{"id":952305,"date":"2026-10-30T20:28:17","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T20:28:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/952305\/"},"modified":"2026-10-30T20:28:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T20:28:17","slug":"verstappen-makes-blunt-admission-over-f1-championship-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/952305\/","title":{"rendered":"Verstappen makes blunt admission over F1 championship battle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Max Verstappen<\/a> has played down the importance of finishing runner-up in the Drivers’ Championship, insisting that anything other than first place makes little difference to him. Despite Red Bull’s recent resurgence bringing the Dutchman closer to his rivals in the standings, his attention is firmly on helping the team secure third place in the Constructors’ Championship.Verstappen dismisses fight for second in F1 standings<\/p>\n

Verstappen has enjoyed a strong run of results in recent races, with victories in Malaysia and Singapore followed by a third-place finish at the United States Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

The four-time world champion is now fourth in the Drivers’ Championship<\/a>, just six points behind George Russell in second and five behind Lewis Hamilton in third. Charles Leclerc is also involved in the closely contested battle, sitting three points behind Verstappen.<\/p>\n

However, the Dutchman is not particularly concerned about finishing ahead of his rivals unless the world championship itself is at stake.<\/p>\n

\"Max<\/p>\n

Photo: RacePictures<\/p>\n

Asked ahead of the Mexican Grand Prix whether claiming second place in the standings would be a meaningful achievement, Verstappen dismissed the idea.<\/p>\n

“I don’t really care, because it’s only about first. So for me, I don’t care if I’m second or fifth. The only thing that we want to try and achieve is to be P3 in the Constructors’. That’s what I think the team wants, so that’s what we’ll try to do.”<\/p>\n

Red Bull is currently level with McLaren on 355 points in the Constructors’ Championship, with both teams fighting to secure third place behind Mercedes and Ferrari. The battle remains important for Red Bull, which has finished inside the top three in the Constructors’ standings every season since 2016.<\/p>\n

Verstappen explains Red Bull’s plans for 2027<\/p>\n

Although Red Bull has made significant progress during the second half of the season, Verstappen believes further improvements will be necessary to challenge Mercedes consistently next year.<\/p>\n

The Dutchman suggested that the team is preparing substantial changes to its car, rather than relying on the progress achieved in recent months: “(There are) still a lot of things that we want to change, and I hope that it will bring the car a bit more together. That’s been the target already for a long time.<\/p>\n

“Of course, we have improved a lot this year, but I think we are nowhere near satisfied enough, so there will still be a decent amount of changes for next year.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen has played down the importance of finishing runner-up in the Drivers’ Championship, insisting that anything other…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":952306,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,28673,576,577,1885,2190,82],"class_list":["post-952305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-f1-news","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-max-verstappen","tag-red-bull-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952305","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=952305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/952306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=952305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=952305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=952305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}