Red Bull’s recent uptick in form has naturally stirred the paddock’s favourite pastime: speculation. Two consecutive wins have left fans and pundits wondering whether the team’s management shake-up is linked to the sudden calm and newfound results. With Christian Horner pushed aside in July after two decades and Laurent Mekies stepping in as team principal, the narrative almost writes itself. However, one man is not convinced, and he has never been afraid to speak his mind.
Guenther Steiner, the former Haas team boss and now unofficial F1 truth-teller, offered his view in a video interview with Omnisport giving his odds on whether Max Verstappen can win the F1 drivers title this year.
“I respect Laurent; he’s a good friend. But to claim that he could have directly influenced the team to win two races just two weeks after taking office isn’t realistic,” he said. “Laurent would be the first to say that, because he’s a very honest guy.”
The calm after the Horner storm
Mekies took over during a turbulent summer. Horner’s sudden dismissal was never formally explained by Red Bull, but his reputation had already been damaged by allegations of inappropriate behaviour from a former employee. After years of control and championship glories, the axe finally fell.
According to Steiner, the atmosphere alone is unrecognisable.
‘There was drama at every race weekend before, and that’s gone now. We haven’t heard anything strange from the Red Bull camp recently. Everything seems very calm,” he noted.
This calmness may be a factor, but Steiner isn’t rewriting history.
“Horner did a very good job at Red Bull, winning many championships,” he said. “But sometimes things change. With him as team boss, there was a lot of internal dissatisfaction and something had to change. That change was Christian leaving.”
So, did Red Bull’s return to the front really come from Mekies’s magical touch, or was it simply a case of the team finally being able to breathe again after months of off-track chaos?
Max Verstappen’s faint title hopes
Of course, two wins immediately gave the more excitable parts of the fanbase a new dream: could Max somehow pull off a miraculous late charge for the World Championship? Steiner is quick to burst that bubble…
“In my opinion, his chances are very, very, very, very slim. You can never completely rule out Max, but if everything goes as it should, he won’t win the title. The gap is simply too big, and McLaren has the better car at the moment.”
It’s blunt, but hard to argue with. McLaren continues to set the standard with its championship-leading machine. Verstappen’s victories in Monza and Baku were impressive, but those tracks reward high speed and a driver who can get the most out of an imperfect car.
As Steiner put it: “Now that we’re back on more normal tracks, I think McLaren will be stronger again. The races Max won were on high-speed circuits with the ‘Max factor’, where this guy sometimes does incredible things. But he can’t deliver consistently because his car isn’t as good as the McLaren.”
Steiner is the designated pessimist of the paddock
At this point, it’s worth appreciating just how gloriously on-brand all of this is for Guenther Steiner. If there’s a man in Formula 1 who can be relied upon to pour cold water on a firework display, it’s him. Give him optimism and he’ll respond with a grimace and a shake of the head. There’s probably a weather station in the Alps that consults him before updating its “gloomy with a chance of rain” forecast.
Suggesting that Verstappen still has a shot at the title is, in Steiner’s eyes, akin to insisting that Haas could one day win Monaco based on raw pace alone. Technically not impossible, but you’d have a better chance of winning the lottery. Lots of them.
Max factor vs. McLaren machine
Yet Steiner does concede that the ‘Max factor’ remains real, that is, the uncanny ability that Verstappen has to make a car do things it probably shouldn’t. Monza and Baku proved as much, with Verstappen coaxing performance from his RB21 that defied logic.
Unfortunately, championships are not won on bravado alone. Over the course of 24 races, machinery matters, and McLaren’s car is the sharper sword.
The irony, of course, is that Red Bull’s sudden stability since Horner’s departure should, in theory, help Verstappen. However, as Steiner points out, a serene paddock atmosphere doesn’t suddenly bend the laws of aerodynamics. Even if Mekies lit incense and hummed meditation mantras in the garage, if the car lacks downforce in medium-speed corners, it wouldn’t achieve much.
Bottom line
The end of the Horner era and the beginning of the Mekies era have brought a new calm; what’s interesting is how quickly Red Bull’s identity has shifted. Under Horner, drama was almost a feature, not a bug. Under Mekies, the team appears, at least on the surface, to be boringly professional. This may actually be the biggest compliment possible in Formula 1. Stability, no headlines, just results: it’s the kind of dull efficiency that McLaren and Mercedes have mastered for years.
However, it remains open to debate whether Mekies’ leadership is directly responsible for the resurgence or if the engineers simply found a sweet spot in the car’s development path.
So, is Steiner right to dismiss Verstappen’s title chances? In terms of pure mathematics and car performance, yes. However, Formula 1 rarely follows logic all the way through. Crashes, weather and updates gone wrong can still creep in, and the unexpected can happen. Steiner may insist that the odds are ‘very, very, very, very slim’, but the sport has thrived for decades precisely because slim chances have a way of becoming unforgettable moments.
Ecclestone U-Turn in Massa title trial
Hamilton tensions reveal Ferrari deep rift
Since the Formula One summer break, Ferrari’s woes have gone from bad to worse. A team renown from coming back from the Autumn shutdown strongly has scored just thirty points across three Grand Prix weekends, Red Bull by way of contrast have scored seventy eight points.
Last season, Charles Leclerc scored 179 between F1’s return and the curtain falling in Abu Dhabi, while Lando Norris who led the charge to beat Max Verstappen to the drivers’ title claimed 175 points. Something has gone badly wrong with the team and the tension between Hamilton and Maranello is rising.
Coming home in P8 and P9 in Baku was the culmination of another poor weekend for the Scuderia drivers, yet their reasoning as to why the results were poor differed significantly. Charles Leclerc took it on the chin blaming his bad qualifying performance and was careful not to heap the blame all upon the team…. READ MORE
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.
Craig.J. Alderson is Senior Editor at TJ13, where Craig oversees newsroom operations and coordinates editorial output across the site. With a background in online sports reporting and motorsport magazine editing, he plays a key role in maintaining consistency, speed, and accuracy in TJ13’s coverage.
During race weekends, Craig acts as desk lead, directing contributors, prioritising breaking stories, and ensuring timely publication across a fast-moving news cycle.
Craig’s work focuses heavily on real-time developments in the paddock, including team updates, regulatory decisions, and emerging controversies. This role requires a detailed understanding of Formula 1’s operational flow, from practice sessions through to race-day strategy and post-race fallout.
With experience managing editorial teams, Craig ensures that TJ13 delivers structured, reliable coverage while maintaining the site’s distinctive voice.
Craig has a particular interest in how information moves within the paddock environment, and how rapidly developing stories can be accurately translated into clear, accessible reporting for readers.
1 thought on “Odds on Verstappen winning the F1 title 2025”