F1 CHAMPION MAKES CRUCIAL ASSESSMENT OF MAX VERSTAPPEN AS PRE

© Red Bull Content Pool

Max Verstappen has been declared "relaxed" and with "nothing to lose" in his F1 drivers' championship battle with Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.

From a position where even Verstappen was suggesting he was not in contention to become a five-time F1 champion, a stirring run of results have propelled the Red Bull driver back into the fight with Piastri and Norris.

In the five grands prix since F1 returned from the summer break, Verstappen has scored three wins and finished second on the other two occasions, whilst he also triumphed in Saturday's United States Sprint.

The addition of a new floor and front wing on his RB21 over the Italian and Azerbaijan Grands Prix respectively have transformed his RB21, providing it with the aerodynamic grip and balance it was so previously sorely lacking.

Heading into this weekend's Mexico City Grand Prix, Verstappen trails Piastri by just 40 points, eating into what was once a 104-point deficit just four races ago.

Damon Hill, the 1996 F1 champion, senses Verstappen's approach to the second half of this campaign has been the key danger to Piastri and Norris.

"He's relaxed," said Hill, speaking to RacingNews365. "He's got nothing to lose. Don't misinterpret that. He wants another world title. Then he's got five.

"This is a game of winning the most, but he's not under the same pressure as the other two."

Whilst Red Bull has continued to upgrade the RB21, McLaren switched off the development of its MCL39 a few races ago.

Despite the precarious position it now finds itself in, with Verstappen breathing down the necks of Piastri and Norris, team principal Andrea Stella has insisted there is no change of mind given the focus and resources required for 2026.

Teams have been forced to balance their needs accordingly. Red Bull has clearly had the means and opportunity to continue with updates to its car, in contrast to McLaren.

"The budget cap has done its job," said Hill. "It's actually closed things up towards the end of the season. In a way, it's a good regulation. It's what we want."

As to whom he would put his money on for the title now given what has happened, Hill said: "What are the odds? I'd put it on Max, wouldn't I, because the odds are going to be ridiculous.

"If you ask me, who's going to win, I don't know. I would just say, if you're talking about who's the biggest threat, it's Max."

- Ian Parkes

KEY ADRIAN NEWEY ADVANTAGE SPOTTED AFTER DOUBLE MCLAREN INSPECTION COMPLETE

Adrian Newey: Aston Martin's ticket to the top?
 

Adrian Newey’s habit of inspecting rival cars on the grid stems from his belief that he can “learn” from his competitors, a former Mercedes mechanic and pit crew member has claimed.

It comes after the Aston Martin man was spotted by PlanetF1.com studying the dominant McLaren MCL39 in Monaco and Britain earlier this season.

Why Adrian Newey has eyed the McLaren MCL39 during the F1 2025 season

Newey stands as the most decorated individual in F1 history with involvement in more than 200 races wins and a combined 26 Drivers’ and Constructors’ title triumphs for the likes of Williams, McLaren and Red Bull.

The 66-year-old joined Aston Martin in the newly created role of managing technical partner in March, as well as becoming a shareholder in the F1 team.

Newey is currently leading the development of Aston Martin’s first car – expected to be named the AMR26 – for the new F1 2026 rules, which will see the sport embrace 50 per cent electrification, fully sustainable fuels and active aerodynamics.

Adrian Newey: Aston Martin’s ticket to the top of F1?

Although Newey’s primary focus is on the 2026 car, the legendary designer has joined his new team trackside at various races during the F1 2025 season, appearing with Aston Martin at the Monaco and British Grands Prix.

On both occasions, PlanetF1.com journalist Thomas Maher spotted Newey taking a close look at the championship-leading McLaren MCL39 driven by Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris (below).

Adrian Newey studies the McLaren MCL39 on the 2025 Monaco Grand Prix grid (Image: Thomas Maher, PlanetF1.com)
 

Adrian Newey checks out the McLaren at Silverstone (Image: Thomas Maher, PlanetF1.com)
 

McLaren has tasted victory at 12 of the 16 races held so far in F1 2025, establishing a 337-point advantage in the Constructors’ standings with eight rounds remaining.

 The Woking-based team can clinch a second successive teams’ title at next weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku.

Ryan McGarva, a former Mercedes mechanic, reckons that Newey’s willingness to analyse what his competitors are doing is a key element behind his success.

He told Champions Speakers in association with PlanetF1.com: “Data is analysed in every area of F1, whether it’s in the pit stops, whether it’s the performance of the car, the reliability of the car.

“I think the first thing that they would do is we analyse ourselves and the things that the team can control.

“They also analyse the competition, so it’s very important to look at the other nine teams on the grid and what they’re doing, and any lessons that can be learned from what your competition are doing.

 “Adrian Newey is one of the best F1 designers that there’s ever been, but at the start of the race you regularly see him on the grid looking at what all the other teams are doing.

"He’s just taking in and realises he can learn from the other nine teams on the grid, so it’s very important to analyse your competitors.

“In the olden days the data was the advantage, so the more data you had the more of an advantage you had.

“But actually now the teams all have a very similar amount of data and they all have the same information available to them.

“So actually the strengths come from your team and how they analyse that data, how they prioritise what they look at, and realising when there’s bad data as well and not reacting to that.

“So I think it’s actually the people as much as the data.”

Speaking at last month’s Dutch Grand Prix, Aston Martin driver and two-time World Champion Fernando Alonso outlined his excitement over working with Newey ahead of the F1 2026 rules reset.

Asked if he is starting to understand how Newey ticks, Alonso told PlanetF1.com and other publications at Zandvoort: “Yes, definitely.

“You spend more time with him and you keep learning things and how he works and how he approach things, challenges, all these normal day-by-day, things in Formula 1.

“But I think he’s still a person that is very special and I think only few people will understand him fully and will be able to know exactly what he’s thinking and what he’s doing."

“So we will need more time. At the moment, we are in a phase of learning from him.

“Every conversation, every idea, everything that he says, we take it very carefully.

“We listen and we try to understand the approach that he’s taking into that comment.

“And thanks to that, I think we are growing as a team, so it has been very special for sure.”

Asked if he gets the impression that Newey understands him too, Alonso replied: “I think so!

“I think all the questions and all the ideas that he raises, he explains why he thinks that it’s going to be a good solution for the team, for the car and for the drivers as well.

“In terms of how to approach the corner entry, maybe next year is very different than this year’s cars.

“Top speed is going to be different next year. Tyres are going to be different next year.

“So he tries to anticipate what the drivers will face in certain moments on the lap, in quali, versus the race and all this kind of thing.

“So he’s very educative.”

 - Oliver Harden

RED BULL NOW 'FEAR' ONE MAX VERSTAPPEN OUTCOME THAT WILL BE 'TERRIBLE' FOR THE F1 TEAM'S IMAGE

Photo by Pablo Morano/Anadolu via Getty Images

Max Verstappen hurt his own hopes of becoming a five-time Formula 1 champion in 2025 by receiving a penalty for driving into George Russell in the Spanish Grand Prix.

The Red Bull star has a chance to match only Michael Schumacher by winning the F1 drivers’ championship in five successive seasons this term. Yet Verstappen left 11 points on the table at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on Sunday, which let Oscar Piastri build his lead to 49.

Verstappen also now trails Piastri’s McLaren teammate Lando Norris by 39 points, having sat only 22 and nine points shy two rounds earlier when the Dutchman won the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. He was even just 25 and 22 points shy after sealing P4 in the Monaco Grand Prix.

But Piastri now boasts nearly two Grand Prix wins in hand over the 27-year-old after the first nine rounds, following Verstappen’s 10-second penalty for driving into Russell in the Spanish GP. His penalty demoted the Red Bull racer from at worst P4 in Montmelo to just 10th place.

Red Bull ‘fear’ Max Verstappen getting a race ban for the 2025 F1 Austrian Grand Prix

The four-time reigning champion’s emotions got the better of him when Red Bull incorrectly told Verstappen to yield P4 to Russell in Spain. But possibly worse than the points he threw away were the three penalty points that the FIA’s race stewards also awarded for the crash.

Verstappen is now just one penalty point from an automatic one-race ban, with the Red Bull racer on 11/12 allowed in a rolling 12-month period. So, he must avoid an incident across the Canadian Grand Prix weekend (June 13-15) and also the Austrian Grand Prix (June 27-29).

Thousands of Dutch fans flock to the Red Bull Ring to support Verstappen, and Red Bull feel it can harm their image if their lead driver were absent. It would also harm their position in the constructors’ championship with Red Bull now just fourth and 218 points from McLaren.

So, ‘everyone’ at Red Bull hopes their ‘fear’ that Verstappen might miss the Austrian GP due to a race ban remains just that and never a reality. Yet their fear of a race ban will persist, as Verstappen will not lose any more of his penalty points after June 30 until October 27 (two).

How many penalty points does Max Verstappen have after his Spanish GP crash with George Russell?

While Motorsport.com reports that Red Bull ‘fear’ Verstappen receiving a race ban for their home race, the Austrian GP, with a penalty at the Canadian GP, the team will also dread the Dutchman getting a penalty in Spielberg which would rule him out of the British Grand Prix.

Silverstone is also a home event for Red Bull, whose factory is in Milton Keynes, and will be a great chance for Verstappen to take points out of Piastri and Norris. Their RB21 will suit the high-speed layout of the British GP venue potentially even more so than McLaren’s MCL39.

Fears might also persist in Milton Keynes even if Verstappen gets through the Canadian and Austrian Grand Prix events without a penalty. He will not drop any more penalty points until after the 2025 Mexico City Grand Prix, which leaves nine rounds after the Red Bull Ring race.

Verstappen will start to lose most of the 11 penalty points the Red Bull driver now has after crashing into Russell in Spain across the tail end of the 2025 season. He will lose two points on October 27 and then one on November 2, one on December 1 and two on December 8.

- Kyle Archer

PIASTRI: MCLAREN CAR 'VERY STRONG' BUT STILL 'UNPREDICTABLE' ON THE LIMIT

©McLaren

Ahead of this weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix, championship leader Oscar Piastri insists McLaren still has a “very strong car” that it can rely on but admits the team’s MCL39 remains “a little bit unpredictable when you get to the limit".

The Australian heads to the tight streets of Monte Carlo holding a 13-point advantage over his McLaren teammate Lando Norris, having taken four wins from the opening seven rounds of the 2025 season.

Despite that form, Piastri had to settle for third in Imola behind Max Verstappen and Norris, raising questions about McLaren's consistency in race conditions – even after Piastri secured his third pole position of the year.

Challenging the Limit

As usual, Saturday’s all-important qualifying session in Monaco will prove pivotal due to the near-impossibility of overtaking in Sunday’s 78-lap race.

But the one-lap exercise in the Principality is typically a high-stakes tightrope walk – where brushing the barriers can mean glory, but overstepping by millimetres ends in disaster.

In that context, Piastri opened up on the fine margins required to master McLaren’s 2025 machine.

"I think we've slowly learnt how to tame it better and better," Piastri admitted. "I think at Imola the car was feeling really good on Saturday."

But as the Aussie explained, things get less predictable on the edge.

"It is a bit difficult, a little bit unpredictable when you get to the limit I would say. It clearly has a lot of pace there but it's not always the easiest to extract just from not being able to fully predict what's going to happen."

The MCL39’s raw pace has helped deliver consistent front-row starts, but Piastri acknowledged the challenge remains in managing its behavior under extreme pressure.

"Every now and again it is better than what is has been at other races but when you get right to the limit, sometimes it can do slightly unexpected things but overall it's still a very strong car."

One new element that could alleviate some of the stress from qualifying is the introduction of a mandatory two-stop race this weekend, part of Formula 1’s effort to add more strategy and excitement to the notoriously processional Monaco GP.

Piastri believes this could be a game-changer: "A very different race" is how the 23-year-old described what fans might expect on Sunday.

Norris: "We Still Have Things to Improve"

While McLaren has emerged as the standout team of 2025 so far, teammate Lando Norris echoed Piastri’s sentiments that there is still work to be done if the team wants to stay ahead of Red Bull and Verstappen – who is now just 22 points off the top of the standings after his Imola win.

"It still shows that we are vulnerable in certain areas. We still have things to improve on, even though we've had some great weekends where we've looked dominant and we have been dominant," said Norris, reflecting on McLaren’s defeat last weekend in Italy.

"Clearly we still have some weaknesses so it's focusing on the good stuff but try and work on those weaknesses and improve. That's F1, that's life every day in F1."

Norris, who triumphed in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix but has yet to return to the top step since, and who has never won in the glitzy Principality, underlined the emotional value of success in Monaco.

"Winning here is a dream for everyone," he said, confident that McLaren will once again be competitive around the Principality's iconic corners.

The stage is now set for another thrilling chapter in the 2025 championship battle – one that could hinge on who can master the quirks of a car that remains fast, but not always forgiving.

- Phillip van Osten

FIA ISSUE MCLAREN MCL39 VERDICT AFTER INTENSIVE 'INVESTIGATION' LAUNCHED

Oscar Piastri leads Max Verstappen and Lando Norris in Miam

Formula 1’s governing body the FIA has confirmed that Oscar Piastri’s McLaren was found to be in compliance with the F1 2025 technical regulations after an “extensive” inspection following the Miami Grand Prix.

Reigning Constructors’ champions McLaren have enjoyed a fine start to the F1 2025 season, winning five of the first six races to establish a firm grip on the title race.

McLaren MCL39 passes FIA tests after Miami GP inspection

Piastri currently holds a 16-point lead over team-mate Lando Norris, having claimed a fourth win in the space of five races at the Miami GP earlier this month.

As reported by PlanetF1.com, the FIA is understood to have carried out thorough checks on the rear braking system of the MCL39 car – believed to be key to McLaren’s pace advantage over the opposition given its superior tyre management – in the aftermath of the Miami GP.

It is common practice for cars classified inside the top 10 to be subjected to more stringent tests after the race, with cars chosen at random for a closer inspection by the FIA’s Formula 1 technical delegate Jo Bauer.

Oscar Piastri vs Lando Norris: McLaren head-to-head scores for F1 2025

Ahead of this weekend’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at Imola, the FIA has confirmed that Piastri’s car was found to be in compliance with the rules in Miami.

A verdict penned by Bauer read: “After the race in Miami car number 81 was randomly chosen among the top ten cars for more extensive physical inspections.

“Subject to these physical inspections were the wheel bodywork assemblies. The following checks were carried out on all corners:

“The compliance of all components with TR Article 3.13.

“Physical checks for compliance with TR Article 11.5 on all four corners.

“All inspected components were found to be in conformance with the 2025 Formula One Technical Regulations.”

Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari was also picked at random in Miami, with the SF-25 also passing stringent tests.

Bauer continued: “After the race in Miami car number 16 was randomly chosen among the top ten cars for more extensive physical inspections.

“Subject to these physical inspections was the steering wheel assembly. The following checks were carried out:

“The physical steering wheel assembly was cross checked against the OSC submission as per TR Article 17.6.

“The clutch operating device was examined and checked against TR Article 9.3.2.

“The electronic submission, which was supplied by the team as part of TD001, was checked against the physical steering wheel.

“General compliance checks were carried out against TR Articles 8.3 and 8.7.

“All inspected components were found to be in conformance with the 2025 Formula One Technical Regulations.”

- Oliver Harden