Max Verstappen shortens to 10/3 to win his fifth-straight Formula One title following his victory at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix Sunday
Max Verstappen returned to form in style at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix over the weekend - with the four-time reigning champion finishing first past the chequered flag in Italy.
As a result of his win, he is third in the standings and sits 22 points shy of the leader Oscar Piastri.
With the above in mind - let's take a look at the odds the Dutchman is garnering to win his fifth straight title following his victory on Sunday.
At the time of writing - Verstappen has shortened to a boosted 10/3 with Sky Bet to win the title, which is good for third-favourite in the market.
He is behind that of McLaren teammates Piastri and Lando Norris - with the pair priced at 10/11 and 5/2 respectively.
Piastri has won four races to date this season, while Norris has one win and five podium finishes to his name in 2025.
Meanwhile, for those after a considerable outsider in the market - George Russell and Charles Leclerc round out of the five favourites at 40/1 and 66/1.
Sky Bet favourites to win the 2025 Drivers' Championship:
Oscar Piastri 10/11
Lando Norris 5/2
Max Verstappen WAS 11/4 NOW 10/3
George Russell 40/1
Charles Leclerc 66/1
All odds are correct at the time of publication
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Telegraph
22 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Extortion, tasteless stunts and malign forces – the endless fascination with Michael Schumacher
As soon as the initials 'MS' appeared on a white race helmet, it felt like a message from the void. For nearly 12 years even the faintest update on Michael Schumacher had arrived second-hand at best, but here, at last, was a signature purportedly by the man himself. Sir Jackie Stewart, for whose Race Against Dementia charity the gesture was made, could not conceal his joy that the helmet – adorned with the Royal Stewart tartan and worn across a career spanning the Scot's three Formula One titles – had now been signed by all 20 living world champions. The wider significance, however, was that it represented the closest connection yet to an icon removed from public view, at once a precious affirmation of his survival but also a reminder of his desperate condition, truly an anguish without end. 'A wonderful moment,' said Johnny Herbert, Schumacher's former Benetton team-mate, on seeing those two surprise letters in black marker pen. 'We haven't seen something emotional like this in years, and hopefully it's a sign Michael is on the mend. It has been a long, horrible journey for the family, and maybe we'll see him in the F1 paddock soon.' Herbert's sentiments testify to the power of hope. While well-intentioned, they are negated by all available evidence. Since Schumacher struck his head on a rock while skiing in Méribel in December 2013, suffering such devastating brain trauma that he was placed in a coma for 250 days, he has made no public appearance of any kind. The likelihood, given the gravity of his injuries and wife Corinna's insistence on absolute privacy, is that he will never be seen by the wider world again. The effect of the family's scrupulous discretion is twofold. On the one hand, they have created a ring of steel around Schumacher, to the point where nobody can state with certainty even where he is being treated. As Corinna has put it: 'Michael always protected us, and now we are protecting Michael.' But the dearth of official health updates has bred a fascination so intense that the most elaborate fictions can masquerade as fact. In 2023, Die Aktuelle, a German women's interest weekly, ran a strapline promising 'Schumacher: the first interview', only for it to be disclosed at the end of the article that the quotes were generated by artificial intelligence. The publishers had to pay £170,000 in compensation, while the editor was fired. Today the only semblance of access to Schumacher's situation comes via his former inner circle in the sport. Just this week, Flavio Briatore, the irrepressible figure instrumental in his mid-Nineties glories at Benetton, offered an unusual level of detail, appearing to indicate the seven-time champion was bed-bound. 'If I close my eyes,' he told Corriere della Sera, 'I see him smiling after a victory. I prefer to remember him like that rather than him just lying on a bed. Corinna and I talk often, though.' Sabine Kehm, the Schumacher family's spokeswoman, did not respond to a request for comment. But Briatore's policy is one that Bernie Ecclestone, the sport's former ringmaster, has also adopted. While he is still in touch with Corinna, he clarified as early as 2015 that he would not be paying house visits, preferring to cherish the memory of the Michael he knew. Asked if this feeling remained the same a decade on, he replied: 'Absolutely. A hundred per cent.' Briatore's intervention came after his ex-wife, Elisabetta Gregoraci, said in 2020: 'Michael doesn't speak, he communicates with his eyes. Only three people can visit him and I know who they are.' Who are the three? Two we can identify with confidence are Jean Todt and Ross Brawn, the team principal and technical director during Schumacher's all-conquering years at Ferrari. Gerhard Berger, who went from being the German's fierce adversary to a close friend – and who, by eerie coincidence, broke his arm skiing off-piste just 10 weeks after that fateful Méribel morning – is understood to be the third. Brawn has spent time on several occasions with Schumacher at his vast house in Gland, Switzerland, on the shores of Lake Geneva, cementing an unbreakable bond. He has provided the odd expression of optimism, saying in 2016 that the driver was showing 'encouraging signs' of recovery and that he was 'extremely hopeful we'll see Michael as we knew him at some point in the future'. Todt has long been the most frequent guest, welcomed by the family around twice a month. He has given a few more specifics, divulging that he and Schumacher have watched F1 races together on television. The Frenchman's reflections – which, despite their tenderness, acknowledge that 'there's no longer the same communication as before' – supports Gregoraci's suggestion that Schumacher is non-verbal. There is further corroboration from Felix Görner, a presenter with German broadcaster RTL and once the driver's frequent paddock companion. 'He is a person dependent on caregivers, who can no longer express himself through language,' he said recently. 'It's a very sad state of affairs. He was actually a hero, an indestructible hero. We're just clinging to hope, to a straw. But he's simply not well, so we won't see him again.' In many ways, Corinna's ability to sustain the official omertà around her husband is extraordinary. In 2019, the policy was tested to the limit by confirmation of their son Mick's elevation to the F1 ranks. But throughout his two seasons at the summit, inhabiting the most oppressive goldfish bowl in sport, Kehm acted on Corinna's behalf to ensure that he was never lured into any unwitting bulletin about Michael. The same hyper-vigilance has extended to the couple's daughter Gina. At her wedding last October to partner Iain Bethke, held inside the Schumachers' lavish Majorcan villa, guests reportedly had their phones confiscated to prevent the leaking of any images or videos. This still failed to stop accounts surfacing in Germany that Michael had attended the ceremony – reports since rubbished by Herbert as 'A1 fake news'. That said, the Schumacher link to the Balearic island is well-established. Spanish newspapers indicated in 2020 that Corinna had moved Michael on a more permanent basis to a property in Port d'Andratx, formerly owned by Real Madrid president Florentino Pérez, as she began a gradual relocation from their Swiss home. But even the particulars of this arrangement are fiercely guarded, with the family's precise division of time between Majorca and Switzerland kept secret so as to deter fans and paparazzi from prying on the houses. You can understand the reasons for reticence. In some quarters, the obsession with Michael's situation has long since gone from ghoulish to outright criminal. The Schumachers are still reeling from a trial earlier this year that culminated in three men being found guilty of a £12.5 million plot to blackmail them. Yilmaz Tozturkan, a nightclub bouncer, received a three-year prison sentence after he, with his IT expert son Daniel Lins and Schumacher's former bodyguard Markus Fritsche, had threatened to upload 1,500 pictures and videos of Michael, as well as confidential medical records, on the dark web unless they were paid the money. The material had been stolen from a computer and given to Fritsche, who passed it to Tozturkan at a cafe. Both Tozturkan and Lins had claimed to be offering the family a 'business deal'. Before the verdict was announced, Tozturkan said: 'I'm very sorry and ashamed for what I have done. It was a very disgusting thing. I take full responsibility.' During the trial, the Schumachers had voiced worries that one hard drive containing sensitive photos had not been recovered, despite several searches of the defendants' residences. Thilo Damm, their lawyer, confirmed their plan to appeal against the 'lenient' punishment, saying: 'We don't know where the missing hard drive is. So there is the possibility of another threat through the back door.' Kehm, the first witness called, gave an insight into the acute anxieties inside the Schumacher camp around breaches of trust. 'I got a call, and it was a number we didn't recognise, so at first we didn't answer,' she told the court in Wuppertal. 'But it kept calling and calling, so in the end I answered, and it was a man who said he had pictures of Michael, that if the family didn't want them published he could help. We would have to pay €15 million. He said the money was for the pictures and his go-between service.' In Corinna and the long-serving Kehm, at his side since joining as his personal press officer in 1999, Michael has two formidably effective gatekeepers. Now that he is seemingly no longer in a position to dictate his wishes, the two women unswervingly loyal to him exercise them on his behalf, upholding his long-held principle that his private life is off-limits. 'We are getting on with our lives,' she explained in the 2021 Netflix documentary Schumacher, the only interview she has given since the day of horror in the French Alps. ''Private is private,' as he always said.' Theirs was always a strong marriage, even under the stresses of the F1 hamster-wheel. Michael once said of Corinna, a celebrated equestrienne who became a European champion in Western-style horse riding: 'We share the same values. During all the time I was racing, she was my guardian angel.' Still, you cannot help but wonder at the toll that the tragedy of Michael's circumstances has wrought on his wife's wellbeing. Eddie Jordan, who died in March but who had given Schumacher his first F1 chance, recruiting him to his eponymous team in 1991, did not shy away from a view on the subject. Having known Corinna since before she married Michael, he said in 2023: 'This was the most horrific situation. Corinna has not been able to go to a party, to lunch or this or that – she's like a prisoner, because everyone would want to talk to her about Michael when she doesn't need reminding of it every minute.' Schumacher accumulated a vast fortune as the most decorated driver of his era, with a net worth estimated at £450 million. Clearly, this has cushioned the financial impact of the bills for his round-the-clock medical care. But money is a frippery when set against the nightmare that his accident has unleashed. At one level, there is the sorrow that Schumacher has apparently shown no progress to report, with the extent of his injuries – diagnosed at the time as cerebral contusion and oedema – causing terminal damage. At another, there is the constant concern that the carefully-maintained silence around his day-to-day life could be upended by malign forces. As gruelling as this year's court case proved, it was not the first time the family had been targeted by unscrupulous opportunists. Even as Schumacher lay fighting for his life in a hospital bed in Grenoble, just eight days after his ski crash descending the Combe de Saulire, a journalist sought to gain entry to his private room by posing as a priest. 'I wouldn't have ever imagined something like this could happen,' said a furious Kehm. Each time that a gross violation of privacy occurs, the culprit is full of contrition. Just as Tozturkan admitted his extortion attempt was a 'disgusting' act, Bianca Pohlmann, managing director of Funke – the company behind the notorious AI article in Die Aktuelle – apologised for the 'tasteless and misleading' stunt. And yet the pattern keeps repeating, with the voracious global appetite to learn more about Schumacher naturally hardening a resolve among his protectors to give nothing. Willi Weber, his ex-manager, has been critical of this circumspect approach, previously accusing the Schumachers of 'not telling the whole truth' about Michael and urging them to 'pour pure wine for his millions of fans'. At this stage, any such urgings are redundant. What remains of Michael's life will unfold according to Corinna's prescription, where, to whatever degree possible, he can feel the strength of the family bond, and where she and their two children can, in turn, map out their lives without prurient intrusion. It is worth asking whether that white helmet, now the pride of the Sir Jackie Stewart collection, should mark the end of the intrigue. There is something intensely poignant about seeing the addition of that 'MS' beneath the visor. It is as much as we had any right to expect, and as much as he is ever likely to provide. On the surface, it might look insignificant, with even Stewart conceding that it had needed the guiding hand of Corinna to produce. But the weight of its symbolism is profound, signifying that Schumacher, now 56 years old and the figure by whom all other champions are judged, is still with us, still capable of communicating through his touch. In an otherwise shattering tale, it is the one consolation to which we can cling.
Telegraph
36 minutes ago
- Telegraph
How Europe could go ‘Mega' by 2027
Poland's new president is a Trump-inspired nationalist. The government in the Netherlands has just been felled by an anti-migrant firebrand. Right-wing parties are already in government in Hungary and Italy, and in Berlin, the far-Right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is the main opposition after it was endorsed by JD Vance and Elon Musk in the February elections. As Europe begins a cycle of crucial elections over the next two and a half years, the radical insurgent Right has the momentum. By 2027, there could be eight nationalist prime ministers in the 27-member-strong European Union, which has already swung to the Right. Meanwhile, Donald Trump's White House is determined to 'Make Europe Great Again'. Allies in the right places could prove very useful to Mr Trump, who accuses the EU of trying to 'screw' the US on trade and through the regulation of American technology firms. If 2027 is the year Europe does indeed go 'Mega', there will be serious ramifications for EU policies on migration, Ukraine and net zero, as well as a push to assert national leadership over Brussels. Experts believe this week's win in Poland and ructions in the Netherlands will bolster the 'Mega' wing in Europe with proof of concept. 'I don't believe in domino effects, but I do believe in a demonstration effect,' said Pawel Zerka, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank. In other words, people in other countries are aware of and influenced by politics elsewhere. 'The biggest demonstration effect is coming not from other European countries, but from the US,' he said. 'The election of Donald Trump gives a legitimacy boost and a confidence boost to plenty of the far-Right parties across Europe and their electorates.' Many of the parties had 'ever tighter links to the Maga movement' and 'practical support' to get better results, he said. The Netherlands Geert Wilders led his Party for Freedom (PVV) to the hard-Right's first-ever general election win in November 2023. But the 'Dutch Trump' was forced to sacrifice his dream of being prime minister in coalition talks after his shock victory on a platform of 'zero asylum'. This time, he would become prime minister, he told reporters in The Hague, as he vowed to once again defeat the establishment conservative and Left-wing parties in October. The shock-headed populist may struggle to repeat the trick, or to find willing coalition partners, after toppling the government for not backing his hardline migration plans. Current polls have him with a narrow lead of one percentage point over the Left-wing GroenLinks-PvdA. But Mr Wilders was enjoying highs of 50 per cent before forming a coalition government that struggled to implement its strictest ever asylum policy. He is banking on those numbers recovering, and White House officials have already made clear he has Mr Trump's backing. With enough vote share, he could form a new conservative coalition with the pro-business VVD, provided it also posts strong results. Tellingly, its leader has not yet ruled out a second alliance with Mr Wilders. Poland Mr Trump hosted Karol Nawrocki at the White House before the Law and Justice-backed former historian won a knife-edge victory on June 1. The role of president is largely ceremonial in Poland, but it comes armed with the power of veto over new legislation. Law and Justice (PiS) won the popular vote (35.4 per cent), but fell short of a majority at the last general election in Poland. Donald Tusk, who won 30.7 per cent of the vote, cobbled together a large and unwieldy centrist coalition to take power. Since then, prime minister Tusk has sought to steer Poland back to the European mainstream. His reforms, including the liberalisation of some of Europe's strictest abortion laws, are set to be frustrated by Mr Nawrocki's vetoes. Mr Tusk has called for a vote of confidence on June 11 to shore up his restive coalition, which is trailing PiS in the polls. Even if that passes, it looks very unlikely his government will survive to the end of its term in 2027, and while it is unclear who the PiS's candidate could be in the next general election, a hard-Right prime minister is not unlikely. Czech Republic Businessman turned politician Andrej Babis is leading in the surveys – consistently polling about 30 per cent – ahead of October's general election in the Czech Republic. The last election saw him lose to a Conservative-Liberal coalition by just a handful of votes. Babis's party, ANO, obtained 27.13 per cent of the vote, while Spolu, which leads the coalition of the current government, won 27.79 per cent of the vote. If he scrapes together a few more votes, the populist will become prime minister for the second time. During his first spell in office, he donned a Trump-style red baseball cap. A Babis victory would mean that he, and potentially Mr Wilders, would join the highly influential European Council, which meets regularly in Brussels to give the EU institutions political direction. At present, the hard-Right have Italy's Giorgia Meloni and Hungary's Viktor Orban in the room, but their numbers could double by the end of the year to include Mr Babis and Mr Wilders. Hungary (2026) Mr Orban nailed his colours to Mr Trump's mast a long time ago and is a darling of American conservatives. The EU's longest-serving prime minister is looking to win a fifth consecutive term in office in elections in 2026. In 2022, his party obtained 54.13 per cent of the vote – the highest vote share obtained by any party in Hungary since the fall of Communism in 1989. His policies, such as laws insisting Hungary only legally recognises two genders, have drawn praise and emulation from Maga supporters. But he has angered Western EU member states by opposing sanctions on the Kremlin and banning gay pride marches. Mr Orban is currently the most vocal nationalist leader in calling for pan-European alliances of hard-Right parties to radically reform the EU. His party is in a European Parliament alliance with the parties led by Mr Wilders, Marine Le Pen, Ms Meloni's coalition partner Matteo Salvini, and Spain's Vox. Sweden (2026) Prime minister Ulf Kristersson's coalition is propped up by the hard-Right Sweden Democrats, which remains formally outside of government despite coming second in a 2022 election dominated by fears over immigration and crime. The far-Right nearly doubled their vote share between 2014 and 2022, from 12.86 per cent to 20.54 per cent, which is largely down to the Sweden Democrats. The Sweden Democrats have exerted considerable influence over the government and its agenda. The question is whether voters will give Jimmie Akesson enough of a mandate to finally bust the taboo that has so far kept a party partially founded by Nazi sympathisers from being formally in government. Italy (2027) Giorgia Meloni has emerged as a genuine stateswoman since she took power in 2022, and experts believe her example of government has made the hard-Right in Europe more credible. She has kept her Right-wing coalition together, which is no easy task in Italy. She positioned herself as a mediator between the EU and Mr Trump while successfully spearheading a drive to get Brussels' tacit backing for offshore migrant detention camps. Thanks to her, the Italian hard-Right's vote share has risen from just 1.97 per cent in 2013 to 27.2 per cent in 2022, and she will be optimistic of another victory in 2027's general election. She has much in common politically with Mr Orban, but they are divided over Ukraine, which has split the European hard-Right. She shares a European political party with Poland's Law and Justice, which is hawkish on Russia and will be contesting the general election in 2027 if Mr Tusk's vote of confidence passes next week. Spain (2027) Spain's conservatives won the popular vote – 33.1 per cent – in the last general election, but fell short of a majority. Their potential coalition allies, Vox, the far-Right and Trump allied nationalists, underperformed, obtaining just 12.4 per cent of the vote. That opened the door for socialist prime minister Pedro Sanchez to assemble an extremely broad coalition of the centre-Left, communists and Catalan and Basque separatists. Polarised Spain's culture wars have only got worse in the years since the 2023 election and the start of the divisive Mr Sanchez's second term. The pardoning of Catalan separatists and political discussions with former terrorists, as well as corruption allegations about his wife and allies, could cost him in 2027. France (2027) Emmanuel Macron called snap parliamentary elections, effectively daring the French to hand over power to the hard-Right, after Marine Le Pen's National Rally defeated him in the European Parliament elections last summer. National Rally did not get a majority, after a group of different parties united to keep out the hard-Right. But Mr Macron's party lost its majority in the National Assembly and has been a lame duck domestically ever since. Head of the largest single party in France, Ms Le Pen is well positioned for presidential elections in 2027, in which Mr Macron cannot stand. But Ms Le Pen was banned from running for the presidency in March after being found guilty of embezzlement. It drew immediate comparisons to the 'lawfare' waged on Mr Trump, who offered his support. She is appealing, but her protege Jordan Bardella will run in her stead if necessary. Polls are showing that either could win against Gabriel Attal, a contender to succeed Mr Macron as candidate – if they were to run. Ms Le Pen would beat him 53 per cent to 47 per cent, Bardella by 52 per cent to 48 per cent. The question is whether the 'front republican' will once again emerge in the second round of the presidential elections to keep the National Rally from power. Or, as it did this week in Poland, fall just short. The election of a Eurosceptic leader to the presidency of France, the EU's most influential member state alongside Germany, would be a political earthquake that would shake Brussels to its core. Why now? Andre Krouwel, who teaches political science at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, said the populist parties in Europe were comparing notes as they plotted their routes to power. He said: 'They use the success and failure of other parties to learn from and use in campaigns. You see a lot of copying of strategies, such as victim playing or attacking so-called elites.' In general, traditional parties had an advantage in their experience and ability to govern, he added. Mr Wilders' decision to pull the plug on his coalition was an example that proved populists were 'good at saying things, not doing them.' The parties were also 'super-unstable' and given to infighting. For Prof Krouwel, the rise of the populist Right across Europe has its roots in economic anxiety as well as fears over immigration. 'There was always an expectation that your children will do better than you. You can't say that now,' he said, adding that Dutch children were staying home far longer because they can't afford to move out. 'We are all becoming southern Europe and that is an explanation for the populist surge,' he said. Maria Skora, visiting researcher at the European Policy Centre think tank in Brussels, said there were certain broad trends common to many EU countries where the hard Right was on the rise. There have been 15 years of difficulties, including the eurozone and migrant crises. The pandemic was followed by the war in Ukraine and the resulting cost of living crisis. That all contributed to the sense that traditional parties were not delivering. Meanwhile, parties like the AfD were extremely effective at using social media and digital campaigning. 'It's a digital revolution, as big a revolution as you know, radio back in the day,' Ms Skora said. 'I think this feeds into this tribalism and polarisation, which we see in more countries.'
Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
Jorginho leaves Arsenal, signs for Flamengo before Club World Cup
June 7 (Reuters) - Italy midfielder Jorginho has joined Brazilian side Flamengo ahead of this month's Club World Cup, following a mutual termination of his contract with Arsenal, both clubs said. Jorginho, whose Arsenal deal was set to expire at the end of the month, has joined Flamengo on a contract until July 2028. The 33-year-old Brazil-born Italy international moved to North London from Chelsea in January 2023, making 78 appearances in all competitions for Arsenal. Arsenal finished second to champions Liverpool in the Premier League in the recently-concluded season. "We can confirm that we have reached a mutual agreement with Jorginho to end his contract with immediate effect to become a free agent," Arsenal said in a statement late on Friday. Having started his career at Italian side Hellas Verona before switching to Napoli in 2014, Jorginho won the Champions League, Europa League, Super Cup and Club World Cup titles during his time at Chelsea. Capped 57 times for Italy, he won the European Championship in 2020. "Jorginho's first assignment with Flamengo will be at the Club World Cup," the Brazilian Serie A club said. Flamengo will begin their Club World Cup campaign against Tunisian side ES Tunis on June 16 in Philadelphia. The expanded 32-team Club World Cup runs from June 14 to July 13 in the United States with $1 billion in prize money at stake.
