Zero to 100%? Norris and Russell weigh in on Verstappen title chances<\/a><\/p>\nThe move chopped his deficit from leader Oscar Piastri from 104 points to 69 points in the course of two races. That\u2019s still a major deficit to overcome, but few are willing to count Verstappen out of the fight just yet.<\/p>\n
Despite the fact that he\u2019s never won in Singapore, Verstappen is sounding fairly confident in his shot at performing well this weekend given the fact that he was quick enough for third on the timing charts in both FP1 and FP2.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was not too bad,\u201d Verstappen reflected.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think FP1 started quite nicely with just getting up to speed with things. The car was not too bad, a bit like the last two weekends where there were no major problems.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then in FP2, yeah, a few things that we tried \u2014 some were good. We just need to try and optimize that a bit more.<\/p>\n
\u201cOverall, in general, quite satisfied, but definitely need a bit more pace to fight up at the front tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Verstappen\u2019s competitors should be on the lookout. In both Italy and Azerbaijan, the driver took a few sessions to truly find the pace and rhythm in his RB21, which only became truly apparent in qualifying. But already here in Singapore, he\u2019s sniffing around the top of the charts, something he considers \u201cdefinitely very positive.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cStill a few things that we want to do better, but it\u2019s not like we need to throw around the setup completely, so that\u2019s a good thing,\u201d Verstappen explained to F1TV after FP2.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll see tomorrow. Is it gonna be good enough to fight up front? I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always find FP2 is a bit difficult to say. People are running engine modes, top-speed-wise, I guess we\u2019ll see in qualifying.\u201d<\/p>\n
But what are the \u201cfew things\u201d Verstappen wants to improve? According to him, they\u2019re all just \u201ctiny details.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFront grip, rear grip, keeping the tyres alive throughout a lap. Around here, the tyres overheat a lot,\u201d he told F1TV\u2019s Lawrence Barretto.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll those things just need to be a little bit better, and then hopefully that will be a bit more in the window, and then you can push also a bit harder.\u201d<\/p>\n
For all of the frenzy and speculation surrounding Verstappen\u2019s potential shot at taking a title, the driver himself has remained remarkably calm, telling media on Thursday that he\u2019s not feeling any pressure. Rather than blindly throw himself after another crown, he\u2019s taking things \u201crace by race.\u201d Rack up enough wins, though, and he could soon be challenging Lando Norris for second in the standings, with an eye turned to Piastri up at the top of the charts.<\/p>\n
Read next: Singapore GP: Piastri tops crash-strewn FP2 as Norris, Leclerc crash in the pits and Russell at T16<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Can Max Verstappen mount a late-season challenge for the F1 2025 title? It\u2019s the question powering countless minds…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188097,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,818,825,44,918,52584,85],"class_list":["post-188096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-home-page","tag-max-verstappen","tag-news","tag-red-bull","tag-singapore-grand-prix","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}