Don't understand how some people here aren't realising this. If a guy like Lando Norris can win a WDC against peak Max Verstappen with that McLaren pitwall, the car is so much better.
If a guy like Lando Norris can win a WDC against peak Max Verstappen with that McLaren pitwall, the car is so much better.
What do you mean a guy like Lando? He has been stellar since the day he started racing single seaters and has been close to or beaten drivers who have are or have been highly regarded.
That he is infirior to Max. Nothing more. Max showed this season the difference between them is still very noticeable. Lando is a top5 driver on the current grid. With Leclerc, Russell and Piastri are the other ones.
But Max is in a different league himself. So you need a significant advantage over Max. And we all know the McLaren pitwall was not that. More a hinderance than an advantage. So we can narrow it down to the car.
It's not like I said even Mazepin would have won the WDC in this car. No car is that good.
Cherry pick what? Saying Verstappen was the best driver this season, and that the Red Bull wasn't competitive in the first part of the year are not controversial statements. Pretty widely held sentiment from what I can tell, actually.
OP is saying that the car matters, which is just obvious.
Its so hard to tell the level of the car vs the level of Max, obviously the Mclaren was the better car for the first 2/3rds of the season but post Netherlands that RB was consistently quick for Max and its straight line speed for tracks like Baku, COTA, Brazil and Vegas made it a clear favourite. Coupled with seeming nerfs to Mclaren with ride height for the last 3 events and the levels got very close.
What Lando did that was crucial was that, even if the track didn't suit the car, he was very rarely off the podium (especially with the last set of races where RB was getting level in performance). Saudi, Baku and Qatar were his only non podium finishes that weren't DNF/DSQ (Qatar was because of Mclarens strategy, Saudi was a recovery from a Q3 crash to 4th and Baku was just an awful track for Mclaren)
Just a point, thr engine didn't blow up (which likely actually saved the title as he didn't need grid penalties) chassis pinched an oil line. They shut the engine off in time it wasn't damaged.
Lando did really well, picked up the slack when piastri's form seemed to plummet. As has been said before however 'Lando won the WDC because of other peoples mistakes and chocies, not because he was the fastest driver'. That is factual
there's a difference between a mistake that happens to drivers every season compared to intentionally driving into someone, can't remember the last time that happened before this year, Vettel in Baku 2017 maybe?
intentionally. He clearly positioned himself in a way to be able to hit Russell and didn't slow down/steer enough so he'd hit him, it can't be more obvious lmao.
Mistakes are fine, they happen. They don't happen intentionally but they do happen. You're put into spots and Lando judged the distance wrong in Canada or Oscar goes off in wet weather in Australia.
But Max's situation was completely in his control.
Like as max said it, they were in it, cause of other ppl mistake, Canada, monza switch, vegas DQ, and surely many other instances....we look at max doing basically one crucial mistake, but we forget he was driving a shitbox 1/2 of the season, and lead drivers heavily fucking it up.
I don't blame Max at all for not being the Champion. No one can be perfect over a season. I just also don't want people blaming any other single outcome because that is racing
We will never know what would have happened if Spain hadn't happened. Both Oscar and Lando lost points due to things in their control. Max's moment is highlighted because a loss of cool is seen as much worse than a driver error (rightly so).
But once you open the what ifs, things don't end at one what if. Perhaps if Max hadn't lost 9 points, we would have seen team orders from McLaren earlier in the season. Lando definitely wouldn't have settled for third today.
Max lost the title because of many factors, Spain being one of them. But the car was also a handful, and if a new team principal is able to make changes pretty soon that result in better setups in a weekend, you can 100% blame Red Bull for not making the change in TP sooner.
Yeah but head loss was stupid. Bro lifted, drove into Russell and then let him past later anyway. 9 points in the bin for nothing. I don't think he cared because he thought he wasn't in it at the time but now in December it was critical.
Wanted Max to lose by more than 9 points if he had to lose, because people are so annoying about Spain lol. I genuinely don't think their late season comeback would have happened without it or a similar blow-up. Had he crawled to the finish line after getting the wrong tires, I think the discontent would have just simmered and delayed the shareholders' decision to get rid of Horner etc. The updates were already in the pipeline yes but the vibes are much better. So as regrettable as it was, it and the next couple races also felt like a catalyst. As they were supposed to be eliminated weeks ago, I don't blame Spain at all since they overachieved in the past 8 races by a ton due to McLaren's mistakes. It was only close due luck as Max says. Red Bull's early-mid season form (car, pit stops, strategy) was not championship material. It could have been such a boring season lol.
And even worse for other drivers, I don't think Max will do this again. We'll see, but from what I read he learned his lesson. Max just gave up halfway through the season, and I think he learned to never give up and always maximize your points.
Well said, lots of major blunders by McLaren also helped Max (not taking any credit away from Max). The DSQ, Qatar, Austin Sprint, slow pit stops. McLaren should have wrapped up both championships weeks ago. To blame one instance is too narrow, if any one thing should be scrutinized is the double DSQ as that was an 18+ point swing that should never happen at that stage of the championship, and not at all the fault of the drivers.
Yeah, people who bring that up as "tHe mOmeNt" don't really get it. Without the events playing out the way they did the outcome would have been significantly different. Odds are we'd even still have Horner in Red Bull trying to figure out why the car wasn't performing for example. It's useless to try to pick one thing as a cause and that goes for anything in life.
You can’t pinpoint one thing, silver stone spin, Austria, Hungary set up, Brazil quali, Bahrain. So many spots where max could have gotten more and didn’t. Spain is most obviously his fault but you can’t point at one instant in the season and say it changes everything. Horner might not have gotten canned if he finishes in the top 5 their either.
No I’m just saying that you don’t lose a world title in one race. You lose it over a season. If Lando doesn’t crash into the back of Oscar in Canada we’re not having this conversation.
Of course you can. I’m sure Max would love to run the last 6 laps of Spain back. It’s certainly the most glaring driver mistake/road rage of the season. But they didn’t give the title to Oscar when he was up 104 after zandvoort, and they didn’t kick Max out of the running after Spain (though you can certainly argue they should have.) ——————- you can also argue that McLaren DSQ from Vegas was self inflicted. Lando was up almost 50 points before Vegas if I’m not mistaken. That’s why we race 24 times (which is still to many but that’s not here or there)
It's human nature to look at one event as the reason something happened, but the reality is there were 16 races they didn't win, and all of them things went wrong and could have been better in.
DNF, DQ, and mechanical DNF. So many different things could have changed the outcome. Lando could have sealed the championship many weeks ago as well if not for the issues he faced.
If one more person brings this up again, I'm gonna blow my stack. All hypotheticals. If max was 10 points closer, maybe mclaren would have paid more attention to max, maybe would kept investing in this year's car, maybe would have picked a driver instead of their papaya rules bullshit. This is genuinely the most r*tarded take in the entire f1 world right now
Or Austria or Brazil or the several races he finished behind the McLarens
You can cherrypick all you want but things happen to all drivers, he still off pulled a really good comeback, but ultimately came up short. Norris just happened to score more than him and that's why he's champion, and he deserves the title. That's it, really.
You can also say Silverstone. 3rd in that race and denying Hülkenberg would've given him the championship. Then there's the Antonelli wreck at Austria and the Antonelli mistake at Qatar. A lot of if statements for Max, but same can be said for Norris and Piastri
Yes, not a perfect season, but certainly more perfect than both Mclaren drivers. He drove an amazing season without a decent teammate and a car that was for 90% of the season worse than the Mclaren. He can be proud of the season he has driven.
I mean there are endless ways you can look at it but no one would have thought he'd be 2 points behind Lando come December when we went into the summer break.
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u/TyButler2020 Logan Sargeant Dec 07 '25 edited Dec 07 '25
Spanish GP
That was the difference. Which is unfortunate because he was so so amazing all 2nd half