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Max Verstappen is now a 4-time world champion. The driver has been brilliant when it comes to achieving an extremely high level of performance, not deviating from that throughout the year, and being as mistake-averse as possible. His first title was won in 2021 after a year-long battle with Lewis Hamilton, and it ended on the last lap of that season.
That was followed by two slightly more straightforward campaigns from Verstappen as he dominated the sport. The fourth title was won by capitalizing on the car he had and then making the best use of it. Each of these titles has had different levels of difficulty, with the most important bit being that the driver has been able to accomplish the job in the end.
With four titles secured already in his career, there's a major possibility that Max Verstappen is heading into the toughest title campaign of his career. Here's why.
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#1 Multiple drivers expected to be in contention
At the end of the 2024 F1 season, Max Verstappen was not the only one to have multiple race wins over the year. Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri, Charles Leclerc, Lewis Hamilton, Carlos Sainz, and George Russell, also achieved that feat. If we look at the second half of the season, there's a level of homogenization when it comes to race wins.
All of this is an indication that the top 4 teams are very close to each other in terms of performance, and not much separates them. When something like this happens, it opens the door for multiple contenders.
This is precisely what one could expect to happen in 2025 because the year ended with not much separating the top 4 teams, and the stable regulations mean that unless something miraculous happens for any of them, we're looking at a season where it's not only going to be Max Verstappen in contention with one driver as his rival; there are going to be multiple contenders.
What this could do is make things trickier for the Red Bull driver as he would have to take a lot of things into consideration because he would not be battling just one driver. Rather, there would be multiple rivals that he would have to keep in mind, which is an entirely different challenge altogether and something that he's not had to tackle in the past.
#2 Red Bull might not have the best car on the grid
Arguably one of the bigger takeaways at the end of the 2024 F1 season was that Red Bull did not have everything completely sorted by the time the season was done. The car was good enough by the end of the year to help Max Verstappen secure the title, but if the level of competitiveness was to stay at the level it was in the second half of the season, then a title was going to be a long shot.
As the 2024 season came to an end, it became evident that Red Bull was trailing both Ferrari and McLaren in terms of performance, and there was still a step that the team needed to make to get on that level. At the end of the day, irrespective of how good a driver is, if the car is not quick enough, he will not be able to contend for a strong position and dominate.
This is the deficit that Max Verstappen is contending with as he heads into the 2025 F1 season, and it's going to make things very hard for him.
#3 Max Verstappen's rivals would be better prepared this time
Finally, and arguably most importantly, the 2024 F1 season has been pretty much a practice run for the likes of Charles Leclerc, Lando Norris, and George Russell. Neither of these drivers has ever been in title contention before. Neither of them has had the opportunity to consistently head into weekends knowing full well that they could win the race if things go well.
This was something, however, that these drivers have ultimately been able to get acclimated to. Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri now have almost a year where they've fought at the front of the grid. Similarly, Charles Leclerc has done something along the same lines while George Russell has also matured by driving alongside Lewis Hamilton.
This past season, Lando Norris did appear to be a deer in the headlights when he had a sniff of the title. For him, the recalibration never happened. Heading into the 2025 F1 season, he's had enough time to get used to the challenges and expectations of what it means to drive in those conditions.
The same holds true for others, and this time around Max Verstappen could be facing far more formidable adversaries than he did in 2024.
