Max Verstappen reached the podium in San Pablo from the pits

The Dutchman made a great comeback after the Red Bull team completely changed its RB21. In any case, his chances of winning the fifth crown are tied to a miracle.

In 2024, Max Verstappen jumped from 17th starting place to victory in a memorable race in a deluge. A year later, the Dutchman had the worst classification of his career by failing to pass Q1 without having suffered penalties or accidents. Red Bull opted for changes to the car at the time of qualifying and they went in the completely opposite direction to what was necessary. Therefore, the priests of the energy drinks team They opted to break the parc ferme and change the entire RB21: new power unit, new set-up, change of the floor… And to start from the pits.

The rain that could have given him a plus never came. It threatened all the time, in fact, a light drizzle fell intermittently throughout the morning in São Paulo. But in Carrara, everything dry. Verstappen made a spectacular comeback and even suffered a puncture in the early stages that made him stop earlier than expected to take off the hard tires to switch to medium and he fell to the bottom of the table again. From there he led for a handful of laps until he had to make his second stop and put on tires, with which he was able to climb to third place. And it was no more because he encountered a masterful defense from Kimi Antonelli, finally second with his Mercedes.

Sitting in the conference room, Max was asked if the engine change was the key to reaching the podium: “I think it was all together, the set-up too. I felt more comfortable. And I think the temperatures today, a little cooler, also helped everything work better. It was a very solid race. We had much better pace than in qualifying. The car felt a little more reactive. Even with the puncture I had on the hard, then falling to last place and coming back again on the medium, I think we made the right strategy in the end. Even with the soft ones, they seemed to go well. After passing George Russell the tires wore out a little and as I approached Kimi they overheated and I lost a lot of grip,” said the champion.

Their chances of winning a fifth title in a row seem to have been definitively buried in Brazil. He was 49 points behind Lando Norris, with 83 at stake. On Saturday, after qualifying, he had already announced that the fight for the title was over. In a conference after the third place in San Pablo he confirmed and argued his theory: “We didn’t lose the championship here. We lost the championship from the first race to Zandvoort. We had many weekends where we just weren’t fast enough. And of course, then a big gap is created. Then we had good moments in which we recovered some points, but not enough. “That’s the season.”