{"id":231944,"date":"2025-10-22T13:17:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T13:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/231944\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T13:17:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T13:17:09","slug":"verstappen-holds-key-advantage-over-mclaren-drivers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/231944\/","title":{"rendered":"Verstappen holds key advantage over McLaren drivers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Mercedes Team Principal <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gpblog.com\/en\/toto-wolff\" title=\"Toto Wolff\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Toto Wolff<\/a> believes <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gpblog.com\/en\/f1-drivers\/max-verstappen\" title=\"Max Verstappen\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Max Verstappen<\/a> has the psychological advantage over both <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gpblog.com\/en\/f1-drivers\/oscar-piastri\" title=\"Oscar Piastri\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Oscar Piastri<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gpblog.com\/en\/f1-drivers\/lando-norris\" title=\"Lando Norris\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lando Norris<\/a> as the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gpblog.com\/en\/formula-1\" title=\"Formula 1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Formula 1<\/a> Drivers\u2019 Championship battle heats up.\u201cThe underdog always has a little bit of an easier psychological advantage because of the probability.\u201d- Toto Wolff\u00a0The Mercedes team boss, who spoke to GPblog, recounted how he had experienced a similar scenario with former <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gpblog.com\/en\/f1-teams\/red-bull-racing\" title=\"Red Bull Racing\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Red Bull Racing<\/a> driver Sebastian Vettel before adding that the psychological edge is tilted towards Verstappen due to the odds being against him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve been in a similar situation with two drivers fighting for a championship, and the threat of another one catching up. Back in the day, it was Max, I believe, and then it was Sebastian [Vettel] in that hunt.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe underdog always has a little bit of an easier psychological advantage because of the probability. The odds are definitely against Max. If you look at the probability, that\u2019s very low, one DNF can change everything, and I think that affects the driving as well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/20251019-0641m-68f55a9fdd263.jpg@webp.webp\" class=\"w-auto\" alt=\"max-verstappen-austin-jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Max Verstappen in Austin &#8211; Photo: Race Pictures<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow aggressive can you actually go for an overtake? You can see Lando [Norris] today; he managed it at the end, but at times it was tricky to decide whether to keep your nose in or not.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Verstappen further staked his claim for a fifth consecutive Drivers\u2019 Championship with victories in both the Sprint and Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas. The Red Bull Racing driver cut the gap to championship leader Piastri to 40 points, with five races and two Sprints remaining on the 2025 calendar.<\/p>\n<p>Toto Wolff praises Verstappen<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gpblog.com\/en\/news\/wolff-makes-big-verstappen-admission-after-us-grand-prix-win\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Wolff also lauded Verstappen after his victory at the United States Grand Prix<\/a>. The Mercedes team principal highlighted how impressive the 28-year-old\u2019s performance in the championship fight has been.<\/p>\n<p>Wolff further stated he could hardly see any driver replicating the performance of the Red Bull Racing star.<\/p>\n<p>GPblog paddock updateStay on top of the action and never miss a moment from the ever-buzzing world of Formula 1. Follow and subscribe to our channels on YouTube and Spotify to get the latest news and scoops from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gpblog.com\/en\/f1\" title=\"F1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">F1<\/a> circle.<\/p>\n<p>Check out the latest episode of our paddock update here \ud83d\udc47<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff believes Max Verstappen has the psychological advantage over both Oscar Piastri and Lando&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231945,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":["post-231944","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\/231944","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=231944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}