Montoya: McLaren losing edge as Verstappen makes no mistakes

Indy 500 and multiple Grand Prix winner, Montoya, believes that while Verstappen is not yet the favourite, his form and focus have made him impossible to dismiss: “No, I don’t think he’s favourite. He has an outside chance. But we have got five more races and two more Sprint races, and anything can happen.

"Since the summer, he’s made up 63 points in five races and is now only 40 points behind. It’s absolutely crazy. Max is bringing the goods home every week. He’s not making mistakes. He’s doing everything right towards regaining the championship.”

Montoya believes the late-season shift came as teams turned their full attention to optimising existing cars rather than developing for 2026: “Red Bull have found what they were missing. When the upgrades stopped, everyone started paying attention to detail. Mercedes, Ferrari, and Red Bull have all got better, and in a very Max-like way, he’s using it really well.”

But he said Red Bull’s recovery is still being hampered by Yuki Tsunoda’s lack of front-running pace: “At this point, the first thing I would do if I was Red Bull would be to put everything the same on Tsunoda’s car as Max has. So he can then be a foil for Max and get involved in stopping McLaren. Two or four points here or there won’t be enough.”

According to Montoya, McLaren’s title bid is being compromised by over-caution and operational lapses: “McLaren is trying to figure out how to put more pace in the car, how to qualify better. I think they’ve changed philosophy a bit. From the outside, it looks like they’re trying to make the car more competitive in qualifying, but Lando was comfortable and Oscar couldn’t drive it.”

He pointed to repeated pit stop issues as signs of execution weakness: “They’re still competitive. They’ve just got to execute. Look at Lando’s stop. It was just under four seconds, and the same right front tyre was the problem again. A 2.5-second stop would have brought him out ahead of Tsunoda and Lawson. You can’t go for a championship against Red Bull and Max with bad stops and a conservative strategy. You need to control your own fate.”

Montoya said McLaren’s hesitancy has made them predictable: “It’s not complacency, it’s more that they’re afraid of making mistakes. Too conservative. That’s where Red Bull is very good. They’re aggressive, they make decisions, they’re comfortable taking a risk, and I don’t think there’s any finger pointing if it doesn’t work out.”

Montoya warned that McLaren’s equal-driver policy could soon create internal tension: “Oscar has the lead, but Lando has the momentum. So who do you choose? I guarantee both their contracts say that until you’re not mathematically out of the championship, McLaren cannot give team orders. The way it’s going, it looks more likely to go with Lando than with Oscar.”

He said Piastri’s calm exterior hides the mounting psychological strain of the title fight: “Everybody says he’s the coolest character, and he is, but it doesn’t matter how cool you are. The pressure is such that you start questioning everything: what you’re doing, what’s changed, why it’s not working.

"When McLaren were comfortable, he knew if he got it wrong, he was P2. Now, if he gets it wrong, he’s P6 or P7. The only thing he needs to do is to avoid being out of the top three in qualifying.”

Looking ahead to this weekend’s race, Montoya expects McLaren to fare well at altitude but predicts difficulties in Las Vegas: “They might be okay in Mexico because they’ll run high downforce and the altitude makes the car behave like low downforce. But in Vegas they’ll struggle. It’s like Monza or Baku where they weren’t that quick, and the Red Bull was very good there.”

Montoya concluded with a typically blunt forecast: “If this continues right up to Abu Dhabi, Max and one of the two McLaren drivers are going to take each other out going for the championship and the other car will be champion.”

Heading to Round 20, the 2025 Mexico City Grand Prix, Piastri leads the points standings by 14 points over Norris, and 40 more than Verstappen. Five GP weekends remain on the F1 season calendar.