Despite what McLaren’s Lando Norris says – and he’s wise to be very cautious – it now seems unlikely that Max Verstappen will claim his fifth world championship this year. With just three rounds to go, Red Bull Racing’s resident genie is 49 points behind Norris and 25 adrift of the other McLaren driver, Oscar Piastri.
Yet Verstappen’s driving this season has been exceptional, even by his own standards. He’s always had the predatory instincts and bite of an enraged crocodile. But this year, his ability to make the best of a given situation, to keep his errors to a minimum despite being on the edge for many more laps than when he drove a dominant car, puts him head and shoulders above any of his rivals. There have been no form wobbles such as we’ve seen from Norris or, more recently, Piastri. Verstappen’s psyche seems made of granite these days, whatever Red Bull gives him to drive.
To be fair to RBR, it has made remarkable progress with evolving its RB21. Just before the Mexico GP, our Formula 1 correspondent Chris Medland told me, “The quicker car is still the MCL39, but what Red Bull has done is add a touch of performance and sorted out its balance issues, so Max can attack more yet also look after the tires. Points for [teammate] Yuki Tsunoda in three of the last five races shows the car is a tad more compliant now, and that’s letting Max do his thing more consistently… Yeah, we’re definitely seeing something special from Max. My take is, it will be his best title by far if he wins it, but it’s still a long shot.”
Another of our regular F1 writers in RACER magazine, Edd Straw, concurred with Medland’s verdict.
“I think you can say the RB21 is the equal of McLaren on some tracks – with Verstappen at the wheel,” he said. “Probably at a track with longer medium-speed corners – Qatar or Zandvoort – you’d say the McLaren is still better, but Red Bull have made a lot of progress, and they’ve admitted to pushing development and taking a little away from 2026.”
These comments from our F1 gurus came a few weeks before RBR’s disastrous performance in qualifying at Interlagos, when Verstappen and Tsunoda were only 16th and 19th fastest, the squad’s worst grid result for 19 years. But the team elected to break parc ferme rules to fit a new power unit in Verstappen’s car and attempt to put it in a better setup window, and you just knew that if the team’s new sums were right, the penalty of being consigned to a pitlane start would be worth it. No way was Max going to finish the race in ninth or 10th. He’s always in it to win it.
And so it proved. Yes, he benefited from an early slow puncture, in that he was able to pit under safety car conditions and ditch the far less desirable softer-compound Pirellis to spend the majority of the race on mediums, and you could also say he was able to drive with nothing to lose, since he has long been the outsider in this championship fight. But his drive from pitlane to third place was still a masterclass that moved Norris to comment that had Red Bull’s ace started near the front of the field, he would have won for the sixth time this year.
How remarkable is that? Well, as our man Straw remarked to me, “I don’t think anyone other than Max would be anywhere near title contention in an RB21.” Which leads one to conclude that, win or lose, Verstappen has put together one of the finest title defenses in Formula 1 history. When up against the odds, genius may be denied the ultimate accolades, but it will still reveal itself, as F1 history has proven ever since the world championship began in 1950.
Some drivers have been unfortunate in that circumstances have prevented such opportunity. After dominating the 1952 and ’53 championships, Alberto Ascari departed Ferrari to join Lancia but the new D50 wasn’t ready until the ’54 season climax, so he made cameo appearances in just four rounds of eight, driving a Maserati 250F, then sharing a drive in a Ferrari 625 and, in the final round, piloting the remarkable Lancia D50. Here at Pedralbes, Ascari took pole, set fastest lap and was leading on lap 10 when his clutch expired. His efforts that year had earned him one and one-seventh points! Such a feeble tally was hardly representative of his undimmed talent.
Alberto Ascari in his Lancia D50 leads Harry Schell’s Maserati 250F in the 1954 Spanish GP at Pedralbes. Michael Tee/Getty Images
After two years of domination in the Mercedes-Benz W196, Juan Manuel Fangio needed the aid of magnanimous Ferrari teammate Peter Collins to retain the crown in ’56, but in ’57 the Argentine was supreme in the Maserati 250F, now in its fourth season, to clinch his fifth and final world championship, before easing off the throttle a tad in the final two races.
Jack Brabham took full advantage of Cooper’s prime rivals’ belated swing to rear-engined cars to clinch the 1960 championship even more convincingly than he had landed his first a year earlier, with a sequence of four straight race wins. That run was matched three years later by Jimmy Clark on his way to the title, but F1’s new gold standard might have beaten it in ’64… Except that, after midseason, Clark could scarcely buy a finish: four times he was let down by his Climax engine and its ancillaries, and once on the bumpy Zeltweg airfield, he joined a long list of retirements with a broken halfshaft. At two of these races he had been leading when trouble struck, and he was in podium contention at the others. The great Scot could only shrug and accept that he, at least, had done all he could.
Of course, in ’65 he reigned supreme once more, but Clark’s magical abilities were perhaps seen to greatest effect in ’66. For the first six rounds he was lumbered with a two-liter Climax engine in the first year of the three-liter regulations, which was dominated by the Repco unit in the back of Brabham’s Brabham. Sheer brilliance earned Clark pole at both Monaco and the Nurburgring, while at Zandvoort he fought hard with “Black Jack” and even led until his underpowered engine quit. Finally, with a Lotus 43 powered by the overly complicated 16-cylinder three-liter BRM engine, Clark delivered an unlikely win at Watkins Glen. The result had required DNFs from two faster cars, but after his year-long efforts with an underpowered car, it was no more than he deserved.
The limitations of his March-Ford held back Jackie Stewart in 1970, but his skills still were plain for all to see. Rainer Schlegelmilch/Getty Images
His compatriot Jackie Stewart, who won the 1969 championship in a Tyrrell-run Matra, would undoubtedly have put up a sterling defense had Ken Tyrrell’s relationship with the French manufacturer not foundered on a dispute over engines: Ken had to continue with the proven Cosworth DFV thanks to his team’s funding from Ford, whereas Matra had pushed hard for him to adopt its V12. The resultant split benefited neither party in the short term. Tyrrell had to run the recalcitrant March 701 for most of the ’70 season until his homegrown car was ready, and rapidly discovered it was no match for the Ferrari 312B or Lotus 72. Yet some sprinkles of magic from Stewart delivered a dominant win at Montjuich Park, two runner-up finishes and three pole positions. When he also took pole on the Tyrrell 001’s debut in Canada, one could only sigh at what might have been…
Matra, too, may have rued its dumping of Tyrrell. Jean-Pierre Beltoise hadn’t been in the same league as Stewart the year before, and yet in ’70, he was a clear cut above JYS’s replacement, Henri Pescarolo. Between them, they scored three third places and finished ninth and 12th in the championship; Stewart was fifth.
Emerson Fittipaldi, who had won the world championship for Lotus in 1972, put up a superb defense of his crown in ’73. Yes, his three wins came from the first four races, and no, over a flying lap he was spanked 11-4 in qualifying by his new teammate Ronnie Peterson. But there is an oft-repeated myth that Fittipaldi and Peterson let a championship slip through their fingers by robbing each other of points, as if Emmo would have retained his crown had Colin Chapman imposed team orders… or elected to retain the puzzlingly inadequate Dave Walker for ’73. It’s simply untrue. For one thing, it was rare that both Lotus 72s finished. Only at Monza, the race where Stewart clinched his third and final crown, had Ronnie been in a position to aid Fittipaldi’s hopes by giving up a win, and that would have yielded just three more points, still leaving the Brazilian well shy of Stewart’s year-end tally. No, no, what killed the Lotus drivers’ hopes were four DNFs for Fittipaldi and six for Peterson, in a season when Stewart retired just once.
In terms of heroics, it would be difficult for anyone to measure up to Niki Lauda’s 1976 title defense. Getty Images
Niki Lauda’s 1976 campaign picked up where his glorious ’75 quest left off – in victory lane – and in the opening nine rounds the Ferrari driver amassed five wins and three other podium finishes. Then came the horror of his near-death experience at the Nurburgring and his enforced absence from two further rounds. With his scars still seeping and weeping, he returned at Monza with his points lead having been slashed from 23 points to just two, by McLaren’s James Hunt. Lauda would finish a brave fourth in that Italian Grand Prix, while Hunt retired, but a five-point edge – soon to be boosted further by McLaren’s appeal against its British GP DQ failing – wasn’t going to be enough now that the Ferrari 312T2 had been replaced at the summit by the McLaren M23.
Hunt took pole and victory at Mosport while Lauda fell from sixth on the grid to finish eighth with handling difficulties. At Watkins Glen, Hunt again converted pole position into a win while Lauda moved from fifth to third, albeit a minute behind the victor. There was no questioning Niki’s own contribution – he was still blowing away his well-regarded race-winning teammate Clay Regazzoni – but despite arriving at the Fuji finale with a three-point lead, it somehow felt like he was on the back foot.
Even without the monsoon and fog conditions that greeted the teams on race day, Lauda might not have retained his crown. Had the top three on the grid – Mario Andretti, Hunt, Lauda – remained in that order at race’s end, he would have edged it by one point; had Hunt usurped Andretti, the Briton would have won it by two. Instead, as is well known, Hunt won by one point, recovering from a puncture to claim a lapped third place behind Andretti and Patrick Depailler’s Tyrrell. Lauda, meanwhile, had quit after two laps, feeling that the organizers’ decision to start the race in such horrendous track conditions showed the same lack of vision he had encountered from the drop of the green. To the end of his days, Niki stood by his decision to withdraw. As you’d expect of him. And it had still been one of the bravest title defenses in F1 history.
Alan Jones and Nelson Piquet had little in common, other than being ace F1 drivers, but history shows these bitter rivals had something else in common; each followed up a season in which they clinched the world championship with a season of arguably greater personal performance, but had their hopes quashed primarily by car deficiencies. Jones had driven his brilliant Williams (FW07 at Round 1, thereafter FW07B) to a total of five wins in 1980 to clinch the title, and had simultaneously matched his brilliant teammate Carlos Reutemann for qualifying pace, and defeated him on most race days. The pair had been split in final points by Piquet, of Brabham.
Come ’81, Jones was yet more formidable in the races, even if Reutemann now had the one-lap pace advantage more often than not, but the results don’t show it. Jones prevailed at Long Beach, and while Reutemann failed to follow team orders in the Rio rain and held on to win, that harmed their already poor relationship more than it hurt Jonesy’s title chances. What killed them was having his car jump out of gear while leading in Zolder, sending him into the barrier; the fuel pick-up problem that dropped him from first to second at Monaco, and from first to outside the points at Hockenheim; his own blunder while leading at Jarama; and becoming an innocent victim in a multi-car crash at Silverstone. Piquet beat him to the championship by only four points… And between them finished Reutemann, who in the finale at the Caesars Palace parking lot, appeared to choose defeat over title glory on a day when he needed only to come home a couple of spots ahead of the physically frail Piquet. Jones, who had decided to retire, drove his similar Williams to a dominant victory.
If some consider Piquet’s ’81 title was somewhat lucky, his dedication to curing BMW’s growing pains with its new turbo engine cost him a shot at retaining his status. In ’82, Ferrari was turned upside down by tragedy and trauma, while Renault, in its sixth season of running a turbo engine, was still unable to string three finishes together. As Keke Rosberg proved, with a great chassis and a natural-breathing and reliable Cosworth, the title was ripe for the taking. Still, Piquet would at least reap the benefits of his endeavors with title glory in 1983.
If Rosberg had found that tackling the turbos was difficult in ’82 – at power-hungry Monza he had qualified 3.3 seconds off pole – he did at least have an efficient ground-effect car. In 1983, with the FIA having stipulated flat underfloors to help control cornering speeds, Rosberg’s task was almost impossible, and at Monza he was over six seconds adrift! But not once did the Finn accept his lot, and instead wrung the neck of the of the FW08C – he even scored pole position for the opening round of the season, the last for a normally aspirated car until the turbos were outlawed in 1989. At the tight ’n’ twisties, he was in his element, dancing away from the field on slicks in the damp at Monaco to score a brilliant victory, and finishing runner-up at Detroit. His efforts kept him sharp for when he was finally given a Williams-Honda turbo to pedal at the season finale in Kyalami. There he qualified sixth and finished fifth on the chassis/engine combo’s debut. So despite being disqualified for a pushstart in pitlane at Rio, Rosberg finished an impressive fifth in the championship, despite a 300 hp deficit in qualifying, and around 150 hp deficit on race days. Remarkable.
Keke Rosberg might have been literally powerless to defend his No. 1 in 1983, but that didn’t stop him putting on a grand show on a regular basis. Getty Images
Rosberg had a front-row seat for the next great championship defense in 1986, when he partnered Alain Prost at McLaren. Prost had finally clinched in ’85 after coming oh-so-close in the previous two seasons, but not long into the new season, he became aware he was outgunned by Ayrton Senna’s Lotus-Renault 98T and the Williams-Honda FW11s of Nigel Mansell and Nelson Piquet. The MP4/2C was in its third season, while its TAG-Porsche lacked the firepower of the Renault and the combo of firepower and fuel frugality of the Honda. Yet Prost achieved four wins that season backed up by seven other podium finishes to edge the Williams drivers in the points race in a dramatic finale in Adelaide.
Prost’s first year at Ferrari, 1990, saw him at his best, matching incumbent teammate Mansell in qualifying and generally making the most of the beautifully handling Ferrari 641, despite its V12 lacking the power of the Honda V10 in the McLarens of Senna and Gerhard Berger. Prost also made almost zero race day errors when his principal rivals made several. However, Senna’s Suzuka revenge ended Prost’s hopes of becoming Ferrari’s first drivers’ champion since Jody Scheckter in ’79.
It was Senna’s turn to fight against the odds in 1991, as Mansell had returned to Williams to pilot the sleek FW14, penned by Adrian Newey, which proved faster and better handling than the new McLaren-Honda MP4/6. Yet Nigel failed to and/or was unable to capitalize on this advantage in the early season, allowing Ayrton to capitalize and score four straight wins. Over the remainder of the season, Mansell and Riccardo Patrese demonstrated the superiority of their equipment, but Senna threw in two more wins and was even able to clinch his third title one race early, after arguably his greatest season.
Michael Schumacher beat Damon Hill to the championship in 1994, despite being disqualified from one race and banned from two, but it was when the Benetton team switched from Ford V8s to the same Renault V10s as the Williams team that everyone realized what a phenomenon he was. The B195 shouldn’t have been a match for the Newey-designed Williams FW17s of Hill and David Coulthard, yet the British pair scored five wins between them that year while Schumacher took nine, despite twice being taken out by Hill.
Once Schumacher landed his first Ferrari-mounted world championship in 2000, he usually had the best car and smartest tacticians at hand to defend his crown after crown after crown. But then in 2005 came a major stumble, as the F2005 proved aerodynamically compromised and Bridgestone appeared to have lost ground to Michelin. Fernando Alonso/Renault and Kimi Raikkonen/McLaren swooped to grab the majority of wins, with Alonso accumulating more than twice as many points as Schuey. But Alonso’s defense in 2006 was better yet, for now he had to deal with a full-strength Schumacher. Aldo Costa’s Ferrari 248 – the first V8-powered F1 Ferrari since 1964 – was a gem. And yet still Alonso prevailed, after the pair won seven races each. The No. 1 Renault R26 backed up his win tally with seven runner-up finishes, while Schumacher achieved four seconds and a third, falling 13 points short of usurping his younger rival.
In 2005, F1 fans were treated to the spectacle of two grand masters and their teams at the top of their game, as Ferrari’s Michael Schumacher battled Renault’s Fernando Alonso. Charles Coates/Getty Images
It’s hard to think of any classic title defenses in the intervening years, as champions have tended to drive dominant cars year on year – Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton and Verstappen. One could perhaps make the argument that Max’s RB20 wasn’t the best car of 2024 – Red Bull did, after all, finish only third in the constructors’ championship – and therefore last year’s defense of his realm was his best yet. But the car was still designed by the now departed Newey, and RBR’s slip to third in points was largely a result of Verstappen and a slumping Sergio Perez being a less rounded pairing than Norris/Piastri at McLaren and Charles Leclerc/Carlos Sainz at Ferrari.
This year, it’s more clear cut. Our man Medland is optimistically – or realistically – predicting a victory for Verstappen this weekend in his RACER Debrief this week (watch below). But, win or lose, we can be certain that Max’s 2025 campaign has produced one of the greatest championship defenses in Formula 1 history.
