Max Verstappen’s honest 2025 F1 title fight admission after Las Vegas victory

Max Verstappen has conceded that his chances of winning a fifth Formula 1 title remain slim despite claiming victory at the Las Vegas Grand Prix.

Verstappen stormed to his sixth win of the year with a dominant drive in Las Vegas. 

The Dutchman took the lead away from Lando Norris at the first corner. Norris defended aggressively into Turn 1 but braked too late as a result, giving Verstappen the lead.

Verstappen controlled the race from that point onwards to take his second victory in Las Vegas.

Verstappen is now 42 points behind Norris with two rounds to go. He will have to rely on luck - and potential reliability issues for Norris - to have any hope of a fifth title.

Assessing his F1 title hopes after the race, Verstappen said: “It’s still a big gap, we always try and maximise everything we’ve got. In upcoming weekends we will try and win the race and at the end of Abu Dhabi we will see where we end up, but I’m very proud of everyone. 

“We’ve had an up and down season and tough times, but also some really beautiful moments. We learnt a lot throughout the whole season and that’s always very valuable for the upcoming years.

“It’s something that we have to cling onto and just try and improve even more and come back stronger for next year and to put a fight at the start of the year in the championship. We are enjoying it now and we will see next week what we can do again.”

Verstappen ‘felt comfortable’ in Las Vegas

Verstappen’s return to form in Vegas wasn’t too surprising. 

Red Bull excelled on low-downforce circuits earlier this year, such as Monza and Baku.

However, Verstappen was no match for Norris in qualifying, with the McLaren driver taking pole by over 0.3s. 

Verstappen admitted he was “feeling comfortable” behind the wheel of his Red Bull, which allowed him to build a significant gap over Norris.

“It was good, in practice we didn’t really know what the tyres were going to do. In the race you could just see that everyone was just trying to find the rhythm and see how much you can push, especially in the first stint because you’re on the more fragile tyre. It worked really well,” Verstappen added.

“Normally the race is always a tough one for us, we are not normally that great on tyres, but today it seemed like we were more in control and I could push a little bit more. We had a lot more pace and I could stay out a little bit longer and split the race in half and that definitely helped a lot.

“The car was working pretty well, much more to my liking and at the end it was quite a decent lap. Every lap I was just feeling comfortable and not taking too much out of the tyre.”