“Yeah, I think so,” Max Verstappen concurred, when it was put to him that 2025 had demonstrated his best season-wide performance across his Formula 1 career so far. “I have no regrets about my season. I think the performance has been strong. I’ve hated this car at times, but I’ve also loved it at times. And I always tried to extract the most from it, even in the difficult weekends that we’ve had. But, yeah, it’s been a proper roller coaster with the car. Luckily, the last eight or nine rounds in general have been a lot more enjoyable.”
And that encapsulates the feast-and-famine nature of his title defence, one that ended with him conceding defeat as Lando Norris claimed his first championship crown. Even without a fifth title, Verstappen can draw significant satisfaction from his year, specifically with how it ended; he was, without a single iota of doubt, the class act of the field.
