{"id":370753,"date":"2025-12-25T10:30:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T10:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/370753\/"},"modified":"2025-12-25T10:30:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T10:30:10","slug":"why-verstappen-doesnt-feel-being-only-frontrunning-red-bull-hurt-him-against-mclaren","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/370753\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Verstappen doesn’t feel being only frontrunning Red Bull hurt him against McLaren"},"content":{"rendered":"

Max Verstappen<\/a> says being the only Red Bull car to take on the two McLaren<\/a> drivers for the 2025 Formula 1 title was an advantage rather than a drawback.<\/p>\n

In 2025 Red Bull tried its latest gamble to solve its second seat syndrome, but after two poor weekends Liam Lawson<\/a> was ruthlessly replaced by Yuki Tsunoda<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Japanese driver also struggled to find stability in his performances and results, and has been demoted to a reserve role for 2026 as Red Bull turned to Isack Hadjar instead<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That meant Verstappen was taking on the two McLarens of Lando Norris<\/a> and Oscar Piastri<\/a> by himself as he launched an unlikely comeback in the title fight over the second half of the season.<\/p>\n

But while Tsunoda wasn’t a factor up front to give Red Bull additional strategic cards to play, Verstappen feels his role as a sole frontrunner actually helped him.<\/p>\n

“When you’re on your own, you can go on the attack, you can be much more aggressive. I always prefer that,” he explained to Viaplay. “Look, if you’re a bit equal with the car, then I wish both [McLaren drivers] good luck, because then you can really decide it amongst yourselves.”<\/p>\n

\"Max <\/p>\n

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing<\/p>\n

Photo by: Zak Mauger \/ LAT Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Verstappen pointed out that Norris and Piastri were taking a lot of points off each other in their fight against the Dutchman, with McLaren’s equal treatment of both drivers further complicating things on the strategy front. That’s why as a team principal, he would always designate a number one driver.<\/p>\n

“If I were a team boss, I would always put a clear number one and two in place,” the four-time world champion explained.<\/p>\n

“Of course, a number two who still scores enough points to compete for the constructors’ title. But a clear number one and two.<\/p>\n

“Because McLaren had two drivers, they gave away some things with their strategy. So, of course, we benefited from that too.”<\/p>\n

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– The Autosport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen says being the only Red Bull car to take on the two McLaren drivers for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370754,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,1737,825,913,2333,946,85,200647],"class_list":["post-370753","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-lando-norris","tag-max-verstappen","tag-mclaren","tag-oscar-piastri","tag-red-bull-racing","tag-sports","tag-why-verstappen-doesnt-feel-being-only-frontrunning-red-bull-hurt-him-against-mclaren"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370753","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=370753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}