According to a report, Max Verstappen wants to leave Red Bull due to the poor performance of the car and 88 million dollars on the Aston Martin form. Red Bull Christian Horner had played all reports.
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Max Verstappen will run for Red Bull next season and there is no crisis in Formula 1 team, said director Christian Horner on Friday while speculation was running on the future of the champion.
Rumors swept away the sport after the Red Bull motor sports consultant, Helmut Marko, spoke last weekend that the Dutch driver could trigger outing clauses and leave – with Mercedes and Aston Martin the main candidates.
“There was a lot of noise outside the team,” Horner told Sky Sports Television at the Saudi Grand Prix of Djeddah.
VirtsAppen will remain in Red Bull, feels Horner
“Max reaffirmed its commitment yesterday. We focus on the remuneration of the car, this is where we concentrate. Max is one of them, he is a committed member of the team. The rest is all speculation.”
When he was asked if the champion of the four times, who said Thursday that he did not think of his future, would be to run for Red Bull next season, Horner replied: “Yes, absolutely”.
“People will always have their concerns. As a team, we focus on sorting the car. Sort the car and it doesn’t even become a point of discussion. ”
The Italian newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport suggested earlier, without any source, that Aston Martin was ready to offer Verstappen $ 88 million a year for three years with Saudi funding.
The team, controlled by the Canadian billionaire, Lawrence Stroll, has the Saudi energy giant Aramco as a title sponsor and took the high -level designer Adrian Newey from Red Bull with Honda who also changes next year.
Aston Martin’s boss Andy Cowell told journalists that the team was concentrated on 2026 with the current twinning Fernando Alonso and Stroll’s son, Lance.
Best engine
Verstappen, which has a contract for 2028, subject to the exit clauses, was also linked to the former Mercedes champion who have George Russell and the Kimi Antonelli recruit this year and which should largely have the best engine in 2026.
McLaren’s team boss Zak Brown said in March that he expected Verstappen to join Mercedes, but the former Mercedes James Vowles strategy chief, who is now heading Williams.
“(Verstappen winning) Japan was breathtaking for me, well done to him, but it also comes with a lot of drawbacks that you have to recognize,” he told journalists on brunch.
“And I think what Mercedes has is a great culture with two drivers who deliver near the top of the car and with one who is on the way.
“So, personally, I don’t think there is a place for (Verstappen).”
Vowles said that Antonelli, 18, was to be very competitive while Russell, excluding contracts at the end of the year, could not be blamed.
Horner talks about meeting the “crisis” of Red Bull
Horner also discussed the reports of a “crisis meeting” from Red Bull in Bahrain last weekend, where Verstappen finished only sixth.
“It was not a crisis summit. If you sit with your engineers and discuss the race, I would not describe it as a crisis summit,” he said.
“We are not where we want to be. We have problems with the car we work and the whole team works hard.
“We know what are the problems, he introduces a series of upgrades to the coming races to approach some of these shortcomings.”