P1racenews AI automatic summary:
Max Verstappen has a better chance of overturning Oscar Piastri’s F1 drivers’ championship advantage than Kimi Raikkonen did when he beat Lewis Hamilton to the title in 2007 — the maths prove it.
Max Verstappen’s championship comeback in 2025 mirrors Kimi Raikkonen’s legendary feat in 2007, with strikingly precise statistical similarities between their campaigns. With six races left in the season, Verstappen trails Oscar Piastri by 63 points, holding 273 to the Australian’s 336. This deficit of 63 points constitutes 81.3% of the leader’s total, slightly higher than Raikkonen’s situation in 2007 when he was 24% into the campaign and 74 points behind Lewis Hamilton’s 92, which comprised 80.4% of Hamilton’s points at that stage. The math offers hope for Red Bull and Verstappen as Raikkonen faced a tougher challenge with less of the calendar to go, while Verstappen’s gap of 63 points makes up only 36% of the 174 points still up for grabs in the remaining six races and three sprint weekends. In comparison, Raikkonen had to overcome a deficit worth 42.5% of the available points when he trailed Hamilton by 17 points with only 40 points left on the table. Without the sprint weekends, Verstappen would need to recover a shortage of 42% of the remaining points, almost identical to Raikkonen’s deficit during his championship-winning season.
