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Max Verstappen has been tipped as a true Formula One title contender again next year with rival teams said to be "worried" about the progress Red Bull have made. They began the season off the pace and, for a while, it looked as though this might end up being the Dutchman's first season since 2015 without a win. However, he ended his barren run with victory in Malaysia and made it back-to-back wins in Singapore last time out.
Verstappen is the most in-form driver in F1 right now, though it is too late for him to mount a late-season title challenge like he did last year. He is 119 points adrift of Kimi Antonelli with, at most, six rounds remaining. That means there are only 150 points still up for grabs.
But while Verstappen's push has come too late for this season, it bodes well for what he and Red Bull might be able to achieve in 2027. With stable regulations, the team has the opportunity to build on its strong progress and mount a bid for glory next term.
Former F1 race Johnny Herbert has backed them to do exactly that and put Verstappen in a fight with the likes of Antonelli and Lewis Hamilton. "I know there are a few changes next year, but the rate of development and performance [of the Ford engine] has been mighty impressive. They've also got the car working well while focusing on getting that engine up and running," he told Vision4Sport, who offer luxury superyacht hospitality packages.
"They've kept Max happy despite all the rumours of him leaving or losing interest. Isack Hadjar has also been a very important part of moving in a positive direction; he's right there, not far behind Max. They've got a good pairing, and they're going to be a very worrying team next season for Mercedes, McLaren and Ferrari."
Verstappen's own personal performances have caught the eye of Herbert. Even when Red Bull's car wasn't capable of competing at the very sharp end of the grid, the four-time world champion was routinely extracting maximum performance and delivered several podiums.
Herbert said of the Dutchman: "Max is still hungry for it. The scary thing for me is he's still improving and becoming more complete. What we saw recently was pure speed from Max. They've done upgrades in Baku, and that motivation is what drivers need: belief in the team.
"They were able to supply him the goods. He can see that, when there is a problem, the team is still able to give him what he wants, and then he produces the goods. So yeah, he's got at least another 10 years."
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Verstappen will be one of the favourites for this weekend's United States Grand Prix as a result of his recent form. The Circuit of the Americas is notoriously bumpy, which has been a challenge for Red Bull in recent years, though his Singapore win showed they have ironed out some of the issues on that front. He did joke, though, that he may need a new back by the time he has finished racing in Texas.
He said: "I don't want to say now that I will be in the fight in Austin but, yeah, the last few weekends have been great. But I just take it race by race, and once we are in Austin, then we'll see how it will go there. But it's again a very different track.
"From what I saw in WEC, the track is incredibly bumpy. Oh my god, I probably need to order a new spine after the weekend or become like Robocop. Crazy. That's again a new challenge for everyone, you know, to deal with those bumps. And then we just go from there. We have to go to Mexico, again, high altitude, everything will run super hot.
"We need to see how the engine is going to perform at that altitude, how the car is behaving, because it's very different. So, you know, there are so many different things that you can get right or wrong in those races, but we'll see."
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