{"id":159814,"date":"2025-09-21T18:53:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-21T18:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/159814\/"},"modified":"2025-09-21T18:53:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T18:53:08","slug":"verstappen-doesnt-rule-out-f1-title-chance-after-baku-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/159814\/","title":{"rendered":"Verstappen doesn’t rule out F1 title chance after Baku win"},"content":{"rendered":"

Max Verstappen has not ruled out the chance to win a fifth Formula 1 world title as he closes the gap on leader Oscar Piastri in the drivers\u2019 championship with his dominant victory at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Two weeks on from his victory at Monza and with seven races remaining, Verstappen\u2019s win in Baku puts him 69 points behind Piastri — who, on a rare weekend of mistakes, crashed in qualifying and again on Lap 1 of Sunday\u2019s race<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As chaos erupted in Baku on Saturday — with qualifying suspended<\/a> a record six times leading to a mixed-up grid — Verstappen took pole position with Norris only seventh quickest.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, with Piastri out on Lap 1, Norris was unable to capitalize on the points-scoring opportunity, finishing where he started and seeing the advantage over Verstappen shrink to 44 points.<\/p>\n

The Dutchman\u2019s flawless weekend saw him take his sixth career Grand Slam (pole, fastest lap, win, led all laps) and now stands level with Lewis Hamilton for the second-most in F1 history.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis weekend has been incredible for us,\u201d Verstappen told reporters. \u201cOf course, last weekend was already great. But yeah, for us to win here again is just fantastic.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s another just great result. A bit unusual. This season has been really swinging left and right, but at least now two weekends in a row, it\u2019s been going really well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked by reporters if he sees an opportunity in the drivers\u2019 championship battle, he said: \u201cI mean, I don\u2019t rely on hope.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeven races to go and it\u2019s still 69 points? It\u2019s a lot.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut basically everything needs to go perfect from my side. And then a bit of luck from there from their [McLaren] side I need as well, you know, so it\u2019s still very tough.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I personally don\u2019t think about it. I just go race by race, what I have been doing basically the whole season — just trying to do the best we can, try to score the most points that we can. And then after Abu Dhabi, we\u2019ll know.\u201d<\/p>\n

McLaren team boss Andrea Stella has noted Verstappen\u2019s back-to-back<\/a> victories. \u201cRed Bull look improved,\u201d he told SiriusXM after the race.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they have made a genuine improvement. They had upgrades in Monza. They seem to have found a way to exploit these upgrades with the setup.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said that yesterday already that Max and Red Bull will be regular contenders for the wins, and definitely Max is a contender for the drivers\u2019 championship. So there\u2019s a lot of work ahead of us. We need to stay focused, improve, and we will go again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen has not ruled out the chance to win a fifth Formula 1 world title as he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159815,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":["post-159814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}