Max Verstappen says one of his F1 rivals 'sold his soul' during the 2025 season - and says he never would have put himself in such a position.
Verstappen finished in second place in the 2025 Drivers' Championship, narrowly missing out on his fifth consecutive world crown.
He ended the season two points behind McLaren's Lando Norris, who sealed the title by finishing in third place at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Norris' team-mate Oscar Piastri led the Drivers' Championship standings from April up until the Mexican Grand Prix in October.
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The Australian went on a run of six races without a podium finish, and crashed out of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix and both the United States and Brazil sprints.
A pair of second-placed finishes in the final two rounds of the season was not enough to overhaul Norris, who finished ahead of him by 13 points.
There was a flashpoint in the title race during the Italian Grand Prix, when Norris fell behind Piastri due to a slow pit stop.
McLaren asked Piastri to allow Norris back through and into second place - a request the Australian complied with.
The 24-year-old questioned his team at the subsequent Singapore Grand Prix, when Norris made contact with him at turn one but kept the position.
When asked by German outlet Blick if he would have accepted team orders like Piastri did, Verstappen replied: "Definitely not.
"If you do that once without a clear reason, you sell your soul. The team can then do whatever it wants with you.
"And let's not forget, Piastri was in the middle of the title fight."
He continued: "That statement is true [Verstappen stating he would have won the title earlier if he had been driving for McLaren].
"But I never actually interfere in my opponents' internal problems. I can always give them a competitive response on the track."
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McLaren team principal Andrea Stella explained the Monza swap between the two McLaren drivers as underlining the team's 'values and principles'.
He told the official Formula 1 website: "Today, when we started the pit stop sequencing, we started the sequencing pitting Oscar first but with the clear intention that we would have not swapped positions.
"Unfortunately, this compounded with the fact that we had a slow pit stop [for Norris].
"Because we had the sequence with Oscar first and then the slow pit stop, we thought the fair thing to do was to go back to the positions that we had before the pit stops.
"We showed again the values and principles we have at McLaren."
Topics:Ā Max Verstappen, Formula 1, Red Bull Racing, McLaren, Oscar Piastri
Ryan Smart