Vasseur dismisses Verstappen bold Ferrari claim – In a year when Formula One gave its supporters one of the most competitive seasons of all time, the chase for the drivers’ championship fizzled out like a firework in the monsoon of Interlagos. Never before has F1 seen seven different drivers win multiple races in a season as the sport prepares to celebrate its 75th season in 2025.

The anniversary will spawn a whole host of one off Formula One events across the world yet what matters to the ordinary fan is how competitive is the racing on track. The signs are good, Red Bull clearly did not have the fastest car when the sport returned from the summer break and Max had his longest win drought since 2020.

Yet it was written in the stars, the four times world champion would find a way to remind his fellow drivers why he remains the one to beat. Following skirmishes with the stewards in Singapore and Mexico, Max arrived in Sao Paulo with multiple points to prove.

 

 

 

Almost another F1 monster record

It had been ten Grand Prix since the Dutch driver had won and that was all the way back in Spain. Meanwhile McLaren had seen their second driver Oscar Piastri claim his maiden victory in their four race wins and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc had won at home in Monza, the first for the Scuderia since before the turn of the decade.

Three wins each for Ferrari and Mercedes had shaken up the grid but not the drivers championship entirely. Verstappen returned from the summer break 70 points ahead of Lando Norris but the challenge from McLaren faltered over the next six rounds and in the final count the closest the British driver got to Verstappen was following the Mexican Grand Prix when the gap was down to 47 points.

Red Bull and Max began the year where they had left off and only mechanical failure in round three in Melbourne prevented Max from equaling his own record which was set in 2023, of ten more consecutive race victories.

However, there were early signs the world champions were not going to have it all their own way as early as the Emilia-Romagne Grand Prix mid way through May. Practice had gone badly for Max with him a quarter of a second behind Leclerc the leader in FP1. This grew to half a second in FP2 as the McLaren’s came to the fore and was then whopping 0.8 seconds off the pace off Oscar Piastri in FP3.

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Crucial win in Imola

Come qualifying, the expectations for Red Bull and Verstappen were low. Yet the team back in Milton Keynes appeared to once again deliver in the simulator and the recommended setup changes worked like a treat. Max dominated Q1 and Q2 with no-one able to get within 0.2 seconds of the world champion but it was to be tighter in the fight for pole position.

A genius lap from the Red Bull driver saw off Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris but by just hundredths of a second. Come race day, the McLarens again looked quicker than the Red Bull but on the tight and twisty old school track near Imola the hard fought pole was the difference between Norris and Verstappen although the driver in papaya fought to the very end finishing just 0.725 seconds behind the world champion.

Two more wins in Canada and Spain took Verstappen to seven wins from the first ten rounds of the year and his lead over Lando Norris was now 69 points. Ten rounds later, Norris was the closest he’d been to Verstappen prior to the Sao Paulo Grand Prix but he still remained 47 adrift with four races remaining. The genius drive in Brazil from Verstappen, from seventeenth to the win, all but sealed the championship with three rounds remaining.

Having finished off his rivals in Las Vegas courtesy of a dominant Mercedes weekend which hurt McLaren, Max pontificated over whether he would have won the title earlier had he been driving a Ferrari or a McLaren.

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When asked after the race in Las Vegas whether he could he have won the title in a McLaren, Max was eager to portray the fact that his was not the best car this year. “Yes, even earlier … so further ahead. [With Ferrari], pretty much the same, I think. The Mercedes, no. I think that would have been trickier,” he conceded.

Verstappen had been irked by McLaren’s CEO Zak Brown earlier in the year when he suggested Max could only win because he had the fastest car. In May, Brown told Beyond the Grid: “I think there are six, seven drivers on the grid that will be world champions in the Red Bull,” he remarked.

This was something Verstappen clearly locked away inside himself as one of those motivating factors that would come back to haunt the McLaren CEO. During a Sky Sports interview on Saturday night in Las Vegas, Verstappen remarked to Brown: “Like you said before, I could only win it in the fastest car,” to which both men laughed.

Verstappen later admitted that Brown’s comments added fuel to his desire for a fourth title. “Things like that only motivate me. When people are critical or think I can only win in the best car, I will prove them wrong. If I don’t get [the credit] now, then I don’t know what I to do.”

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Ferrari boss dismisses claim

Now Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur has addressed Verstappen’s claim about winning the title earlier in a Ferrari interview with Italy’s AutoSprint. “It makes no sense to think or say that in another team Verstappen would have won the same since it is not possible to separate the performance of a driver from that of his car.”

“There are too many elements involved. It makes no sense to say that Verstappen would have won in a McLaren as well since the quality level of Woking’s team also depends on feedback and work done with its current drivers,” he added.

Ferrari will be focused on their huge money signing Lewis Hamilton in the coming few days, as the clock winds down on New Year’s Eve of Hamilton’s contracted time with Mercedes. How will the former champion fare at Ferrari? Will the baseline characteristics of the car suit his driving stye better than the last three Mercedes offerings?

Whilst Fred Vasseur was dismissive of Max’s claim about driving a McLaren or a Ferrari he expressed his admiration at the ability of the world champion to always bring his A game even when the car was third or fourth quickest.

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Vasseur praises Max for getting the maximum

“What impressed me about Verstappen this year was his ability to extract the best even when they struggled,” said Fred. “And this is a lesson for us, because over the course of a season in such a competitive context there are races where we are not the strongest, but it is necessary to maximize the result.

“To win, you need to make a difference when you’re not in the right place – that’s where he has made a difference.”

Red Bull took a wrong turn in the development of the RB20 in the Spring, something they never truly recovered from. Yet there’s no reason they won’t be up front again as the new cars roll outdoor testing in Bahrain.

And as for Hamilton, he surely has to be closer to Leclerc than he was to Russell in the latter half of this year, or the Ferrari dream may end as badly for Lewis as it did for another British F1 world champion, Nigel Mansell when he gave his final hurrah.

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Marko explains: Why Yuki Tsunoda missed out on the coveted Red Bull seat – In a recent announcement that sent shockwaves through the Formula One world, Red Bull Racing revealed its driver line-up for the 2025 season. The team confirmed that four-time world champion Max Verstappen will continue as their lead driver, alongside the long-awaited addition of Liam Lawson.

Meanwhile, Yuki Tsunoda, who has shown considerable growth and ambition during his time with sister team Racing Bulls, has been overlooked for the Red Bull Racing seat, a decision that has sparked considerable debate. In an exclusive interview with Germanys RTL/ntv and sport.de, Red Bull Motorsport Advisor Helmut Marko sheds light on the reasons behind this pivotal decision… READ MORE