{"id":236934,"date":"2025-10-24T06:36:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T06:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/236934\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T06:36:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T06:36:08","slug":"mclarens-title-destiny-is-still-in-their-hands-but-its-game-on-for-max-verstappen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/236934\/","title":{"rendered":"McLaren\u2019s title destiny is still in their hands \u2013 but it\u2019s game on for Max Verstappen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">When Max Verstappen stood on the Zandvoort podium in second, fresh from the summer break and in front of his home fans, the Dutchman felt like the result was a &#8220;really good achievement&#8221; for his Red Bull team.<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">It was the first time he had been on a Grand Prix podium since Canada back in June \u2013 and while he had a Sprint win to his name in Belgium during that period \u2013 as he left the Netherlands 104 points behind championship leader <a class=\"text-brand-hot-red underline decoration-1 hover:decoration-[3px]\" data-f1rd-a7s-click=\"rich_text_atom_click\" data-f1rd-a7s-context=\"eyJhY3Rpb25UeXBlIjoiT3NjYXIgUGlhc3RyaV9saW5rX2NsaWNrZWQiLCJjbGlja1RleHQiOnRydWUsInBhdGgiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5mb3JtdWxhMS5jb20vZW4vZHJpdmVycy9vc2Nhci1waWFzdHJpIiwicGF0aFR5cGUiOiJpbnRlcm5hbCJ9\" href=\"https:\/\/www.formula1.com\/en\/drivers\/oscar-piastri\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Oscar Piastri<\/a>, there was an increasing feeling that a fifth title in a row would be a step too far, even for a driver of his immense talent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">But since that day in Zandvoort, <a class=\"text-brand-hot-red underline decoration-1 hover:decoration-[3px]\" data-f1rd-a7s-click=\"rich_text_atom_click\" data-f1rd-a7s-context=\"eyJhY3Rpb25UeXBlIjoiVmVyc3RhcHBlbl9saW5rX2NsaWNrZWQiLCJjbGlja1RleHQiOnRydWUsInBhdGgiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5mb3JtdWxhMS5jb20vZW4vZHJpdmVycy9tYXgtdmVyc3RhcHBlbiIsInBhdGhUeXBlIjoiaW50ZXJuYWwifQ==\" href=\"https:\/\/www.formula1.com\/en\/drivers\/max-verstappen\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Verstappen<\/a> has won three of the last four Grands Prix \u2013 and finished second in the other. As he ticked each of those achievements off, he wasn&#8217;t keen to entertain any chat about his title chances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Max Verstappen stood on the Zandvoort podium in second, fresh from the summer break and in front&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":236935,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":["post-236934","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-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236934","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=236934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}