Max Verstappen is still firmly on top of the drivers’ championship, but McLaren is mounting a challenge for the team title.
After Max Verstappen won four of the opening five Grands Prix this season, it appeared that he and Red Bull would again dominate.
Last year, Red Bull and Verstappen rewrote the record books, defending their constructors’ and drivers’ titles. He also set the record for most wins in a season, 19 of 22 races.
Following his fourth victory this year in the fifth race, in China, Verstappen ominously said that his car was “on rails” and that he “could do whatever I wanted to with it.”
Since that race, the picture has changed. He has won three of eight Grands Prix. He has not won the last three, his longest winless drought since 2021, and there have been seven different winners.
Over the team radio during the last race in Hungary, where he was fifth, Verstappen criticized the car and the strategy. He defended his anger, saying if people did not like his messages then “they can go home.”
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Source: Elections - nytimes.com
