{"id":148707,"date":"2025-06-01T05:49:08","date_gmt":"2025-06-01T05:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/148707\/"},"modified":"2025-06-01T05:49:08","modified_gmt":"2025-06-01T05:49:08","slug":"why-phenomenal-max-verstappen-needs-a-win-at-the-decisive-spanish-gp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/148707\/","title":{"rendered":"Why ‘phenomenal’ Max Verstappen needs a win at the ‘decisive’ Spanish GP"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s no doubt that McLaren has been the favorite for the F1 2025 championship sweep, but that hasn\u2019t stopped Max Verstappen from snagging wins and staying hot on their tails.<\/strong><\/p>\n

However, the chase must be decided in someone\u2019s favor at some point \u2014 and F1 2016 World Champion turned Sky Sports pundit Nico Rosberg thinks Spain will be \u2018decisive\u2019 for Verstappen\u2019s hopes of a fifth consecutive title.<\/p>\n

Why Spain is \u2018decisive\u2019 for Max Verstappen\u2019s championship<\/p>\n

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher<\/p>\n

Ever since an update at the 2024 Miami Grand Prix transformed McLaren into a shock competitor for the Formula 1 World Championship, Max Verstappen\u2019s<\/a> days at the top of the driver standings were numbered.<\/p>\n

While the Dutch driver held onto his title through the end of 2024, Lando Norris\u2019 win at 2025\u2019s season-opening Australian Grand Prix saw Verstappen knocked from the top of the charts. McLaren has been strong, while Red Bull\u2019s RB21 has been a handful.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, as his teammates struggle to find their footing, Max Verstappen has stayed within striking distance of his rivals. He\u2019s a mere 25 points in arrears of leader Oscar Piastri, 22 behind Norris, thanks in large part to two victories and a slew of strong finishes.<\/p>\n

That in and of itself is massively impressive to 2016 Champion Nico Rosberg.<\/p>\n

More on the Spanish Grand Prix wing updates:<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49\u00a0Explaining F1\u2019s phantom updates and why McLaren do have a new front wing after all<\/a><\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49\u00a0Mercedes focus their efforts elsewhere, as there\u2019s no new front wing on the menu<\/a><\/p>\n

Speaking about the reigning champion on Sky Sports F1, Rosberg said, \u201cI\u2019ve said now for a while that he\u2019s moved himself into the top-five greatest of all time in this sport alongside Lewis [Hamilton], [Michael] Schumacher, [Ayrton] Senna and [Juan Manuel] Fangio, and he\u2019s showing it again this year, because the car has not been very good at all, and yet he\u2019s still in the championship fight and taking wins off that McLaren.<\/p>\n

\u201cPhenomenal job by Verstappen so far.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rosberg continued later to say, \u201cGreat to see that Max Verstappen is still in the hunt there at the front with the two McLaren drivers, just hanging in there.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis weekend is going to be decisive for his championship hopes also. So we\u2019re looking forward to seeing how he gets on.\u201d<\/p>\n

While there are still plenty of races remaining on the F1 2025 calendar, recent history has shown that drivers who are able to amass a strong points lead early on can be difficult to unseat later in the year.<\/p>\n

Further, the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya is often regarded as one of the most \u2018representative\u2019 tracks on the Formula 1 calendar, in the sense that it provides a variety of corner types that affords insight into how cars will perform at upcoming race tracks.<\/p>\n

Max Verstappen himself isn\u2019t quite as convinced that Barcelona will serve as a measure of the remainder of 2025.<\/p>\n

Speaking to media, including PlanetF1.com, on Thursday, Verstappen was asked if he felt Barcelona will tell us more about the championship development, to which he replied, \u201cPossibly yes, possibly not.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, I know that our car is not good in low speed and street circuits. That\u2019s a fact. That will stay also after Barcelona, you know.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I don\u2019t think Barcelona is suddenly the one that you can say, like, \u2018Oh, this is now where you lose it or win it.\u2019 I don\u2019t think you can say that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, Barcelona will be critical for Verstappen. The longer he can remain in striking distance of the McLaren duo, the better.<\/p>\n

Read next:\u00a0Max Verstappen gives tepid \u2018won\u2019t be in my memory forever\u2019 verdict on F1 2025 season fight<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s no doubt that McLaren has been the favorite for the F1 2025 championship sweep, but that hasn\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148708,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[4199,707,4200,225,1073,12,47791,226,27196,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-148707","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-f1","9":"tag-formula-1","10":"tag-formula1","11":"tag-home-page","12":"tag-max-verstappen","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-nico-rosberg","15":"tag-red-bull","16":"tag-spanish-grand-prix","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114606543025957491","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}