It was always likely that a moment of DNF-inducing fallibility from leader Oscar Piastri was needed to reignite this season’s F1 world championship. And, on the typically unpredictable streets of Baku, we got just that. Piastri’s abnormal crash on lap one of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix opened the door for title rival Lando Norris to slice into the Australian’s 31-point advantage.

This was the moment Norris, and his fans, had craved. But by the chequered flag, it wasn’t the Briton who was the main beneficiary, having only managed to finish seventh and cut the gap to 25 points. Instead, it was Max Verstappen. You didn’t forget about him, did you?

Where other frontrunners toiled and trudged in heavy winds on the shores of the Caspian Sea, Red Bull’s four-time world champion oozed composure. A dominant lights-to-flag victory – his fourth win of the season and second in a row – suddenly sees the Dutchman just 69 points off Piastri. With seven races to go, it no longer looks like an insurmountable deficit.

Conspicuously, from a position of nothingness where dreams of a fifth consecutive title were in the dust, Verstappen is now not ruling out a title comeback.

“Seven races to go and it’s still 69 points… it’s a lot,” Verstappen told Sky Sports F1. “Basically, everything needs to go perfect from my side and then a bit of luck from their side I need as well. So it’s still very tough.”

Very tough? Absolutely. Very unlikely? Yes. But a combination of Red Bull’s newfound speed and McLaren’s sudden lapse in performance – both in raw pace and in the cockpit – means Verstappen has progressed from a certainty to finish in third to an outside bet for an unprecedented comeback.

To put it into perspective, Verstappen now trails second-placed Norris by 44 points. This time last year, when Norris was being tipped for a maiden title in the quickest car, the Brit was 59 points inferior. A force again at the front, Verstappen can still have a huge say in this year’s championship.

But what has happened to McLaren? On a weekend where they could have secured the constructors’ championship in record time, Andrea Stella’s team and his two title-competing drivers made several mistakes. For Piastri, in particular, it was a weekend to write off.

The Australian, usually so cool-headed, smashed his car into the wall at turn 15 in qualifying, failing to learn from Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who did exactly the same moments earlier. Then, starting in ninth, he false-started at lights-out, dropped to last place, before taking way too much speed into turn five and, once more, careened into the barriers.

All in all, a weekend to forget – a year on from his breakout F1 performance at the same circuit.

But, most frustratingly for the majority of onlookers keen to witness a tense title run-in, Norris could not capitalise. One of the favourites for pole, McLaren opted to send Norris out before the rest of the pack at the end of Q3. It was a gamble: while he therefore endured the worst of the slippery track conditions, another red flag (in addition to the record six previously) could have seen Norris bank a lap where others failed to. Ultimately, it turned out to be a former.

Norris, who struggled to control his sliding McLaren car, could only put his car seventh on the grid. Tellingly, Norris’ time was over a second slower than Verstappen’s pole-setting lap. And amid a 51-lap race where overtaking proved difficult, seventh was exactly where Norris finished, after a botched late pit-stop cost Norris two positions and four points. In total, six points earned – less than the gap between first and second. Undeniably, a missed opportunity.

“I wanted to do better today, I needed to do better yesterday,” Norris said. “I felt like I was close to maximising today. It didn’t maybe look like it from the outside, but we struggled with the pace.

“If I started second, I think I would have finished second. I’m doing the best I can in every race. I know I still have a lot of points to make up against an incredible driver. I just need to keep my head up.”

For Red Bull, the signs are stirringly promising. While low-downforce Monza – where Verstappen won previously – is an outlier of a circuit, their car was once again the quickest on the narrow streets of Baku, not overly dissimilar to the night race in Singapore next up, though a track where Red Bull have traditionally performed poorly.

Laurent Mekies, the engineer-turned-team principal who replaced Christian Horner two months ago, deserves credit for their recent revival and, given his skillset, seems fully attuned with the RB21 car and its impressive upturn in performance. His engineering mindset is superior to that of his predecessor, who officially left Red Bull on Monday morning with a reported £80m pay-off.

“For the team, it’s [Max’s win] an extraordinary confirmation,” Mekies said on Sunday night. “At Monza, with all the specificities of the circuit, finding confirmation here [in Baku] that we’re in the fight against the best cars is important.”

Verstappen’s experience in title showdowns is a factor for the run-in, too. While Piastri and Norris are showing signs of frailty, the Dutchman remains irrepressible and assured, regardless of his other forays into endurance racing at the Nurburgring.

The Dutchman is clearly the outstanding driver of his generation and, still, the most complete driver on the grid. And it’s why he has McLaren – who seemed dead set for an individual champion, whether it be Piastri or Norris – looking nervously in the rear-view mirror, as we enter the season-defining chapter of the 2025 campaign.