13 minutes. A moment of rare celebration, and if nothing else, a special consolation prize, given he was still 96 points off Piastri in the standings.
Two weeks later in Baku, Verstappen once again controlled qualifying and the race, mastering the difficult street circuit with Norris faltering to a meagre seventh place, and with Piastri crashing out altogether, it was now starting to get nothing more than a little twitchy at McLaren.
McLaren won the Constructors’ Championship at the next round in Singapore, but Verstappen finished ahead of both in the race. There was now a double-header in Austin and Mexico to contend with, and, with a little contention bubbling at McLaren, Verstappen could smell blood, and the ominous-sounding ‘Jaws’ score played in the mind’s ears of many.
A Sprint and GP win at COTA solidified a sense of seriousness that now should be taken at Verstappen’s title credentials, and despite Norris winning in Mexico, Verstappen completed the podium, with Piastri fifth, the Australian now showing a fraction of the speed and confidence he displayed through much of the year.
In Brazil, Norris began to look more like the champion-elect, but Verstappen produced one of the drives of the year, and once again signalled a warning to anyone who dared write him off.
A dismal showing from the RB21 in qualifying saw him dumped out of Q1, and led to a quick rethink from Red Bull. Fitting the Austin-spec floor and a new power unit, Verstappen started from the pit lane, and there was a mixture of excitement and intrigue at just what he could muster. He delivered impeccably, working his way through the field to finish third, despite an early puncture. Piastri was once again outside the top three.
They say that people have the ability to make their own luck, and with Verstappen taking victory in Las Vegas, he was afforded some of that. Dominating after snatching the lead from Norris at the start, both McLarens’ plank wear issues saw them both disqualified post-race, and now the game was truly on.
In Qatar, an extreme brainfade on the McLaren pit wall saw them lose out to Verstappen, who calmly controlled the race in Doha to take victory via outsmarting Piastri and Norris on strategy, to set up a final race showdown.
Of course, Verstappen won, but with Norris third, it was not quite enough to cement perhaps one of the greatest sporting comebacks, but there was an undeniable sense of pride in what was still a ‘job well done’, and surely did cement a deserved moniker as one of the sport’s greatest ever drivers.
READ MORE – How Red Bull is processing Max Verstappen’s narrow F1 championship loss in 2025
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