Successful the 2025 System 1 title “doesn’t actually matter” to Max Verstappen, forward of a three-way title decider in Abu Dhabi.
The Crimson Bull driver took his seventh grand prix victory of the season in Qatar because of an impeccable drive and a decisive technique name. That success meant he decreased his deficit to the championship lead from 104 factors three months in the past to 12 factors forward of the ultimate spherical.
If Verstappen had been to beat Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri to the title, he would match Juan Manuel Fangio’s world championship tally and can be solely the second driver to realize 5 consecutive titles after Michael Schumacher.
The 70-time grand prix winner has had his fair proportion of success over time, and is due to this fact not overly fussed as as to whether he provides to it subsequent Sunday.
Requested about his frame of mind in comparison with his solely earlier title showdown in 2021, Verstappen replied: “I’m much more relaxed now. I imply, I do know that I’m 12 factors down. I’m going in there with simply constructive vitality.
“I strive all the pieces I can. However on the similar time, if I don’t win it, I nonetheless know that I had an incredible season. So, it doesn’t actually matter.
“It takes quite a lot of the stress off. I’m simply on the market having a superb time like I had at present. I additionally began at present with ‘we’ll see the way it goes’.
“I do know that after I sit within the automotive, I at all times attempt to maximise all the pieces I can. And that’s what I’ll attempt to do in Abu Dhabi, however on the similar time, I additionally know that we have to depend on in all probability some exterior elements to have a go at it. However a race like at present reveals that once you suppose it will be boring and easy – it’s not. So, I’m hoping Abu Dhabi goes to be comparable.”
Max Verstappen, Crimson Bull Racing
Photograph by: Andrew Ferraro / LAT Photographs by way of Getty Photographs
For the primary time, Verstappen has led his title problem with a Crimson Bull RB21 that clearly hasn’t been probably the most aggressive automotive general.
Regardless of a “actually robust first half of the season”, the Dutchman rated his marketing campaign as “very robust”.
“However that is additionally one thing that I demand of myself after mainly 11 years in System 1,” he insisted. “And, , yearly, I feel you turn into a bit extra all-around.
“Even within the championship years, there are at all times issues that you simply look again at and you are like, ‘I might have discovered a bit extra’, or ‘I might have executed a bit extra there’. And this will go from the way you arrange the automotive, what you probably did your self when it comes to execution in a race, or the way in which that you simply work along with the staff.
“To nonetheless be on this combat, I feel we will be actually happy with it as a result of in the midst of the season, in some unspecified time in the future, it was virtually – not such as you lose motivation, however you don’t actually see a method ahead of truly profitable once more on this season. It is virtually like you must hope that 2026 can be higher.
“However we undoubtedly made some actually good steps with the automotive, and in some weekends, for positive, we had been in a really aggressive state, I’d say, the place we might win races. However on the similar time, we’ve additionally received races the place possibly we shouldn’t have, like at present, by making the appropriate name as a staff. After which, after all, it’s nonetheless as much as me to execute it in one of the simplest ways doable. However that’s, on the finish of the day, additionally a correct staff effort.”
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