Max Verstappen heads into the F1 Mexico City GP weekend as the man who is dominating at the moment. P1, P1, P2, P1 (Sprint) and P1 over the last five races in four rounds has put him back into title contention.
A gap of 104 points to championship leader Oscar Piastri has rapidly come down to 40 points. He is 26 behind Lando Norris to sit P3 in the standings. A fifth straight title is not out of the question.
Max Verstappen says pressure is still off ahead of F1 Mexico City GP
Now that he is far closer to Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris in the Drivers’ Championship, the four-time F1 World Champion was asked in his print media session if more pressure is on his shoulders again.
It’s something he denied, although Max Verstappen did admit perfection is still required from him and the team to make the greatest comeback in the history of the sport.
“No, I think it’s still the same.
“I mean, worst case, I finished P3, right? So nothing really changes.
“I just want to, yeah, try and win races till the end of the season. I hope it’s possible every weekend, but it’s impossible to know at the moment.
“We’re on a good run, and we also know as a team that it needs to be perfect till the end to have a chance.
“So if it works, then yeah, great, unbelievable comeback. If it doesn’t work, you just continue.
“We can be proud of, I think, the end of the season that we’ve had and the upswing in performance, but we’ll worry about that in Abu Dhabi.”
No different feelings to leading the F1 championship throughout a season
For a fifth successive season, Max Verstappen is in title contention. Only in early 2022 did he face a relatively big points deficit (46 points after round 3 Melbourne), so this is a pretty unique situation for him.
Asked if it was any different to be the hunter instead of the hunted this time around, he says it makes no difference. In fact, he loves the pressure it brings.
Nonetheless, he did concede he is surprised to be in the fight considering how bad things were back in the summer.
“Honestly, it doesn’t really change a lot.
“Of course, naturally you want to win, you want to win the championship. And of course, I’ve won championships very late, very early.
“Now this one, of course, is very different because I think for most of the season it was a lot harder for us. To be honest with you, to still be in this fight is very surprising, but I take it.
“And now, like I said before, we need to be perfect.
“But for me, it’s just positive pressure. I mean, I’m loving what I’m doing. If the car is competitive, it’s much better to be racing in it than when it’s not.
“So yeah, every race that you do, I know until the end we can’t afford any bad luck or mistakes. But this team, I think, has shown in the past that normally we perform really well under pressure anyway.
“And that’s what we’ll try to do until the end.”
No big changes operationally
Since Laurent Mekies joined Red Bull Racing following the shock firing of Christian Horner, Red Bull have made massive strides with the RB21.
Regrding the operational side of things, Verstappen says that has been consistently fine. The big change has been the improvement to the car.
“I think up until around the summer break, from a team perspective, we were doing a lot of things already very well.
“It’s just that the car was not always in the right window, not performing to what we liked. And that has changed quite a bit lately.
“So that makes, I think, the whole operation a bit easier as well.”
The extraordinary turnaround of Red Bull Racing in the 2025 F1 season
Ever since McLaren’s Miami GP update last year, Red Bull lost supremacy at the front of Formula 1. The car became more and more difficult to drive as 2024 progressed. Verstappen’s brilliance papered over some rather large cracks, both on and off the circuit.
Brilliant wins from the Dutchman at Suzuka and Imola early this year suggested Red Bull could challenge McLaren in the Drivers’ Championship. However, horrendous weekends like Bahrain (a distant P6) and Hungary (9th, almost lapped) showed the weaknesses once again. A sustained challenge was impossible up to and including Zandvoort.
However, a floor update in Monza and a new front wing at Singapore has brought the car alive. It’s much friendlier on tyres and is giving a better car balance, allowing Verstappen to properly compete over long stints. Three wins and a P2 in the last four Grands Prix is proof of that.
Max Verstappen explained the turnaround in his F1 Mexico City GP media session.
“I mean, we tried a lot of things, yeah. And a lot of them didn’t work.
“I do think it’s just a combination of a lot of things. So upgrades on the car that made it possible to run the car in a different configuration.
“And these cars are super sensitive, right? So if you’re sliding a bit less, the tyres also work a bit better, and that then gives you also a better race pace.
“So it’s a lot of things that just came together that suddenly unlocked quite a bit more pace within the car and naturally it also gives me more confidence.
“It allowed us also to set up the car, I would say, a little bit more aggressive. A bit more on the nose, without losing the rear, for example.
“That’s exactly what you want.”
