Norris won the title, but everyone knows Verstappen the real champion

In the glittering chaos of the 2025 Formula 1 season, where alliances shifted like desert sands and rivalries burned hotter than a qualifying lap at Bahrain, one truth emerged from the wreckage of checkered flags and shattered records: Max Verstappen didn’t just race; he conquered.

–by Mark Cipolloni–

While Lando Norris clutched the official crown by a razor-thin margin of two points after a nail-biting Abu Dhabi finale, the numbers, the grit, and the sheer audacity of Verstappen’s campaign scream a different story. This was no ordinary season—it was a testament to a driver’s unbreakable will, dragging a third-place car into a title fight that history books will debate for decades. Verstappen, with eight victories etched into his legacy that now sits at 71 wins, wasn’t handed glory; he forged it from the fire of adversity. He is the real 2025 World Driving Champion.

The season kicked off under ominous skies in Melbourne, where rain-slicked streets foreshadowed the turmoil ahead. Red Bull, the juggernaut of prior years, arrived with an RB21 that felt more like a reluctant thoroughbred than the untamed beast of 2024. McLaren’s MCL39, powered by a Mercedes engine humming with precision, dominated from the outset.

Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris traded blows like siblings in a family feud, their papaya machines racking up podiums while Verstappen nursed a car that struggled for grip in the corners. By the summer break, after a heartbreaking home-race disappointment at Zandvoort where Piastri capitalized on Norris’s mechanical gremlin to win while Verstappen settled for second, Verstappen stared at a 104-point chasm. It was the largest deficit in modern F1 history at that stage of a campaign, a gap so vast it swallowed hope whole.

Red Bull’s RB21 was visibly off the pace in pre-season testing and the opening flyaways—an overweight, poor handling car that bled time in every sector compared to McLaren’s razor-sharp MCL39. Yet even with an objectively inferior machine, Verstappen refused to be ordinary.

At Suzuka in Round 3, despite Red Bull admitting they were “at best the fourth-fastest team,” Verstappen clinched a stunning pole position with a lap that shocked the paddock, then drove the wheels off the car in the race—perfect traction out of Spoon, fearless late-braking into 130R, and unrelenting pressure over 53 laps—to hold off both McLarens for an improbable win.

Several weeks later at Imola in Round 7, starting from second after Piastri’s pole, he produced one of the drives of the decade with a dazzling overtake into Variante Tamburello, snatching victory from the McLaren duo who had looked set to dominate. Those two masterpieces, extracted from a car that had no right to be on the top step, kept his championship alive when almost everyone else had written him off.

But Verstappen doesn’t yield to mathematics. He yields to no one. What followed was a phoenix-like resurgence, a masterclass in adaptation that turned Red Bull’s engineers into sleepless sorcerers and Verstappen into a one-man demolition crew. Upgrades trickled in—subtle aero tweaks, a floor redesign that clawed back downforce without sacrificing straight-line speed—and suddenly, the RB21 bit back. Verstappen’s charge began in earnest at Monza, the Temple of Speed, where he etched his name into eternity not once, but twice.

Picture it: September 7, 2025. The sun baked the historic asphalt as qualifying unfolded like a symphony of fury. Verstappen, starting from a middling practice session, unleashed a lap that defied physics. Clocking 1:18.792 at an average speed of 264.681 km/h (164.465 mph), he shattered Lewis Hamilton’s 2020 record by a whisper of time, claiming the fastest qualifying lap in F1 history.

The crowd— a sea of Tifosi roaring for Ferrari—fell into stunned silence as Norris slotted into second, just 0.077 seconds adrift, with Piastri third. It wasn’t just pole; it was a statement. The next day, the race itself became legend. Averaging 250.706 km/h (155.781 mph) over 53 laps, Verstappen led home a 1-2-3 for the sport’s elite, but not before McLaren’s infamous team orders drama unfolded.

Norris, hunting his teammate for championship position, closed in on Piastri through the final stint. With laps ticking down and strategy windows narrowing, McLaren’s radio crackled: “Oscar, let Lando past.” Piastri, leading the standings and nursing a car on worn softs, hesitated but complied at the Parabolica, handing Norris second place and 3 additional crucial points. Verstappen cruised to victory unchallenged, but the move lingered like exhaust fumes.

Without that swap, Piastri would have netted 18 points to Norris’s 15, flipping the end-of-season math on its head. Simulations run by F1 analysts post-race projected a seismic shift: Verstappen at 421 points, clinching his fifth straight title; Norris at 420; Piastri at 413. McLaren’s internal squabble, born of a fierce intra-team rivalry, handed Norris the edge—but robbed the championship of its purest merit.

That Monza masterstroke ignited Verstappen’s blaze. He racked up eight wins in total, edging out Norris and Piastri’s seven apiece, a feat made sweeter by Red Bull’s constructors’ third place.

Eight poles locked down his supremacy on Saturdays, outpacing Norris’s seven and Piastri’s six. And on race days? Eight Driver of the Day awards, voted by fans who witnessed his wizardry— from wet-weather wizardry in Australia to a pit-lane-to-podium miracle in Sao Paulo.

He led 454 laps, more than anyone, dictating races like a conductor with a whip. His 10 consecutive podiums, stretching from Silverstone to Abu Dhabi, were a streak of unrelenting excellence, unbroken even as McLaren’s duo faltered under pressure.

The comeback’s crescendo hit in the triple-header finale that saw him win 6 of the last 9 races. From 104 points down after Zandvoort, Verstappen clawed back ground with surgical precision: a dominant Qatar sprint and Grand Prix victory, where he led every lap; a Vegas masterclass turned golden by McLaren’s skid-block disqualifications, slashing his deficit to 24; and finally, Abu Dhabi, where pole turned to a 12.59-second romp.

He finished the year with 14 podiums, and a career win tally now boasting 71 wins, 48 poles, and 127 podiums. Yet, Norris’s conservative P3—enough for the math to hold—sealed the deal by two points.

On X, the pulse of the paddock beat loud. Fans and pundits crowned Verstappen the “People’s Champion,” his 104-point turnaround hailed as “the greatest comeback in F1 history.”

Posts flooded with echoes: “Max won respect from even his haters,” one user wrote, amassing thousands of likes.

Another: “Streets won’t forget 2025 Max—from 104 down to two points, without the fastest car.” Red Bull’s principal, Laurent Mekies, called it “an even more extraordinary Max,” a driver who turned deficit into defiance.

In the end, trophies gather dust, but legends endure. Norris drove a flawless season in the superior machine, no doubt, but Verstappen? He bent the narrative to his will, proving that true champions don’t need the best tools—they sharpen the ones they have until they cut through steel. Eight wins. Eight poles. Eight Driver of the Day nods. 454 laps commanded. A record-shattering lap at Monza. The fastest race ever. And a comeback that flipped 104 points of despair into two points of destiny.

Max Verstappen didn’t win the 2025 title on paper. But in the annals of speed, sweat, and soul? He is the undisputed king.

2025 Season Snapshot: Why Verstappen Deserves the Crown

To crystallize Verstappen’s dominance amid the controversy, consider these irrefutable stats from his Herculean campaign:
– Most Wins: 8 by Verstappen
– Most Poles: 8 by Verstappen
– Most Driver of the Days: 8 by Verstappen
– Most Laps Led: 454 by Verstappen
– Most Consecutive Podiums: 10 by Verstappen
– Biggest Comeback in F1 History: From a 104-point deficit to a 2-point runner-up finish
– Fastest Lap in F1 History: Set by Verstappen at Monza in Qualifying and in the race
– Fastest Race in F1 History: Monza, won by Verstappen

Without McLaren’s team orders at Monza allowing Norris past Piastri, the standings would have read:
Max (421 points) – his 5th straight title;
Lando (420 points)
Oscar (413 points).

The numbers don’t lie—Verstappen was the true champion of 2025.