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Ex-Alpine team boss Otmar Szafnauer has claimed that Max Verstappen would have won the 2025 Formula 1 world title if Red Bull had kept hold of Sergio Perez.
In 2025, it was expected that Lando Norris or Oscar Piastri would win the world title, due to McLaren’s superior car.
However, after several incidents between the two McLaren drivers and a drastic dip in form from Piastri, Verstappen was allowed back into the mix.
Eventually, the title went down to the wire, with Norris finishing just two points ahead of Verstappen to claim his maiden world championship.
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Otmar Szafnauer says Max Verstappen would have won 2025 title if Red Bull kept Sergio Perez
Speaking recently on the High Performance Racing podcast, Szafnauer claimed that Verstappen would have been last year’s world champion if Perez were still his teammate at Red Bull.
In 2025, Verstappen started the season with Liam Lawson as teammate before Yuki Tsunoda replaced him after just two races.
Both Lawson and Tsunoda struggled to keep pace with the frontrunners, which meant Verstappen had no one to help fend off the others during his title charge.
Szafnauer stated that if Perez were still at Red Bull, he would’ve been able to put himself between Verstappen and his title rivals.
He said: “I’ve said this in the past, if they had kept Sergio, he would have won it. So, he lost it to Lando by three points. All they needed was a Sergio to supplant himself between a Max win and a Lando a couple of times.
“Give him the whole season, you just do it once. If you have a one-time Max one, Sergio two, Max wins the championship. How many races did he win?”
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Szafnauer added: “So of those 7/8 that Max won, you just needed a one, two once, right? So, the car’s there, Max has won it, Suzuka, wherever, just needed a one, two once, and Max wins the championship. You just needed it once! At a track that he likes, just one time!
“If you remember, and this is what made me think of it, his first year there, when Max won, he was known as the Ministry of Defence, and why was that? because he was putting himself between Max and the others to defend Max for the win.”
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What did Max Verstappen say about Sergio Perez after the 2021 title win?
Back in 2021, Perez played a huge role in Abu Dhabi as he successfully held Lewis Hamilton up to help Verstappen close the gap to the Mercedes driver.
In the end, Verstappen was crowned world champion under hugely controversial circumstances. Speaking at the time, the Dutchman was full of praise for Perez.
He said: “I think without Checo I wouldn’t be sitting here right now because then they would have had a pit gap with the Safety Car and stuff, so definitely Checo was driving incredibly today.
“Checo is an amazing human being. Not only just to work with in F1 but a super nice person, a real family man as well, and yes, I really have a lot of good times with him and you can see he really means it, and he means well.
“It’s very rare to have a team mate like that and what he showed today, he was a real team player and I really hope we can continue this for a long time.”
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