{"id":232817,"date":"2025-10-22T15:54:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T15:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/232817\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T15:54:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T15:54:09","slug":"fernando-alonso-highlights-advantage-max-verstappen-has-over-mclaren-duo-in-f1-title-duel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/232817\/","title":{"rendered":"Fernando Alonso highlights advantage Max Verstappen has over McLaren duo in F1 title duel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Fernando Alonso has backed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsportweek.com\/tag\/verstappen\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Max Verstappen<\/a> to become<a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsportweek.com\/series\/single-seater\/formula-1\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> Formula 1<\/a> World Champion in 2025 should the title battle go down to the last race in Abu Dhabi.<\/p>\n<p>Verstappen is in imperious form, landing his third win in four races at the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.formula1.com\/en\/racing\/2025\/united-states\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> United States Grand Prix<\/a> to close the gap to McLaren\u2019s Oscar Piastri to 40 points.<\/p>\n<p>With only five races remaining, F1 is heading for a grandstand finish, and two-time champion Alonso has become the first driver to publicly back Verstappen.<\/p>\n<p>Aware of the determination, grit and ruthlessness required, Alonso spoke about the Dutchman\u2019s prowess and talents, widely regarded as the best of his generation.<\/p>\n<p>Confirming to media, including Motorsport Week, his admiration for Verstappen, Alonso outlined how Verstappen has become synonymous with success.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell, I think he\u2019s a four-time World Champion, first of all,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s not a casual thing. He\u2019s one of the best drivers in the history of the sport.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think he\u2019s able to extract the maximum from the car. When the car is a dominant car, he can win the championship and break some records along the season.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd when the car is not that good or not the fastest, he still provides the good lap in qualifying, or the good race, the good fight.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Fernando-Alonso-Max-Verstappen-1024x576.webp.webp\" alt=\"Fernando Alonso has quipped that he can assist Max Verstappen's talks with Mercedes\" class=\"wp-image-216218\"  \/>Fernando Alonso has backed Max Verstappen in the championship battle<\/p>\n<p>Alonso backs Verstappen in last-race decider<\/p>\n<p>Alonso\u2019s most substantial vote of confidence came from the titanic 2021 season, where Verstappen dethroned Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes.<\/p>\n<p>Neither Piastri nor team-mate Lando Norris have fought in a tight title battle, with the Spaniard hinting this could play a part in settling the duel.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s at a very good level, very high level. And, yeah, this year he\u2019s obviously fighting against a superior car, which is the McLaren,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut, yeah, if it comes to the last race or whatever and they are tight on\u00a0points, maybe in that moment he becomes the man to follow.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs I said before, I think the two McLarens have enough advantage on the car to fight between them. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut, yeah, with Max, that can happen, as we saw in 2021 when the car was a little bit less performing than the Mercedes. He still won the championship in Abu Dhabi.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>READ MORE \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsportweek.com\/2025\/10\/20\/red-bull-is-watching-history-in-the-making-with-max-verstappen\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Red Bull is \u2018watching history in the making\u2019 with Max Verstappen<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fernando Alonso has backed Max Verstappen to become Formula 1 World Champion in 2025 should the title battle&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232818,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,817,845,825,913,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-232817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-fernando-alonso","tag-max-verstappen","tag-mclaren","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232817","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=232817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}