Max Verstappen is F1 champion again, but the 2025 season already looks wide open

LAS VEGAS — Max Verstappen’s fourth world championship, secured under the neon lights of Las Vegas Boulevard on Saturday night, has cemented his place among Formula One’s all-time greats.

This was a championship win unlike his previous three. In 2021, he went toe-to-toe with Lewis Hamilton during the season, with the pair scrapping in a head-to-head battle. 2022 and 2023 were years of dominance for Verstappen, and any threat to his supremacy proved fleeting at best.

2024 has been different, although the year started as 2023 ended. Verstappen dominated early on, only for Red Bull to lose its position as pacesetter. Not just one, but three teams – McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes – emerged as persistent threats. Red Bull’s slump, particularly its impact on Sergio Pérez’s form, is set to cost it the constructors’ championship for the first time since 2021.

Seven different drivers have taken victories this year. While Verstappen’s immense ability has carried him over the line to secure the championship, the tougher competition foreshadows what he can expect in 2025. Given the stability of the rules and the need for teams to spend as much time and effort as possible in the complete regulatory inspection. for 2026, most expect the pecking order to remain largely the same: McLaren, Ferrari, Red Bull, Mercedes – then everyone else.

As the title defense goes, 2025 is already shaping up to be an even bigger test for Verstappen.

Is Lando Norris the (too) early favorite?

F1 has long wanted this kind of open, close competition at the front of the pack. The cost cap, introduced in 2021 to promote financial stability, has made it harder for teams to spend their way out of trouble. Upgrades and car development must be carefully planned.

McLaren’s progress over the past two seasons, which could culminate in its first constructors’ title in 26 years, proves how to get things right. Every update added to the MCL38 car through 2024 has offered an advance in performance, giving Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri the chance to battle at the front on a regular basis.

Norris took advantage of that to pose the most serious threat to Verstappen. Norris’ first chance to properly get into a title fight provided some hard lessons to learn. Often his own harshest critic, the Briton took full responsibility – perhaps even too much – for mistakes at times throughout the year that temporarily eased the pressure on Verstappen.

Norris is likely to go into 2025 as championship favorite based on his form after McLaren took a big step forward with its car around Miami. Since the start of the second half of the season in Hungary, he has surpassed Verstappen, delivering dominant wins at Zandvoort and in Singapore in a manner reminiscent of Verstappen in the past two years.

It has proven to Norris that, in his words, “I have what it takes” to contend for a championship. He admitted on Wednesday in Las Vegas that he was “definitely not at the level I needed to be at the beginning of the year”, only to produce “by far some of my best performances I’ve had” through the second half of the season.

Norris explained that it would also lead to a very different approach from all of McLaren in 2025. No longer chasing, it would be “going into a season with a mindset of let’s try to win it,” he said . “It’s a very different mindset than we had this year.” The reset of a new season could be big for Norris.

But he is not the only McLaren driver to consider a title bid.

In just his second season, Piastri justified McLaren fighting so hard for his services back in 2022. While his first win in Hungary came in strange circumstances as McLaren stressed over its team orders, the way he controlled things in Baku showed his star. quality. There needs to be another step up in form – Norris leads qualifying head-to-head 18-4 – to truly match Norris, but the positive signs are there.

As he has done in recent months, Verstappen may have to fend off a two-pronged McLaren threat in 2025.

Hamilton’s quest for an eighth title is renewed at Ferrari

Hamilton’s long, successful Mercedes career has come to an underwhelming end. Months removed from the emotional high of ending his win drought at Silverstone and the legacy victory at Spa, he admitted on Sky after the race in Brazil, where he battled to P10, that he “could happily go on holiday.”

The upcoming move to Ferrari in 2025 is one that a few months ago might have looked ill-judged. Mercedes were on the rise throughout the summer’s European races and Ferrari maintained a dip in form. These roles have been reversed since the August break, with Ferrari now chasing McLaren for the constructors’ title. Mercedes is 175 points behind Hamilton’s future team.

Hamilton recently admitted he is keeping a close eye on Ferrari’s progress, although his focus remains on finishing in style with Mercedes. Regardless of the outcome of the constructors’ race, Ferrari should be a threat from the start of next year to win races, giving Hamilton hope that he could mount a challenge for a record eighth drivers’ title.

The other dynamic of interest in Hamilton’s Ferrari move is how he will fare against Charles Leclerc, a driver considered to be of championship-winning caliber when given the right car.

Leclerc has been a leader at Ferrari for some time and is on a long-term contract for a reason. Wins at Monaco, Monza and Austin have made this his most successful season to date and, without Ferrari’s mid-season slump in form, there is good reason to believe that Leclerc would have been just as much, if not more, of a threat to Verstappen as Norris.

Much of the focus will be on Hamilton when he switches to Ferrari at the start of next year and whether that can be the turning point that gives him one last run of success to close his trophy-laden F1 career. But Leclerc is also ready to fight for a championship. Amid inevitable discussions about Hamilton’s performance level towards the end of this year, as he approaches his 40th birthday, it will be enlightening to compare the two Ferrari drivers.

Either way, Verstappen will have to keep an eye on the red cars in his mirrors next year.

And what about Mercedes?

Hamilton’s recent disappointing form has not been felt across the Mercedes team. George Russell felt he could have won the rainy Brazil race without pitting at the red flag and took pole in Las Vegas after the team swept practice.

It was a reminder that when Mercedes gets everything right, it can still threaten Ferrari and McLaren. Russell will enter 2025 as team principal for the first time when 18-year-old Mercedes protégé Andrea Kimi Antonelli joins him. Despite the hype surrounding Antonelli, expectations for his rookie season understandably need to be managed, meaning Russell will naturally be expected to spearhead his efforts.

The challenge for Mercedes will finally be to remedy its struggles with its car under this generation of regulations. Since 2022 it has failed to fight at the front consistently, its form has blown from hot to cold, sometimes session to session.

Finally understanding that in the final year of the regulation cycle would be too little, too late, but it could at least provide some hope of getting back into the title mix again.

Verstappen will remain very difficult to beat

The potential for all three teams to take the fight to Red Bull in 2025 is tempting. But we should take into account how strong Verstappen will be regardless next year.

He proved throughout the second half of 2024 that even without the fastest car, he is still capable of achieving great results and fighting the likes of Leclerc, Norris and Russell. Red Bull worked to understand the balance issues that surfaced midway through the season with its Austin update package, which provided some encouragement. If it can fully resolve that for next year and restore Verstappen’s confidence in the car, he can take a step forward again.

For Norris, it remained the biggest challenge. Regardless of the car’s relative performance, anyone looking to dethrone Verstappen will still have to beat him.

“I don’t think you’ll probably get a much better driver than Max ever in Formula 1 again,” Norris said. “That’s my opinion, but that’s what I believe, and for me to go up against that belief, to fight someone that I know is so good, it’s going to take a little bit more than what I’ve probably accomplished in this season.

“But I think what I’ve done since the summer break is closer to what I need to be and I think it’s close to being good enough to fight for next year.”

Carlos Sainz, the outgoing Ferrari driver, is likely to be left to watch the main event from afar in 2025 when he switches to Williams. But he was excited about how this season ended.

“It just goes to show that it could go anywhere,” Sainz said. “When you have four teams within two tenths and they have a whole winter to work on the car and improve the car, those two tenths could quickly switch around and create another favorite. So all four teams, for me, could be in in the fight.”

Speaking to the post-race broadcast, with Las Vegas’ iconic Fountains of Bellagio cascading behind him, F1’s four-time reigning champion acknowledged the challenge ahead to defend his throne.

“If you look at it for next year right now, I think it will be a proper battle between a lot of cars,” Verstappen said.

Top photo: Getty Images; Design: Kelsea Petersen/Athletics