Ex FIA steward details how Max Verstappen can WIN this year's title

Former F1 race winner Johnny Herbert has detailed how Max Verstappen can beat both McLaren drivers to the 2025 drivers' championship.

McLaren's Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri are currently embroiled in a tight championship battle, with Piastri 22 points ahead of his team-mate with six race weekends remaining.

The Woking-based outfit have already secured constructors' championship success, highlighting their dominance over the rest of the F1 grid.

Yet remarkably, four-time champion Verstappen still has a faint chance of securing a record-equalling fifth consecutive title.

Despite the limitations of his RB21, Verstappen has won four races in 2025, and currently sits 63 points behind Piastri after a string of results that have seen him finish either first or second in all of the last four grands prix.

Now, Herbert has said that if anybody can surmount the huge odds that are stacked against him in his pursuit of a fifth title, then it's Verstappen, and that he could well still reel in the two McLaren stars.

"It would be remarkable given where they were," Herbert told Betting Lounge. "I think it would be one of the greatest Formula 1 comebacks because it was something that was not even really being thought of. It was all done and dusted apparently. A Papaya one-two, full stop.

"If anybody on that grid at the moment, anybody was able to do it, it would be Max. You can’t rule Max out. Realistically, he's probably not really got the chance if the other two just keep on racing as they have been.

"It will be probably having a little bit of luck. And that luck is if the other two take the points away from each other and then give them to Max. That’s his biggest chance of doing it.

"But you can’t rule him out. He seems to be very comfortable with the car once again. The balance of the car definitely is shifting in a positive way for him. The harmony that he seems to have with the car at the moment is just what he's needed it to be."

Who will win 2025 championship?

Any chance of a Verstappen title victory will likely have to involve several races where on-track fights between Piastri and Norris rule them out of podium contention.

He will need some collisions between the pair in order to start making a dent on that huge lead that Piastri holds over him, and Verstappen may even need to win every race from here on out.

But with the constructors' championship wrapped up, McLaren are likely not going to be as strict on their drivers in the rest of 2025, and fans can expect to see a few more risky manoeuvres like in Singapore which may open the door for Verstappen.

The Dutchman is the only one of the three who has championship-winning experience, and will need every bit of that if he's to overcome the huge deficit in the standings.

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