Max Verstappen says the quiet part out loud about the 2025 F1 championship battle with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri

Max Verstappen has claimed that he would have sealed the championship a long time ago if he had a car as dominant as McLaren has had with Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris behind the wheel. With just 2 races left in the season, the Dutch driver is one of the three contenders for the title.

He's 24 points behind Lando Norris in the championship and is tied with Oscar Piastri. The Dutch driver's revival in form is something that has caught many off guard. After the race in Zandvoort, he was 104 points behind Piastri in the championship battle, but within a period of 7 races, the Dutch driver has negated the advantage.

Heading into the F1 Qatar GP, Max Verstappen is now only 24 points behind Lando Norris in the championship, and if he does end up winning the title, it would mean that he equals Michael Schumacher's feat of winning the most consecutive titles (five).

Talking to Chris Medland for F1.com, Max Verstappen addressed the possibility of winning his 5th world championship and admitted that it's certainly better than having 4 titles. At the same time, the driver did point out that a bit of it has to do with the fact that McLaren, Lando Norris, and Oscar Piastri have left points on the table, and that has always kept the Dutch driver in contention.

Claiming that if he were in the McLaren, the championship would've been over a long time ago, Max Verstappen said,

“We also have to be realistic: we’re in this fight still because of others failures, not because of what we did. If we would’ve been in the position how dominant of a car they had, the championship would’ve been over a long time ago.”

Max Verstappen didn't expect the turnaround in the championship

In the second half of the season, Red Bull's upgrade in Monza was something that gave the team those final tenths to compete against McLaren. Since then, Max Verstappen has been in dominant form and is yet to finish off the podium even once in the second half of the season.

Even then, the gap to both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri was massive, and Max Verstappen admits that he didn't expect to close the gap at this rate. He said,

"Something that I definitely wouldn't have expected but here we are. I think we have had a very strong end to the season, much more happy with that and [I] guess also we've been helped a little bit with certain things."

He added,

"Results, crashes, disqualifications. We should not forget that I guess but I'm happy. Naturally I would have liked a bit of a better first half but that's something that you can't change. We'll just try to focus on the last two races and try to do the best we can."

This weekend we are racing in Qatar, a track where the Red Bull driver has been exceptional in the past. Out of the three races on this track, Verstappen has won twice and would be looking to replicate that form.