The Azerbaijan Grand Prix was Max Verstappen's second straight win from pole and - coupled with McLaren's awful Baku weekend - brings him to within 69 points of championship leader Oscar Piastri and 44 of Lando Norris with seven rounds to go.
McLaren thinks Verstappen's a title threat again. Is he? And if so, is that more because of his and Red Bull's gains or McLaren making a mess of things?
Here are our team's immediate thoughts:
This might be too late
Ben Anderson
If Verstappen and Red Bull can keep up this form, and finish the season perfectly, then it's doable - but, they will need McLaren to have more awful weekends like this one, George Russell's Mercedes to take some more points off Norris and Piastri, and maybe even underperforming Ferrari to get into that mix, too.
Verstappen now has 69 points to make up on Piastri. After this race last year, Norris was 59 points behind Verstappen and only being spoken of realistically as an outsider in the title fight, despite McLaren's great form and Red Bull being at that stage in crisis mode with its troublesome car.
McLaren's had a bad weekend in Baku, but is far from crisis in terms of its underlying car pace, so it could be that Red Bull's impressive recent turnaround has simply come about too late to make much of a difference ultimately.
He needs McLaren to keep shooting itself in the foot
Edd Straw
Even for Verstappen, to make up a 69-point deficit to championship leader Piastri and a 44-point gap to Norris at this stage of the season is unrealistic - even if it isn't impossible. Verstappen remains the outstanding driver in F1 and has been the star performer of 2025, but even he can't fight the combined forces of physics and mathematics.
I took Andrea Stella's emphatic statement on Saturday night that Verstappen is a title threat to be very much a warning to everyone in his own team to keep their heads in the game. The one thing that could make Verstappen a threat is McLaren throwing away points through complacency, errors and underachievement. And what happened during the whole Baku weekend has served to double-underline that.
The Red Bull car is much improved, albeit so far only proving itself at Monza and Baku with other tracks likely to be a bigger test, but the McLaren remains a strong car and should still be able to win plenty even if Verstappen will probably win every time the machinery is up to it.
That means he will be a factor at the front for the rest of the season, but the points advantage McLaren has is too big even for him to overcome with the current competitive balance, with just seven races and three sprints to go.
Unless, of course, McLaren finds ways to shoot itself in the foot or the title battle between Piastri and Norris boils over.
And that's the real concern, because if McLaren lets any of these factors weaken it, there is a risk that allows Verstappen to force his way back into genuine contention.
He won't be champion but he's clearly the better driver
Matt Beer
Realistically, no. McLaren made an awful mess of this weekend but in normal circumstances its worst-case situation is just that it's slightly slower (maybe) than the resurgent Verstappen and Red Bull and still quicker than everyone else.
Even if Piastri and Norris take points off each other, there just aren't quite enough races left for Verstappen to completely flip this situation - and there's no guarantee his winning run will continue.
But what this little run has done is make this feel like one of those years when everyone's going to know that while two team-mates are fighting for the title, the driver right behind them in an inferior car is the year's strongest performer - Verstappen's in 'Michael Schumacher in 1996' mode, effectively.
I felt that so strongly when Verstappen pulled off his amazing first-lap move at Zandvoort three weeks ago. Since then, his return to winning form has only cemented that impression even more.
Verstappen too far - and Norris could be, too
Scott Mitchell-Malm
I’d be stunned if Verstappen can turn around the points deficit completely and we need some evidence of Red Bull being at this level at something other than a track where being trimmed out and letting Verstappen do the rest can offset a general performance deficit.
It’s not that I don’t believe Red Bull has made progress. It’s that the sample set is too small to be convinced by it. And a proper Red Bull turnaround is essential to Verstappen winning the championship in shock fashion.
Is a Verstappen title more likely than a Norris one? Surely not. But a Norris weekend like this when Piastri opened the door the way he did sadly makes me think he just doesn’t quite have the title in him.
The patterns are too well established now. His peaks are great but he goes missing when it counts too much. So Max has clearly had a better season than at least one McLaren driver, and possibly even both.
Verstappen is certainly on a trend to being the best driver of the season regardless of the final standings. An uncharacteristically poor weekend by Piastri doesn’t diminish how good his overall season - but I think Verstappen’s body of work has been better.
The pressure will only increase
Gary Anderson
Two wins in a row for Verstappen and Red Bull will be a wake-up call for both Piastri and Norris. As far as McLaren is concerned, it is fairly home and dry as far as the constructors' goes - but even still I’m pretty sure it wants to keep on winning.
Yes, both Monza and Baku have suited a very similar low-downforce set-up, which allowed Red Bull to achieve a good balance and excellent top speeds - as for the other seven grands prix and three sprints this season Red Bull might not be able to get the balance Verstappen requires. However, this step in performance will have allowed them team to look at things differently and perhaps run a set-up that it wouldn’t have considered pre-Zandvoort.
For McLaren, it was a matter of driver mistakes. For Piastri it meant zero - but Norris wasn’t able to capitalise.
Did those mistakes come from the pressure of the championship? If so, by throwing away potential points the pressure is only going to increase. They need to tidy up their acts and take from each weekend what they safely can, reduce the risk level - that doesn’t mean giving up potential wins but don’t throw away smaller points scores by overdoing it.
With Max, as long as there is a mathematical shot, he will give it his all - we all know, if he is given half a chance, he will take it with open arms.
And at least Red Bull is in the game in the constructors' again - fourth but only 18 points behind now second-placed Mercedes.
