Karun Chandhok believes Max Verstappen has now eliminated his only Formula 1 ‘weakness’

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Max Verstappen could mathematically fall out of contention to win the 2025 Formula 1 drivers’ championship at the Qatar Grand Prix, but there’s a legitimate argument to be made that he’s been this season’s most impressive driver.

Red Bull have not delivered Max Verstappen a car that should be capable of winning the drivers’ championship.

The perfect way to represent this is how far away Yuki Tsunoda is from his teammate in the standings as he tries to cling to his Formula 1 status.

Verstappen was more than 100 points behind Oscar Piastri after the Australian won the Dutch Grand Prix, but went into the Qatar GP weekend level on points with his McLaren rival.

It’s hard to believe that any other driver on the grid would be capable of that, especially considering that out of his fellow world champions, Lewis Hamilton’s current issues at Ferrari and Fernando Alonso’s lack of recent experience challenging for victories.

Karun Chandhok and Jamie Chadwick were reflecting on Verstappen’s season and believe that, despite being more than 200 races into his F1 career, he’s still improving.

However, Chandhok has pinpointed one weakness that the Dutchman displayed earlier in the season that he’s now overcome.

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Max Verstappen has removed his only ‘weakness’ during the 2025 Formula 1 season

Ahead of qualifying for the Qatar Grand Prix on Sky Sports F1 (29/11 5:43 pm), Chandhok was talking about Verstappen’s 2025 campaign. He said: “I mean, to me, when you talk about this, who’s the best driver of the season.

“I always come back to having the driver maximise the potential that they’ve had in the season. And nobody’s done it all through, but I think Max has done it more often than anyone else has this year, and that’s why he’s somehow still in contention, mathematically in the championship.

“If you look at his weakness, the only one you can probably say is road rage on occasion, he gets a bit upset and does some irrational things, like Barcelona that you just mentioned, and that cost him 12 points.

“But the change this time, and this we’re looking at the pictures here, this is where he let George Russell through, then decided to sort of accelerate and go into him.

“But unlike previous incidents where we all thought, hang on, that’s not on, he put his hands up and went, I made an error in judgment here, and I made a mistake.

“And so maybe looking forward, he’s not going to have this weakness anymore because he’s learned from it.

“So that’s the point, I think, he doesn’t have a weakness, Max Verstappen, and he can do everything at the stage, and that’s why I think he’s the best driver on the grid.”

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Chadwick added to Chandhok’s analysis and continued: “I also think he dances with the limit at a more heightened rate than anyone else.

“I think the kind of positions he puts the car in, he’s able to place himself at such high risk.

“Zandvoort, for example, the snap of oversteer and Brazil, where Oscar crashed, he still has these big moments, and they sometimes go unnoticed, but he has those quite regularly and often those can end up in a crash and they don’t, and I think he’s not afraid to put himself in difficult positions, which I think some of the other drivers are.”

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What Max Verstappen needs to do to keep his 2025 Formula 1 championship hopes alive

Verstappen is on the back foot heading into the Qatar Grand Prix as McLaren locked out the front row.

If Norris wins the race, then the championship is over, and Verstappen will only have second place to fight for against Piastri heading to the final race in Abu Dhabi.

Verstappen also knows that if he beats Norris, then he will still be in contention going into the final race of the season.

That is, unless both drivers finish outside the top 10, as although they are only separated by 25 points, Verstappen would lose on countback if they finished level in the standings after next weekend’s race.

It is no longer in Verstappen’s hands, but he will start the race from the clean side of the grid and will know how essential it is to get a jump on Norris going into the first corner.