Verstappen Brings the Battle to McLaren's Doorstep Mark Sutton - Formula 1 - Getty ImagesAdam CooperSun, November 30, 2025 at 11:30 PM UTC·7 min readYou really couldn’t make it up. After the costly double disqualification in Las Vegas, McLaren endured another nightmare in Qatar as a poor strategy call under a safety car saw Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris finish second and fourth in a race in which they had been running first and third.
As always seems to be the case, Max Verstappen was there to reap the rewards, logging yet another win to ensure not only that the title fight will go to the Abu Dhabi finale, but also that he will be heading there in second place – just 12 points behind leader Norris, and four ahead of Piastri.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementWhat still seemed like a highly unlikely long shot just a couple of months ago is now a genuine possibility. He has a decent chance of stealing the title from McLaren, having at one stage been over 100 points off the lead, and having also written off his own chances. He’s a little more optimistic now.
"I'm excited," he said after the Qatar race. "I'm happy to go there and have a go at it. But you need to also be realistic. I think on pure pace, we’re not at the same level. But at the same time, when strategy maybe comes into play, or making the right calls at the right time, we might have the opportunity."
The complication is that it’s out of his hands. Winning in Abu Dhabi will not be enough, because Norris can finish second or third and still win the title. All Verstappen can do is carry on what has worked thus far, which is try his best to win, and not worry too much about what happens behind him. He really has nothing to lose, which has been the case for some months.
"I’m a lot more relaxed now," he said after the Qatar race. "I know that I’m 12 points down. I go in there with just positive energy. I try everything I can. But at the same time, if I don’t win it, I still know that I had an amazing season.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement"So it doesn’t really matter. It takes a lot of the pressure off. I’m just out there having a good time like I had today. I also started today with, 'We’ll see how it goes.'"
His team boss, Laurent Mekies, who took over from the deposed Christian Horner in the summer, has a similar view on how to tackle the finale – treat it like any other race and just focus on giving its star driver the best possible car. The rest will take care of itself.
"The simple truth is that the approach is exactly the same," he said. "What we need to do in Abu Dhabi is what we needed to do here. We need to put the car in the right window. As you can see, it's not exactly straightforward every race weekend. And then if we do that, Max can fight for the win.
"If he does that, then what's happening, hopefully behind him, is not something we can control. So really, in terms of how we approach the weekend, it doesn't change anything.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement"It's you go there, try to get our car in the sweet spot, try to give to Max a balance that he's excelling with, and hopefully that puts him in the fight for the top position. And then we won't control what's behind."
Getting the car in that optimum operating window has been the big challenge of the season for the team.
After some struggles in the summer, it has been able to do it to Verstappen’s satisfaction more often than not in recent races, which helps to explain his surge in form.
He may have won in Qatar, but it wasn’t easy, with Verstappen complaining of bouncing on Friday and Saturday, and a balance shift in the race. However, as healways does, he adjusted his driving and made the best of it.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement"We really started in a difficult place," said Mekies. "And credit to the guys in the office. It's been a weekend where it pretty much felt too easy, how McLaren were faster than us all weekend.
"It put a lot of pressure on us to get our car in a better place. So yes, Max was particularly unhappy on Friday, and in some respects, I think we have improved from Friday to Saturday.
"And from Saturday morning to Saturday afternoon, and I think today was probably a lot closer to where he has a car, where he can add to it and bring up that incredible performance that we are used to with him."
The team has made what, at times earlier in the season, didn’t even look like the second-best car into a regular winner.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementHaving joined in July from sister outfit Racing Bulls, Mekies has been impressed by the approach of the whole organisation as it tried to give its star driver a car that he could perform with.
"I tell you exactly what I saw," he said. "I just saw people that had never given up on this year, not so much thinking about championships, or not championships. They had not given up on turning this car into a car that could fight regularly for the wins."
He added, "I will not be telling you we changed our mindset or whatever. I will just tell you this: this team had never given up, kept trying, kept developing, and cracked one thing, cracked a bit more, cracked a bit more, and eventually got the car in a better place as you can see. Weekend in, weekend out, it's still incredibly difficult."
Verstappen and Red Bull have obviously also benefited from mistakes made by their main rivals. However, you can make your own luck.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementPart of the game in any top-level sport is to keep the pressure on the competition,and if possible, induce mistakes. Verstappen is so relentlessly fast and so good at everything he does that there is no margin for error when you try to take him on.
Laurent Mekies knows that the threat of Max makes his competitors make mistakes. Mark Thompson - Getty Images"When you are Max's competitor, having been on the other side of it, there is an element where you know he just never gets it wrong. And this puts some pressure on you. He never gets it wrong, he never misses a start, he never misses a Turn One, he is going to get more out of the tires than most people out there. So of course, it puts pressure."
Mekies was also keen to point out that aside from honing the car the Red Bull team has done a good job on race weekends, and we haven’t seen the sort of operational errors that have at times hampered McLaren.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement"The team has been extraordinary at strong execution,” he said. “It is true, we have benefited from our competitor’s less strong executions. But please allow me to give credit to the incredible string of massively strong races, massively strong executions from the team. Never got a call wrong. They have made some very courageous decisions more than once.
"Sometimes we fell, but it never stopped any of them to keep taking the risk, and ultimately, the executions on Sunday have been extremely strong. So I think the combination of these two things is certainly playing in our favor.
"How much does it cost to the competitors? I don't know, but it is natural that there is a psychological effect as well."
It’s not hard to imagine what a mental battering Norris and Piastri have taken over the last two weekends, having seen their advantage disappear over the last couple of months. Verstappen is ready for the challenge of making their lives even harder next weekend.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement"I know that when I sit in the car, I always try to maximise everything I can," the Dutchman said on Sunday evening. "And that’s what I’ll try to do in Abu Dhabi, but at the same time, I also know that we need to rely on probably some external factors to have a go at it.
"But a race like today shows that when you think it's going to be boring and straightforward, it’s not. I’m hoping Abu Dhabi is going to be similar."
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