As the Formula 1 circus packs up from the chaotic streets of Baku, one narrative dominates the paddock: McLaren’s internal showdown between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri has transformed the 2025 Drivers’ Championship into a papaya-tinted duel, with the duo separated by just 25 points and seven races left to decide the crown. But lurking in the shadows, with a fresh coat of momentum from his dominant Azerbaijan Grand Prix victory, is Max Verstappen—the four-time champion whose mere presence threatens to upend the script. If anyone can crash this two-horse race, it’s the Red Bull maestro, whose lights-to-flag masterclass on Sunday sliced his deficit to Piastri to 69 points and to Norris by 44, reigniting whispers of a fifth straight title.
The Azerbaijan weekend was a study in contrasts. While Verstappen coolly navigated a qualifying session that shattered records with six red flags—snaring his sixth pole of the season amid howling winds and mechanical mayhem—McLaren’s title hopefuls were left scrambling. Piastri, the points leader, endured a nightmare start: a jump-start penalty dropped him to the rear, followed by a lock-up into the Turn 5 wall just moments later, ending his race before it began and snapping his 34-race finishing streak. Norris, meanwhile, clawed his way from seventh on the grid to a gritty P7 finish, salvaging five points but watching helplessly as his teammate’s misfortune preserved a slender 25-point edge. “Not good. We were slow. Disappointing result,” Norris admitted post-race, his optimism from practice sessions evaporating into the Caspian Sea breeze.
For Verstappen, it was the antithesis: a “fantastic” procession from pole to chequered flag, his fourth win of the campaign and second in a row after Monza, where he’d already wrestled back momentum from McLaren’s summer stranglehold. Leading every lap in gusty conditions that had lesser cars twitching like leaves, he finished 14 seconds clear of Mercedes’ ailing George Russell in second and Williams’ resurgent Carlos Sainz in third— a podium drought-breaker for the Grove squad not seen since 2021. “This weekend has been incredible for us,” Verstappen beamed, downplaying title talk while his RB21’s upgrades hummed with quiet menace. “The car was always moving around a lot, but I’m incredibly happy with this performance.” With 17 of 24 rounds done, the Dutchman’s surge has analysts buzzing: as one expert quipped, in a three-way scrap with evenly matched machinery, Verstappen’s the one who’d “win without doubt.”
McLaren’s “two-horse” fight, once a dream scenario for team principal Andrea Stella, now feels like a high-wire act. The duo’s rivalry—marked by respectful jousts in Barcelona and Shanghai, but simmering with tension after a controversial Monza swap where Piastri yielded position to Norris—has been a boon for the Constructors’ lead, but costly when it counts. Piastri’s cheeky post-Monza digs and Norris’s pleas to be seen as the “good guy” underscore a dynamic that’s civil on the surface but primed for fracture under pressure. Zak Brown insists transparency and “Papaya Rules” will keep the peace, but with Verstappen circling like a shark—his aggressive wheel-to-wheel mastery evoking Schumacher-era ruthlessness—the risk of intra-team bites grows. As ESPN noted, McLaren’s walking a “fairness tightrope,” where one slow pit stop or tactical misstep could swing the title by six points or more.
The numbers tell a stark tale. Piastri’s 25-point buffer over Norris looks fragile after Baku’s zero haul, while Verstappen’s consistency—now leading more laps than Norris in second—positions him as the ultimate disruptor. Red Bull’s resurgence under new principal Laurent Mekies has steadied the ship post-Horner, and with sprints in Austin and Qatar on the horizon, Verstappen’s unflappable poise could exploit any McLaren misfire. “We’re not idiots, we have plans,” Norris vowed of potential chaos, but in F1, plans bend to the will of legends like Max.
As the circus rolls to Singapore’s neon-lit bay on October 3-5, McLaren’s dream of an in-house coronation hangs by a thread. Verstappen, ever the opportunist, won’t need an invitation to gatecrash. In a season of upsets—from Piastri’s early Shanghai triumph to Sainz’s shock podium—the only certainty is this: if disruption’s on the menu, Max is serving it up hot. The title fight just got a lot spicier.
