Max Verstappen ‘living in the heads of McLaren drivers’ as Brundle weighs in

Slashing his deficit to the McLaren drivers with back-to-back wins, Martin Brundle says Max Verstappen is in the heads of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.

Verstappen trailed championship leader Piastri by 104 points after the Australian’s seventh win of the season in Zandvoort, but successive victories in Monza and Baku have thrust Verstappen into the title fight.

Max Verstappen living rent free in the ‘heads of McLaren drivers’

While his 69-point deficit means it is an outside shot, it is still a shot.

And if the win is not possible, he could at least put a stop to McLaren securing the one-two in the Drivers’ standings as his gap to Norris in second place is down from 70 points to 44.

Verstappen has another opportunity to close in on the leading duo in the standings as he’ll line up ahead of Piastri and Norris at the Singapore Grand Prix, having qualified on the front row of the grid behind George Russell.

Verstappen fell short of pole position, 0.182s behind Russell with his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase saying “you can thank your mate for that” for a potential block in qualifying.

The stewards did not investigate the incident, with Verstappen qualifying second with Piastri third on the grid and Norris lining up in fifth place.

Having made a huge stride forward with the introduction of a new floor for the RB21 at Monza, Red Bull continued to bring updates with a new front wing and cooling arrangement at the Marina Bay circuit.

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With seven races and three Sprints remaining on the F1 2025 calendar, there are still 199 points in play. Verstappen is by no means out of the fight.

Told that the Singapore Grand Prix will be the “litmus test” for Red Bull, given its past struggles at the Marina Bay circuit, Brundle agreed but reckons there’s an additional factor in play in the title fight: the Verstappen effect.

“Yeah,” he replied on the Sky F1 broadcast. “We wondering, was it just the last two circuits – low downforce, low tyre degradation? Have they really energised the aerodynamics on that Red Bull?

“We know how good Max is. The team seems calm. They seem relaxed. He’s driving beautifully. They certainly have improved the car.

“And you know why, he just smells an outside chance of a championship. A lot of things have got to work in his favour between now and then.

“But he’s now, I believe, he’s now living in the heads of the McLaren players.”

However, guest pundit and W Series winner Jamie Chandhok believes Red Bull may have genuinely unlocked the potential of the RB21 with the team making notable gains from Friday to Saturday on race weekends.

“They’re bringing upgrades, but also they’re finding something in development across the race weekend with driver feedback,” she said.

“I think the combination of that is allowing them to make bigger steps than I think we’ve seen a lot of the other teams make over the season.”

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