How Max Verstappen F1 title win would trump Sebastian Vettel in so many ways

Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen shake hands — Photo: © IMAGO

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How Max Verstappen title win would trump Sebastian Vettel in so many ways

Max Verstappen and Sebastian Vettel are both four-time world champions

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Friday 24 October 2025 17:56

There is a lot that can be used to compare Max Verstappen and Sebastian Vettel's F1 careers right now.

Both drivers are four-time world champions, and both drivers earned those four championships across four consecutive seasons while racing for Red Bull.

Their career race victory tallies are even similar, with Verstappen (68 wins) moving above Vettel's tally of 53 and into third on the all-time list of race winners on the final race of his dominant F1 2023 season.

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But there's no doubt that a championship victory in 2025 would allow Verstappen to draw away from comparisons with Vettel, and start to become mentioned in the same breath as Michael Schumacher, Juan Manuel Fangio, and his old rival Lewis Hamilton.

No one has won five championships with Red Bull

A fifth consecutive drivers' title would equal a Schumacher record from 2000-2004, when he achieved the same feat with Ferrari.

Verstappen would also become the first driver in Red Bull's history to win five titles with the Milton Keynes-based outfit, something Vettel failed to do before leaving for Ferrari ahead of the 2015 season.

Perhaps most frustratingly for Vettel, however, is the fact that he never managed to achieve that fifth title, even when joining the most successful team in F1 history right when he was in his prime racing years.

He did claim a further 14 grands prix wins with the team across six seasons with the Maranello outfit, but was stopped from claiming championship success by Hamilton's dominant Mercedes team.

That feeling may have been how Verstappen felt earlier this year, with McLaren clearly having a faster car than Red Bull, yet he's somehow pulled himself back into contention with five rounds remaining.

An incredible achievement to beat McLarens

There's no doubt that multiple world champions do need a certain amount of luck throughout their careers.

They need to be at the right team at the right time of their careers, and they need that team to continue producing championship-challenging cars for a number of years.

Hamilton had that with Mercedes, Schumacher had that with Ferrari. But both of those seven-time champions also won championships during their younger years, when they certainly were not the favourites to do so. Schumacher in 1994, and Hamilton in 2008, when he beat the two supremely fast Ferraris to championship success.

A championship in 2025 for Verstappen would trump even the very best comebacks from past legends who were considered underdogs.

McLaren wrapped up 2025's constructors' championship with six races to spare, and have secured a remarkable seven one-twos. Yet Verstappen is still in the hunt for the title, despite his Red Bull team being fourth in the constructors' championship.

Following the Hungarian GP, with 10 race weekends remaining, Verstappen was 97 points behind championship leader Piastri.

If he wins this year's drivers' championship, that would trump Vettel's incredible comeback victory in 2012, when he was 44 points behind Fernando Alonso with 10 races to go and still secured the title.

It would also trump Kimi Raikkonen's effort in 2007 against the McLaren duo of Alonso and Hamilton, when he came from 18 points back with 10 races remaining - and perhaps more remarkably 17 points back with two races remaining - to beat both McLaren stars to the title by a single point. That was in the days of 10 points for a win, too.

There's no doubt that a 2025 championship win would be Verstappen's greatest triumph, and he would be mentioned in the same breath as Hamilton and Schumacher if he manages to pull it off.

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Max Verstappen Sebastian Vettel