Norris’ ‘I told you so’ in Verstappen fight back

As the world wakes up to a Max Verstappen title challenge, Lando Norris says people should stop being surprised by Red Bull’s pace, after all, they were never that far off.

Verstappen appeared, at least in the maths, to be down out – although not out – in the F1 2025 title race when he dropped 97 points behind Oscar Piastri after winning just two races before F1’s summer break.

Max Verstappen, the F1 2025 World Champion?

With his points to the championship leader up to 104 after the Dutch Grand Prix, it appeared to be game over for Verstappen in his bid to record five on the trot.

But two races later, there’s a little bit of spice – and Norris says I told you so.

Adamant throughout the season that McLaren’s advantage wasn’t that big and that Red Bull wasn’t that slow, Norris’ words came to life in Monza and Baku when Verstappen raced from lights to flag to secure back-to-back wins.

Wins that have seen the reigning World Champion put his name forward in the title fight.

Although Verstappen is 69 points down on championship leader Oscar Piastri, he’s taken 35 points out of the Australian’s advantage in two races, and Norris’ advantage in second place is down from 91 points to 44.

The Brit fears this may just be the beginning of the Red Bull resurgence, one that he warned was on the horizon.

F1 2025: The season’s winners and losers

👉 The results of the F1 2025 championship

👉 The updated Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championship standings

“It’s not often that they’re slow, so people need to stop being so surprised that they’re quick,” Norris said after the Azerbaijan race.

“Max was winning races already at the beginning of the year. The whole season they’ve been quick and the Red Bull’s been good. They’ve brought some upgrades to Monza, which seemed to have helped them even more.

“o I’m not surprised.

“We know that they’re an incredibly strong team with one of the best drivers ever in Formula 1. So we expect nothing less. They’re going to make our life difficult I think for the rest of the season.

“But we also know from our side, we struggled a bit here, Monza clearly we were not quick enough. We’ve made improvements but things where the Red Bull has been so good and dominant in the past, they still have and we don’t.

“Today when I was following the Red Bull there were clearly some areas where they were at another level to us. We need to understand why.”

But with a 69-point deficit to overcome to win the World title, Verstappen needs more than just a miracle, he needs to overturn history.

In 2022, he came back from a 46-point adrift to deny Charles Leclerc a maiden title but this year even he accepts the task is more difficult.

“I mean, I don’t rely on hope,” said the 27-year-old. “But it’s seven rounds left. 69 points is a lot. So I personally don’t think about it.

“I just go race by race, what I have been doing basically the whole season – just trying to do the best we can, try to score the most points that we can. And then after Abu Dhabi, we’ll know.”

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