The long-time Formula 1 team boss and today’s TV expert Günther Steiner doubts that Max Verstappen will win the World Cup title again in the starting season. In an exclusive conversation with RTL/NTV and Sport.de, he refers to the great competition in the premier class.
Red Bull superstar Max Verstappen has already won four world championship titles in a row. Is there a fifth in 2025? Extremely questionable, Günther Steiner says in an exclusive interview with RTL/NTV and sport.de: “It will be difficult, very difficult this year.” The statements are also available at the top of the article picture in the video.
Because: Red Bull had a strong start last season, but then broken down. Probably because of the driver’s quality of Max Verstappen, the title defense succeeded, although McLaren and Ferrari were in the end of the constructor classification.
This gap to the competition is “not easy to catch up,” believes Steiner, who was responsible between 2014 and 2024 as team leader at Haas.
The loss of design guru Adrian Newey, which it moved to Aston Martin, is also difficult to compensate for. “Last year Max did a superjob when he brought the World Cup home home. That was his personal earnings. But if McLaren starts this year strongly, I think he will be difficult.”
RTL expert Steiner: McLaren the favorite
The recent test drives have shown that McLaren “are the favorites in the new season,” said the RTL expert: “You can see that they are good.”
At McLaren, they managed to become even better than last year. “Everyone has made progress and nobody got closer to them,” observed Steiner. So the British lead may even increase.
The race for the status as a number 1 driver at McLaren between Lando Norris and Oscar Piatri is “very open”, Steiner predicted. “Both are very good, both are on par.” It will be shown in the first half of the season who better performs. The one will then be “chosen in the second half for the World Cup,” said Steiner. It is clear that Oscar Piatri will “not make it easy” to his teammate Lando Norris.
Conflict in McLaren between Norris and Piatri?
The long -time team boss does not necessarily expect a conflict between the two pilots. For a racing team, it is always better to know “the two best drivers” in your own ranks. “This is better than if you have a very good and a mediocre.” It is “the team’s job” to prevent any conflicts-“which is not easy. But it is better to have to manage something like this and make a mistake than to have a number one and a number two driver. Because the number two driver will never be motivated enough to beat the number one.”
In addition to McLaren, Ferrari has the “best driver pairing” – but “not because of the quality, but because of experience.” With Scuderia, however, the question is open “how good the car is and shouldn’t it be good, how quickly can you develop it?”
According to the first test drives, the Red Steiner are not yet in the position to seriously challenge McLaren. “I think Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull are very close together”.
The new Formula 1 season begins with the Grand Prix of Australia (14 to 16 March, live at Sky*). Then the F1-Tross travels to China, the race of Shanghai shows RTL Like six more live on Free TV.
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