My Paradox

By: Diego Martinez

Yes, Verstappen is still mathematically in the fight for the championship. After a dominant drive in São Paulo fighting from P19 to P3, Max showed everyone that he should never be counted out no matter his starting grid position. Max pulling off a drive like this, a year after he did nearly the same thing starting from P17 to winning the race, only proves that he is worthy of the driver’s title.

Even with his spectacular drive today, I do not believe he gave enough to remain fully alive in the championship fight. After doing the math, Max needs to finish 7th place or higher in Las Vegas to remain in contention for the championship. Even if he finishes 7th, he is hanging on by a thread. Lando and Oscar would both have to finish lower than 8th place in the remaining races after Las Vegas for Max to even have the chance of pulling off a miracle.

Verstappen’s speed on the straights has proven dangerous this year with his victories in Texas, Baku, Monza, and Imola. The remaining three races will truly test Verstappen’s handling abilities.

Although Verstappen is still barely hanging on, the McLarens have had too many mistakes this season which have costed heavy points. They simply can not afford to slip up– especially now. Lando (championship leader) has done everything this weekend to get comfortable in the standings, but let’s not forget Monza got a bit techy spending 5.9 seconds during the pit stop and making a controversial switch with his teammate Oscar Piastri. Sparking rumors that Zak Brown is favoring Lando, which Zak later denied.

Lando deserves the respect after what he did this weekend: fastest in practice, sprint pole, sprint winner, race pole, and now race winner. Lando was later boo’ed on the podium potentially to do with the controversy behind Zak Brown and the way the team has been handling things with Lando Norris. This truly breaks my heart seeing Lando being disrespected by the same people who wished for his first win last year in Miami, and now that he has the championship facing right at him it’s been total disrespect. Does Lando deserve to be boo’ed? No. He deserves all applause after his major turn around this season.

Max’s performance at Interlagos this weekend has proven to me that he is the best Formula 1 driver, but in the end, he needs to win them all. I personally would not be surprised if these last three races get techy in terms of pit stops and team orders. Those things many say are improbable, but P19 to P3 was also improbable. We are looking at three races filled with drama.

Lando now almost an entire race win worth of points ahead of Oscar and fourty-nine points ahead of Verstappen. Lando is looking comfortable and ready to punch in his first ever driver’s title. I highly doubt Verstappen will have the drive or the car to pull off the comeback of a century. If I am Red Bull’s team principal Laurent Mekies, at this point in the driver’s championship, the focus needs to shift to 2026.

After an amazing performance by Verstappen this weekend, it wasn’t enough to make the circumstances better for him. Yes, he needs to place P7 to remain in contention, but if he truly wants a comeback, he would need to place P1 or P2 with Lando and Oscar performing poorly in the last three races. A situation I simply do not see happening in Max’s favor.

I can not say whether or not it will be Lando or Oscar changing their driver number to 1 next season, but one number will change, and it will be back to 33. As I said though, nothing is improbable and these last three races will be the most drama-packed ending we’ve seen in Formula 1 history.