Will Oscar Piastri-Lando Norris tension allow Max Verstappen to steal F1 title?

Only once in Formula 1's 75-year history has a driver won five successive championships. Michael Schumacher holds that honour, claiming five in a row during his Ferrari heyday from 2000 to 2004. Since then, there have been three challengers, only for Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton to fall at the final hurdle, whilst Max Verstappen is trying hard.  Vettel won four consecutive titles from 2010 to 2013 with Red Bull, but a major change in the engine regulations for 2014 halted his charge. As for Hamilton, his quadruple was set from 2017 to 2020 with Mercedes. But for the most contentious end to a title fight in 2021, he may have matched Schumacher's achievement. Instead, it was Max Verstappen who was crowned champion that year. Since then, and until this year, the Red Bull driver has dominated the sport. Verstappen's bid to match Schumacher is fading. At the halfway stage of the current campaign, with 12 races gone and 12 to go, the Dutch driver finds himself 69 points adrift of Oscar Piastri, and 61 behind the Australian's McLaren team-mate Lando Norris. It appears to be a two-horse race, but could the McLaren pair, in their anxiety to be crowned a first-time champion, become embroiled in numerous on-track skirmishes over the second half of the campaign that could allow Verstappen to make a charge along the rails? Verstappen is a long shot, but stranger things have happened. Have a bit of fun and cast your vote in our latest RacingNews365 poll below.