On paper, Verstappen is a Red Bull driver next year and beyond. A spokesperson for Red Bull said: “Max has a contract until 2028.”
At the same time, Verstappen and his management spoke with Mercedes to move there next year. And it is likely that Verstappen could find a way to get out of his Red Bull contract if he really wanted.
Red Bull Motorsport advisor Helmut Marko said in April that he had “Big concern” About the future of Verstappen in the team gave its performance at the time. And in March, he told BBC Sport: “We know that if we do not deliver to Max, all the best pilots have performance clauses in their contract.”
For Verstappen, there are obvious reasons for which a distance from Red Bull to Mercedes may seem attractive.
He won four consecutive pilot titles with his current team, but in the past 18 months, Red Bull has slipped from their competitive pedestal.
Verstappen accumulated such a great lead in the first half of last season that he was able to retain a late challenge from McLaren and Lando Norris with relative comfort.
But McLaren started this season strongly this season, and Red Bull was unable to set up a coherent challenge.
Verstappen won two victories, but they came to similar types of circuits – those with mainly fast corners. In balance, the McLaren is the faster car.
This came in the context of Red Bull losing its legend of design Adrian Newey in Aston Martin, and the longtime sports director Jonathan Wheatley in Sauber.
The former Red Bull pilot, Sergio Perez, dismissed at the end of last season, but was able to negotiate an agreement that forced the team to pay him for the two years of his contract they are not carried out, said in a podcast this week that the decline of Red Bull dated directly from the departure of Newey.
It would not be surprising that, under these circumstances, Verstappen’s confidence in Red Bull’s ability to design a fully competitive car had struck.
Then there are the new rules in force in F1 next year, which represent a major change for cars and engines. The change of engine is particularly important. It increases the proportion of total engine performance provided by 50%electrical components.
Red Bull has created a new company to develop and build its own engine. It was always going to be a difficult task, and for the moment, the generalized belief within F1 is that Mercedes opens the way to performance with new engines, and that Red Bull is struggling.
Verstappen is therefore examining a situation where he has serious questioning points on Red Bull’s future prospects, and every reason to believe that Mercedes could provide him with a more competitive car next season.
