AUSTIN, Texas -- If someone had told Max Verstappen, after his home race 49 days ago, that he would be a title contender by the end of the U.S. Grand Prix, his response would have been clear.
"I would have told him he was an idiot," Verstappen said on Sunday, having completed a sprint and grand prix double at Austin's Circuit of the Americas to move to within 40 points of championship leader Oscar Piastri with five races and two sprints still to go. It confirmed what has been a growing feeling in Formula 1 recently: that the 2025 season is a three-way fight.
When you rewind back to Verstappen's home race at the end of August, it would have seemed like a foolish proposition indeed. Piastri had stood on top of the podium and it felt like a first F1 world championship was the Australian's to lose. McLaren teammate Lando Norris had not joined him up there: the Englishman finished his race that day hunched over on the sand dunes lining the Zandvoort circuit, lamenting the late car failure that had left him 34 points behind in what appeared at the time to be a two-horse race between the two dominant papaya orange cars. Verstappen had inherited second position from Norris but left his home race 104 points behind, seemingly a footnote in the fight in front.
While Norris' chances appeared poor, Verstappen's seemed non-existent. But like the famous warning reads on the mirror of the Jeep being driven by the Jurassic Park protagonists as they're being chased by a t-rex: objects in the mirror are closer than they appear. It's a meme that has done the rounds across the Austin weekend. To its credit, McLaren had always claimed Verstappen would be a factor in the run-in, and the races since the Dutch GP have proven them to be correct.
Zandvoort was followed by a dominant Verstappen victory at the Italian Grand Prix seven days later, one more akin to his record-shattering 2022 and 2023 seasons than to the stuttering performances that have characterized parts of 2025. A dominant win in Baku, where Piastri crashed out in qualifying and the race and Norris failed to capitalise, followed. Then came second position in Singapore, before the trip to Austin and one of the most complete performances you will see in modern Formula 1: sprint pole, sprint win, having led every lap, grand prix pole, grand prix win, having led every lap. A pedant might point out that Verstappen didn't take the fastest lap on Sunday, but if F1 still handed out a point for that accolade, there's little doubt he would have gone for it -- he was a man in complete control every step of the way.
"Well done, Max. That was a true demonstration of dominance, what can I say," said Red Bull boss Laurent Mekies on the radio at the finish of the race. "You achieved everything this weekend. Everything. And with quite a margin. You were very brave throughout the entire weekend. You didn't take anything for granted and just kept extending the lead. Well done. Very impressive."
In a career strewn with accolades and mind-boggling drivers, the run of form Verstappen is on right now is nearing all-time territory. The fact that he is even in a title fight that had seemed so predictable so recently says a lot about his extraordinary talent behind the wheel of a race car.
And while Verstappen deserves credit, Red Bull has made important steps on and off track to unlock it. A new floor the team brought to Monza helped trigger the massive change in its pace relative to the McLarens, but there has been a notable change to Verstappen in the time since the summer break, too.
It should be said that one victory is missing from that impressive list of achievements since Zandvoort: his maiden endurance race victory at the legendary Nordschleife configuration of the Nrburgring, a circuit nicknamed "The Green Hell," which Verstappen casually completed in the weekend between claiming victory in Baku and second position in Singapore. It is an achievement that should not be overlooked in the context of what he is doing right now, as Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko alluded to earlier this weekend.
"Max, at one stage when we were not competitive, I would say he lost a little bit interest," Marko told Sky Sports after watching Verstappen claim pole position on Saturday. "He was more interested in GT racing, so to keep him in a good mood I was talking about Nrburgring and things like that. But now that the car is working and with his success at the Nrburgring, I would say two tenths just came from him because he's really motivated, he's enjoying [F1]. You don't hear him shouting, he's smiling, so that's what you need."
It's a potent combination: a revitalized, re-motivated and recharged Verstappen, coupled with a Red Bull car that appears to have been unleashed to its full potential under the calm and collected approach of Mekies, the soft-spoken former engineer who replaced Christian Horner as team boss in July. Red Bull is absolutely humming, and its turnaround has come at exactly the same moment McLaren has appeared to get itself further and further backed into a corner over its commitment to ensuring Piastri and Norris' fight remains fair until the end.
Papaya problems
In more ordinary circumstances, an obvious solution might exist for McLaren: team orders, the simple principal that one driver is prioritized over the other to nullify the threat of Verstappen. McLaren has dismissed the idea of ever doing that, and the fact that Norris is now only 14 points behind Piastri means the idea of implementing team orders makes less sense than ever.
Questions over how the team approaches the run-in will now be more pertinent than ever as McLaren has been tripping over itself of late. The chatter coming into Austin had been about McLaren's decision to hand Norris some "repercussions" for his contact with Piastri at the start of the Singapore Grand Prix after a long review of the incident landed the blame squarely at his feet. The team did not elaborate on exactly what that punishment was, only that it was sporting and not financial. McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown claimed they were not draconian, although Norris had said in a Sky Sports interview that the repercussions in question will affect him until the end of the season.
The team will be reviewing another incident between now and the race in Mexico City in seven days' time, with Piastri triggering a four-car collision at the start of Saturday's sprint that took him and Norris out of the race and handed Verstappen eight free points. McLaren has been meddling in the title fight since Piastri was controversially asked to move over for Norris at Monza. It was messy when Verstappen was a distant outsider in the title race, but with momentum, form and confidence all on Verstappen's side, it feels even more like a mess McLaren simply did not need to create for itself.
More worrying in the short term might be Piastri's form. For much of the year, the Australian has looked like a mini Verstappen: cold blooded, ruthless, metronomic. The double crashes in Baku and this below-par weekend in Austin would make it easy to suggest the cracks in his usually steely demenor are starting to show, but Piastri still leaves the U.S. with the championship lead, a situation no driver would trade places with in any F1 season. He seemed characteristically calm about how the title picture has shifted so dramatically when quizzed about it Sunday.
"[Max is] obviously there and he's quick, but I think for me, the biggest focus is just trying to work out why this weekend was tough and try and get back on the form we've had earlier in the season," Piastri said. "So that's my biggest focus, and if we can find that again, then the results will take care of themselves."
As for Norris, it might get lost in the adulation for Verstappen or the headlines around the sprint collision (and what any fallout from that might be), but Austin was another quietly encouraging weekend for him. There's a strong case to be made that he's been the stronger of the two McLaren drivers since his car failed him in the Netherlands.
He's also shown some championship caliber at successive races now, even if harder to spot. Norris' aggressive move on Piastri in Singapore was over the line within the framework of the guidelines McLaren have wanted its drivers to race within all year, but had that been a move between title rivals on different teams, it likely would have been lauded as a decisive overtake demonstrating the pedigree needed to be champion. It was exactly the kind of fight Norris' detractors have said he does not have in pressure moments.
And while he did not beat Verstappen in either of Austin's races, we saw impressive mettle from the Englishman on track. Twice he had to patiently wait to pass Ferrari's Charles Leclerc and he did so on both occasions with neat moves when it would have been easy to have tried too much too soon and squandered the pace advantage of his McLaren. In doing so, he minimized the points lost to Verstappen and ensured he chipped away at Piastri again.
Norris downplayed the 14-point gap to Piastri on Sunday, but recent form has brought him right back into the mix.
"I mean, it doesn't really matter," he said when asked about reducing Piastri's lead and doing enough to minimize the damage of Verstappen's resurgence. "I currently score the most points I can every weekend, so the more points I score, the better it is for both situations. It doesn't matter. Nothing changes. I don't have to do anything different for either. It's quite simple."
Simple is the last thing this championship fight has become at McLaren. Verstappen being there is a wildcard factor that has turned what, at one point, felt like a rather predictable championship fight between teammates into what could be the wildest three-way fight the sport has ever seen. Verstappen has finished ahead of both McLaren drivers at each of the past four races -- there's little reason to think that run will stop in Mexico City.
If you had any lingering doubts, you can be certain of one thing: this title fight is on.
