Max Verstappen hits back at journalist over claim Spain incident cost him F1 title

Max Verstappen has hit back at a reporter for suggesting his controversial incident at the Spanish Grand Prix cost him the 2025 F1 title.

Verstappen’s eighth victory of the year at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix wasn’t enough for him to take the title.

With Lando Norris finishing the race in third, the British driver won the championship by two points ahead of Verstappen.

Following the Dutch Grand Prix in August, Verstappen was over 100 points behind McLaren’s Oscar Piastri.

Six wins in nine races put Verstappen back into unlikely title contention.

However, with Verstappen missing out on the title by just two points, his Spanish GP road-rage incident arguably cost him the championship.

At Barcelona, Verstappen deliberately drove into George Russell after the Safety Car restart.

The Dutchman was handed a 10-second time penalty as a result, dropping him five places.

The lost points — which weren’t seen as significant at the time due to Red Bull’s lack of competitiveness compared to McLaren — proved decisive in the end.

Verstappen was unhappy with a journalist’s suggestion that it was the main factor behind his title loss in the post-race press conference at the Yas Marina Circuit.

“You forget all the other stuff that happened in my season,” he said.

“The only thing you mentioned is Barcelona. I knew that would come. You’re giving me a stupid grin now.

“It’s part of racing in the end. You live and learn. Championship is one of 24 rounds.

“I’ve also had a lot of early Christmas presents given to me in the second half so you can also question that.”

Why didn’t Verstappen back them up?

Unsurprisingly, Red Bull didn’t resort to any ‘backing up’ tactics during Sunday’s race.

It was heavily speculated that Verstappen would try to back the two McLarens into the rest of the pack.

Verstappen needed to win the race with Norris finishing off the podium.

But due to how the race played out, Norris and Piastri had a relatively straightforward run to the podium.

Ferrari nor Mercedes had the pace to challenge the McLaren pair.

Verstappen conceded Piastri’s choice to start on the hards made deploying such tactics “quite difficult”.

“I had a lot of scenarios in my head but then I knew once the tyres Oscar had on the car then that would be quite difficult.

“We were probably a bit too quick up front, the others couldn’t really follow that well. I think Charles [Leclerc] drove his heart out today to try and get up to that podium. So that was also impressive to see that.

“They [McLaren] went for a two-stop, that made it even more complicated. Because if you stay on one stop, backing the whole thing up, it’s tough and I think anyway, this new layout around here makes it even harder to do that.”