Max Verstappen still in F1 title hunt with Las Vegas race up next

You can never count out a champion until they are officially out of it. That’s true in Formula One entering this week’s Las Vegas Grand Prix.

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen is the four-time defending champion. He hasn’t had a dominant 2025 compared with his other seasons, but he’s still in contention for the world title.

Verstappen faces a tall task heading into the third annual Las Vegas Grand Prix. He is third in the drivers standings with 341 points, 49 behind leader Lando Norris of McLaren.

Even Norris isn’t counting out Verstappen.

“He’ll be a threat; he always is,” said Norris, sitting alongside Verstappen in a postrace news conference after the Brazilian Grand Prix on Nov. 2. “He’s always there, he’s always fighting, and I’m sure he’ll fight to the end. I look forward to it.”

Verstappen will begin his run to try to rally for a fifth title when F1 hits the 17-turn, 3.853-mile course on the Las Vegas Strip, starting with Thursday’s practice sessions at 4:30 and 8 p.m. The 50-lap Las Vegas Grand Prix is scheduled for 8 p.m. Saturday.

Verstappen’s effort in Brazil was a reason to show why he can’t be counted out of the title. He started the race on the pit lane because of a change to the car after the Sprint race the day before.

Even after dealing with a tire puncture, Verstappen rallied to a third-place finish. It was his seventh straight finish on the podium.

“It’s been tough, but we are all in this together, and we never gave up,” Verstappen said in a postrace interview with F1 TV. “We take risks, yes, but I like that, to try and always be better. We don’t want to settle for second.”

‘Going to be a threat’

Norris has a 24-point lead over McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri (366). There is a maximum of 86 points on the line over the final three races.

Winners receive 25 points in each race, and an additional point in each race is available for the driver who runs the fastest lap. There are eight more points for the winner of the Sprint race Nov. 29 in Qatar.

Verstappen was 104 points behind Piastri after Verstappen won the Italian Grand Prix on Sept. 7. Verstappen then won again two weeks later at the next race in Azerbaijan. He clicked off a second-place finish in Singapore and won the U.S. Grand Prix on Oct. 19 in Austin, Texas.

Verstappen, 28, has finished third in the past two races, including at Mexico City, before his rally at Brazil. In São Paulo, Norris took notice of how fast Verstappen was as he rallied from his issues.

“I’m sure (Verstappen is) going to be a threat in terms of (winning the) races, and you never know with the championship,” Norris told reporters in Brazil. “So, it’s pointless trying to guess and come up with these things. But with how quick he was today, yeah, (he) probably would have won if he started higher up.”

Midseason turnaround

McLaren’s 2024 constructors title was a sign that Norris and Piastri were closing the gap to Verstappen.

That was evident at the start of 2025, as Verstappen and Red Bull struggled. Verstappen had only two wins and five total podiums in the first 14 races before he began his streak of podiums.

Verstappen’s season turned after Red Bull made a shocking change, releasing CEO and longtime team principal Christian Horner on July 9 and replacing him with Laurent Mekies. In interviews after the change, Verstappen praised Mekies for adjustments to the car and said his new team principal is “very motivated.”

Verstappen won the inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix in 2023 and finished fifth last year in front of Norris to clinch the championship. But Verstappen isn’t thinking too far ahead with a significant deficit to erase and three races left.

“(They’re) very different tracks, so it’s difficult to know,” Verstappen told reporters in Brazil. “I think we’re still struggling a bit on tires, so it will depend on track layout, temperatures. We can get it into a good window, but not always. That’s what we have to focus on in the coming races.”

Contact Alex Wright at awright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlexWright1028 on X.