Last Updated on May 22 2025, 12:12 pm
Given the terrible nature of the RB21 car and the fact it already has done for a driver after just two Formula One race weekends in 2025, it is quite remarkable that Max Verstappen remains within a win of taking the lead in the drivers’ title race. Leading the battle is Oscar Piastri on 146 points, Lando Norris on 133 and Max Verstappen on 124.
Last time out in Imola the world champion closed the gap on the young Australian by ten points and his win for Red Bull was crucial if there was to be any hope of the elusive fifth consecutive F1 title. Had Piastri won and Max come third, the lead of 42 points many believed would be insurmountable.
However, if we adjust the different points system used in F1 over the years to reflect the current one in use, there are ten drivers in F1 history who have come back from 42 points or more behind. Max Verstappen himself did so in 2022 when he trailed Charles Leclerc by some 46 points come the early part of the European season.
A number of bigger points overhauls made in F1
James Hunt is the record holder having overturned an equivalent 96 point deficit in 1976 to clam his one and only F1 drivers’ title. Kimi Raikkonen is next on the list and in 2007 he pegged back 76 points against his old team McLaren and with just two races remaining the Finn required 17 points to catch Hamilton when just 20 were up for grabs.
Of course the reason for this remarkable win for Raikkonen and Ferrari was because the McLaren team were ridden with in fighting, having refused to accept new signing and current double world champion Fernando Alonso was their number one driver. The friction within the team was tangible, as the upstart that was rookie Lewis Hamilton dared to challenge the great Spaniard at the height of his powers.
That year the season was fought over just seventeen races and it was arguably round 15 in Fuji, Japan which was to prove the pivotal moment for Kimi and Ferrari. The team took the ill advised decision to start their mean on intermediates, which was disastrous.
“We took the decision that we took,” said team manager Baldisserri. “Until the mathematics put you out of the game, our team spirit is to try, and it was the right approach.” Raikkonen was on song that day and whilst a safety car did help him out, his virtuoso performance humbled his struggling team mate Felipe Massa.
Alonso/Hamilton conspired to give Kimi the win
The penultimate round was in China and of course those watching back then will remember Hamilton binning his car on the entrance to the pit lane, leaving him stranded in the gravel. Yet Raikkonen had already swept past the struggling British driver, keeping his tyres in better shape and claiming a superb win.
The pressure was on McLaren now big time, but in Brazil Felipe Massa played his part as team mate riding shotgun to the almost inevitable Raikkonen victory. Kimi won six races to the McLaren drivers’ four each that season and the maths proves that six for one driver beat eight for two drivers.
Almost 20 years on and McLaren are starting to repeat history. Oscar Piastri completed his maiden F1 victory in China before putting a hatrick of wins together in Bahrain, Saudi and Miami. Verstappen with his win in Imola now has two victories for the year and Norris’ drive in Australia accounts for his single win of the year.
Of course back in 2007, after seven rounds Raikkonen had just the one win, as does Norris currently, with Hamilton and Alonso having two to their names. So predicting this year with another seventeen rounds yet to go – plus four more Sprint weekends – is a fools game at present.
Imola changes everything
Yet there are signs McLaren could once again Gert mugged come the final chequered flag in Abu Dhabi. Whatever the details of the technical directive issued by the FIA before the first race in Europe of the year, either McLaren were nobbled of Red Bull have deployed a tyre cooling technology which has proven to be a game changer.
Red Bull already were proving their driver was the master of qualifying and in Imola Max almost claimed his fourth of the year, only to be need by Piatsri. Yet the new found race pace and diminished tyre wear on the RB21 has catapulted Verstappen right back into the fight to be the champion of 2025.
Norris too has been somewhat more unlucky than his team mate and over time matters tend to level out. So the battle is all up hill from here for Oscar Piastri who under pressure of leading the championship appeared to falter braking too early into turn one in Imola to avoid a potential collision with Verstappen.
Were Verstappen to win the next two races – of course Monaco was terrible for the Red Bull suspension last year – then at worst he would be eight points behind Piastri, with both having four wins for the year.
Horner predicts a McLaren coming together
The current McLaren management decision is to ‘let them race’ which was evident in Imola, as even on fresher tyres Lando Norris in P3 was not given the wave by from his team mate to try and threaten Verstappen for the win.
There will come a time when McLaren are forced to make a decision over team orders as they finally did too late last season. Yet the ‘let them race’ mantra together with “we only care about what is best for the team result’ mantra Stella preaches week in and out may well come back to haunt him and the team.
Regarding McLaren refusing to tell Piastri to let Norris through in Imola, drew an interesting observation from rival team boss Christian Horner. “You’ve got two drivers that are fighting for a world championship,” said the Red Bull team principal. “At some point, self-interest will always outweigh team interest. That’s the conflict. So, they did a good job to not make contact. It was commendable that they were allowed to race, but you could see it got pretty close.”
Of course Horner remembers the calamitous day in Baku 2018, where both his drivers (Ricciardo and Verstappen) battled hard for lap after lap before the pair came together at high speed along the front straight ending their races in a cloud of carbon shards. Hamilton and Rosberg were in a similar intense battle for the title in 2016 and famously took each other off at turn four at the Spanish Grand Prix.
The maths is simple. Were this to happen at the next race weekend, a win for Verstappen sees him leading the championship, just like that. Now the team have dug themselves into the hole they find themselves in, it will be much later in the season before they can reverse their decision and favour one driver as they did Lando Norris will six race weekends remaining in 2024. More than 25% of the F1 titles won in 75 years have seen a 22 point gap overhauled which is the task ahead of Verstappen.
MORE F1 NEWS – Horror crash has far reaching implications for Verstappen title challenge
Yuki Tsunoda’s dramatic qualifying crash at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix in Imola has caused serious concern within the Red Bull Racing camp and cast a long shadow over Max Verstappen’s 2025 championship campaign. What initially appeared to be a costly but isolated driver error could have lasting consequences as Red Bull grapples with the financial and strategic fallout of the incident – all within the unforgiving constraints of Formula One’s budget cap.
The Japanese driver, who joined Red Bull Racing this season after replacing Liam Lawson, escaped injury but left his RB21 badly damaged. As F1’s competitive landscape tightens, Tsunoda’s mistake threatens to destabilise Red Bull’s title defence and Verstappen’s quest for a fifth consecutive world championship…. READ MORE ON THIS STORY
With over 30 years of experience in Formula 1 as an insider journalist, I have built trusted connections across the paddock, from race engineers and mechanics to senior team figures. At The Judge 13, I and a handful of trusted colleagues share exclusive Formula 1 news, expert analysis and behind-the-scenes stories you will not find in mainstream motorsport media.
