F1 world champion blown away by Max Verstappen's 'magic' abilities

Max Verstappen has been the “driver of the year” and can “never” be counted out of the F1 title race, according to Nico Rosberg.

Red Bull’s four-time world champion is 25 points behind championship leader Oscar Piastri despite having a slower car than McLaren for the opening part of the 2025 season.

Verstappen has been able to claim two victories from the opening eight races to stay within touching distance of the McLarens in third place in the drivers’ world championship.

Ahead of this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix, Verstappen said his championship battle against the McLaren pair of Piastri and Lando Norris “doesn’t really feel like a fight”.

But former Mercedes driver Rosberg, who narrowly pipped Lewis Hamilton to the 2016 world title, believes Verstappen is firmly in the hunt.

“Max is still right in there. The last normal track was Imola and he dominated the race there. He was very, very fast,” Rosberg told Sky Sports F1.

“Here we’re seeing he’s a little bit behind but he’s still close and you never really know what fuel loads the teams are doing there. He’s driving incredibly well.

“For me he’s the driver of the year so far. You can never count out Max."

Max Verstappen’s ‘magic’ driving like art

Rosberg was full of praise for Verstappen’s driving ability after the Dutchman finished second and third in Friday’s two practice sessions at Barcelona.

“It was really interesting for me because it was the first time I’ve been out on track in a long, long time and I really saw the Max Verstappen magic out there,” Rosberg said.

“First of all these cars are incredibly nervous on the rears. You see the drivers working the wheel a lot and the rear is very snappy, always. It’s very heavy, snappy and looks like a handful for everybody.

“Max Verstappen comes through the corner and it’s really incredible. He dials out the understeer and makes it quite an oversteery car and then every other driver would have massive snaps and really freestyle, but he is able to really keep that oversteer within this beautiful, very narrow window where he never goes over it.

“If you go over you overheat the tyres, you snap, you lose a load of time and he just balances that oversteer within this tiny window amazingly. It’s like a work of art out there, it’s incredible.”

Comparing Verstappen to Red Bull teammate Yuki Tsunoda, the German added: “With Yuki Tsunoda he comes in, big understeer, and it still snaps to oversteer as you go from that switch going on power.

“That’s the essence of it. That’s why Max is always six tenths quicker than every single teammate that you put next to him.

“All these teammates are very good drivers and it comes down to the fine feeling and the speed of processing the very, very fine details of what’s going on on the rear.

“Tiny, tiny inputs where you are just reacting that little bit faster than anybody else out there and just being more precise. It’s like art.”