3 reasons why Max Verstappen could be looking at his toughest title battle of his career

With the F1 preseason test done, Max Verstappen and his team will head into the 2025 F1 season hoping to make it 5 in a row. The driver first won a championship in 2021 when he beat Lewis Hamilton in the last race of the season. This has been followed by three more triumphs in 2022, 2023, and 2024.

Heading into the 2025 F1 season, Verstappen is coming off an impressive title defense last season. After the first 6-7 races in 2024, the driver did not have the fastest car under him. Yet, it was the ability to extract the best from every race that helped him secure his fourth consecutive title.

The Dutchman is chasing Michael Schumacher's feat of winning 5 consecutive titles in F1.

The pursuit would, however, be the toughest in terms of his F1 title campaigns until now. Here's why:

#1 Unlike last season, Max Verstappen doesn't have the fastest car at the start of the year

The 2024 F1 season was brilliant for Max Verstappen because after he lost the early advantage of having a fast car under him, he did not get deterred. On the contrary, soon after he realized that he needed to focus on making the most of every race.

He knew he had a championship lead in hand and his rival was Lando Norris, hence, maximizing his result while making sure his rival's race wasn't optimal, was a strategy Verstappen used to perfection. This time around, though, he does have the best car on the grid at the start of the season, which means he will arguably start the season at a deficit.

When that happens, the driver will have to reassess a lot of things, as in 2025, it's not about managing a lead established early in the season, but about making sure you don't fall back too much.

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#2 There are going to be multiple rivals

Unlike the 2024 F1 season where Max Verstappen was quick to identify very early in the season that Lando Norris was going to be his main rival, this season will be starkly different. McLaren is strong, but so is Ferrari and Mercedes, with each team possessing drivers who could maximise the results from their respective cars.

In that case, you cannot just have an approach where you'd target one driver and just focus on him, as there are multiple contenders this time around. For Max Verstappen, it's not only Lando Norris who would be a potential threat, but also Oscar Piastri, Charles Leclerc, Lewis Hamilton, and even George Russell.

The challenge has never been this tough for the Red Bull driver, and it will be interesting to see how he manages it.

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#3 Red Bull is arguably at its weakest for some time

Finally, the most important link in all of this might just be the fact that the current Red Bull might just be the weakest it has been in some time. The team has lost a lot of resources and is also heavily dependent on Max Verstappen during its rebuilding phase.

When key personnel like Adrian Newey and Rob Marshall leave, it also leaves a huge gulf within the team. That is precisely what Red Bull has been struggling with as it continues to promote from within, but that doesn't mean it is not going to bear the brunt of losing such key resources.

To add to this, the reliance on Max Verstappen means that if the season starts on the backfoot, the focus would be on keeping the driver happy as he loses his cool. Red Bull has been a team that's peerless when it comes to strategy and operations.

That's one area where it continues to have the edge on everyone else, and that's where a lot of teams would benefit in the 2025 F1 season. However, if the team is under pressure, the negativity spreads, and more often than not, that tends to adversely affect the team's performances.