Max Verstappen, on Wednesday, delivered a blow to Mercedes by insisting he will not be joining them next season.
The triple world champion instead committed himself to Red Bull for 2025, though moving to the Silver Arrows a year later remains a possibility to coincide with a major revamp of the regulations.
The 26-year-old’s future has been a highly charged subject since his boss Christian Horner was engulfed by scandal earlier in the year. The English executive hung on to his job after being cleared by an internal investigation into claims he coerced a female employee.
However, the fallout pitted Horner against Max’s father, Jos, the former Formula One driver who nurtured his son’s talent. Verstappen Snr said the team would ‘explode’ if Horner stayed, and he has since talked to Mercedes boss Toto Wolff about Max moving there, despite Max’s Red Bull contract running until 2028.
He has get-out clauses in his contract, not least one that states he can leave if Red Bull’s motorsport adviser, Dr Helmet Marko, walks away.
+2
Max Verstappen delivered a blow to Mercedes by insisting he will not join them next season
+2
The 26-year-old’s future has been a highly charged subject since his boss Christian Horner (left) was engulfed by scandal earlier in the year
Pressed ahead of this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix about whether he would definitely be at Red Bull next year, Verstappen said: ‘Yes. We’re already working on next year’s car. When you’re very focused on that it means you’re also driving for the team.’
Verstappen’s commitment adds some much-needed stability to the world championship-winning team after the upheavals of the past few months, which have seen star designer Adrian Newey walk away.
Losing Verstappen would have been a blow so major that Horner might not have survived the departure.
Wolff, meanwhile, remains cautiously optimistic he can land his No 1 target in due course. Only this week, Wolff’s fellow shareholder and Mercedes-Benz shareholder Ola Kallenius said there was ‘an opportunity’ to sign Verstappen with the new engines coming in for 2026. He added the Dutchman ‘would look good in silver’.
