McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown has claimed Max Verstappen will walk out on his long-term Red Bull deal and join their rivals Mercedes.
Speculation has grown over Verstappen’s future as Red Bull will lose its Honda power unit supply at the end of the year and use their own designs instead from 2026. The team has already lost many of its top staff including chief technical officer Adrian Newey.Verstappen signed his last Red Bull contract after winning his first championship with the team in 2021. That should keep him at his current team until 2028, but Brown believes he won’t see it out.
“I think he’ll leave at the end of this year,” he told The Telegraph. “Most likely to Merc.”
Earlier this year a newspaper report claimed Aston Martin was preparing to make a high-value offer to Verstappen to reunite him with both Honda and Newey.
“There’s been talk of Aston Martin, too, with Adrian Newey joining,” said Brown. “But as great as Adrian is – and he’s the greatest ever – you need a whole team around you. You need the culture. That takes time.
“If I was betting, I’d bet on Merc. In the last 10 years, they’ve won the championship seven or eight times. Last year they won five races. They have stability. We know Toto [Wolff] likes him. And I think we all feel HPP [Mercedes High Performance Powertrains] is best-equipped on the power unit side heading into the new engine regulations next year.”
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Brown also sees the potential for movement in Mercedes’ driver line-up for George Russell and Andrea Kimi Antonelli. “George is out of contract at the end of this season and Kimi will be on a series of one-years.”
“There’s no love lost there. I don’t like how he rolls and no doubt he feels the same about me.
“But I think it’s good for the sport. You need different characters. You need these rivalries. Some are friendly, sporting rivalries. Some are a bit more vicious. It’s always been like that.”
Verstappen’s driving has been a focus of Brown’s criticism at times, particularly following his clashes with McLaren driver Lando Norris last year. But Brown has also praised the four-times world champion’s ability.
In Las Vegas last year Verstappen challenged Brown over a widely-misquoted comment of his from six months earlier, claiming he could only win the title in the fastest car. Brown later said Verstappen “is not going to take a car that’s 15th and win in it [but] he might be able to take a car that’s third-quickest and win it.”
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Kris
19th March 2025, 10:37
Quality stirring from Zak
Bobby (@shakenbake)
19th March 2025, 10:47
I have to say, the rivalry between Zak and Christian is just as fun as Max/George/Lando. Like Zak say’s it’s good for the sport. Got to love a bit of ****stirring!
Dex
19th March 2025, 11:31
Yeah, although they aren’t really that interesting, “robust” F1 characters, like those from the past. One is a typical corporate bureaucrat (with passion for racing, true), while the other one is kind of a sleazy person. They both love throwing low, cheap punches (Toto too, or three).
I’ll take any rivalry over pure boredom, but it’s a forced one, mostly done for our benefit (lesson learned from working with Netflix). It’s a bit pathetic, to be honest, and only done in front of the cameras, for sure.
It all looks childish, similar to how drivers argue over the radio. If I had a child who acted like this, it would be grounded for being a backstabbing tattletale and a gossiper without a backbone.
S Arkazam
19th March 2025, 11:50
If only they could collect all this stirring and make a nice off season pseudo documentary out of it.
There might be enough material to fill ten episodes or so.
BasCB (@bascb)
19th March 2025, 11:09
Exactly! Sure, there might even be some truth to it, or not. But regardless he stirs the pot and rumour mill and makes sure Max and Horner will be asked about this next weekend.
Phil Norman (@phil-f1-21)
19th March 2025, 10:44
I think Brown and Horner are as bad as each other. Vasseur and Wolf have a little more class I would say.
F1fan45
19th March 2025, 12:01
LOL, you forgot Wolff was all over Verstappen last year???
Palindnilap (@palindnilap)
19th March 2025, 12:39
You are possibly right. For the moment I quite like Brown for the way he is going after Horner, but I am not sure that I would still like him if Horner was gone. I see him somewhere between Horner and Wolff / Vasseur on the toxicity spectrum.
nunof
19th March 2025, 14:15
Well, so far there’s no evidence Brown is a creep, so that’s that
Doggy
19th March 2025, 13:47
I disagree. Toto, Horner, and Zac are at the same level. Fred is way better than them.
Having said that, I think its required to be a snake in order to do the type of job they do. Unfortunately though.
Jack
19th March 2025, 10:51
Usual attempts to try and destabilise RB / Max.
Isn’t the smart money on Max moving to Aston, they have an unlimited pot of money, Honda & Adrian Newey.
Only issue is getting Lance out.
MurasamaRA300 (@murasamara300)
19th March 2025, 12:05
Or Alonso might retire… in which case Verstappen would have a perfect wingman in Stroll.
I think you’re right otherwise as for Verstappen going to Aston.
Edvaldo
19th March 2025, 13:16
Alonso has a deal with Aston Martin, but not necessarily to drive. He might step away for someone like Max.
As for Stroll…he will probably hold on to the seat as long as he likes.
MichaelN
19th March 2025, 13:23
The way he spoke about it when that was announced last year seemed very much like he was already preparing for a post-driving career. He seemed to be envisioning a scenario where he would be connected with Aston Martin in a way Häkkinen always stayed a Mercedes man.
erikje (@erikje)
19th March 2025, 14:26
I see Aston the more likely choice too. Right now it looks like madness, but so did Hamilton to Mercedes in 2013 to a lot of people. Max would be reunited with Newey who we know can design a car to suit him. The only problem would be who’s his team mate.
If it were me I’d sit Stroll down and say he’s not racing in 2026. Put him in WEC or F1 development role and get Max and Alonso in for 2026. To soften the blow to Stroll and make him more likely to agree, I’d say he’s coming back in 2027 or 2028 depending on how the car is in 2026. If Stroll is smart he’d see the benefit in having a year out to let Alonso and Max develop the car. Alonso’s departure in 2027/28 could again be softened up with some money or Aston stock and a WEC drive or maybe he’d just be ready to retire by then.
Aston wouldn’t lose out by having Max and I see this as a much more interesting proposition for Max in 2026 than Mercedes.
MacLeod (@macleod)
20th March 2025, 7:42
Also Max would love to race on Le Mans which Austin Martin has a car for in combination with Alonso but that is if Red Bull does a bad job otherwise he stays.
James Bond (@jamesbond)
19th March 2025, 20:13
Stroll just bought a new superyacht. Is it for his son as he walks?
sim
19th March 2025, 10:53
If Max did go to Mercedes, Would it be GR looking for a new drive?
Philip Roden
19th March 2025, 11:17
Depends on how Antonelli does this year, but early indications look like it would be Russell leaving to get Max in
Nulla Pax (@nullapax)
19th March 2025, 11:00
Let’s get the silly season off to an early start huh? ;P
Vikrant
19th March 2025, 11:01
Even if he wants to leave, there is not any good team for Max to join.
Unlikely ferrari, merc and mclaren to change their driver next year.
AM may be an option
tielemst
19th March 2025, 11:05
After so many seasons of a steady 1-2 on the list of people who should really shut up sometimes, finally we have a real challenger.
Coventry Climax
19th March 2025, 17:52
Worded exactly as is. Couldn’t agree more.
Leo B
19th March 2025, 11:38
This is a first for a TP to announce the news of another team. Not classy.
MichaelN
19th March 2025, 11:54
Horner does it all the time, actually. The press even goes straight to him to ask about Tsunoda and Hadjar because Mekies is utterly irrelevant and Red Bull, somehow, is allowed a four car team.
Doggy
19th March 2025, 13:49
Two wrongs don’t make one right …
“Why level up when you can lower the bar” type-of-reasoning
anon
19th March 2025, 14:16
Not really – there have been plenty of times in the past when a team principal has indicated they expect figures in another team will be leaving. For a start, Horner has himself speculated within the past few months about Russell’s contract situation, and openly talked about the possibility of hiring him in the future if his contract at Mercedes wasn’t renewed and a seat opened up at Red Bull.
If anything, this is rather modest by past standards – remember that it became a standing joke that everyone knew that Alonso was going to Ferrari, to the point that Button was joking with Alonso in press conferences that it was public knowledge and he should just get it over with and make the announcement.
It’s also not really as if people here are any better – one of the major drivers of discussions on this site is the constant speculation about who may be moving elsewhere, so we’re all doing this to a greater or lesser degree.
Cherbert
19th March 2025, 21:24
“I think he’ll leave at the end of this year…most likely to Merc” is not an announcement.
Jere (@jerejj)
19th March 2025, 11:40
Even if Max were to leave Red Bull Racing prematurely, i.e., without seeing out his current contract duration, he’d still be more likely to leave after the 2026 season than this season so that he can see how well Red Bull Racing manages to upcoming technical regulation changes.
Patrick (@paeschli)
19th March 2025, 18:11
Unless he has inside information that things are not going well
builtInYorkshire (@olpeculier)
19th March 2025, 11:40
This is down to George.
Based on Sunday Kimi is going nowhere. Yes, early days, but as Joe Saward says, he’s Valentino Rossi with two extra wheels. He has it all.
Jere (@jerejj)
19th March 2025, 11:49
Even George isn’t realistically going anywhere anytime soon.
SteveP
19th March 2025, 12:23
Whether “he has it all” remains to be seen, but I did say, last year, that if Antonelli turned out to be as good as rumoured then the only way another driver would come in was if Russell left.
All in all, if Antonelli continues as he has started, I anticipate “entertainment” before this season ends.
However, it’s one race so far.
How stable the driver line up would be if Verstappen came in with the demands for star billing when there was already a next generation star there – that’s definitely an entertaining prospect, if you like fireworks…
slowmo (@slowmo)
19th March 2025, 14:53
Magnusson in his first drive for Mclaren finished second in his first race. Debut performances are not an indicator of guaranteed future success and certainly not when a large part of the performance was simply down to keeping the car on the tarmac and pitting at the right time and having all the pace defecit over the race wiped out by a safety car. People need to just give the guy some time to learn the ropes without any pressure of expectation otherwise they could destroy his career before it gets started.
Edvaldo
19th March 2025, 15:09
And the result was much more due to Mercedes nailing the call for tyres than anything else.
Leclerc, Hamilton, Tsunoda, and Gasly all came back behind him due to their late stops.
Not taking anything from him, it’s his first race and he was improving as it went, but the result does not reflect his performance.
Craig
19th March 2025, 12:22
As always with these things, I’ll only believe it when I see it.
Peter707
19th March 2025, 13:04
No reason to put the next Verstappen and the actual Verstappen in the same team.
Doggy
19th March 2025, 13:52
In fact it could be a good approach. Max has said he is looking to do other things ,ourside f1, before turning 30. The wealth of knowledge that kimi will get in the next 3 years, before Max possibly hanging his boots, will be unbelievable
Alex Peak
19th March 2025, 13:55
I can’t see that working at all. Antonelli is hyped as the next big star at Mercedes, Toto would be dumb to put Max (a teammate destroyer) alongside him.
Then again, I can’t see Max going to Lawrence Stroll’s dungeon that is AMR even with a ton of money on the table. He’d rather leave F1 than be brainwashed to hype up Lance.
Ben
19th March 2025, 14:07
Zero chance of this ever happening. Max has a team fully dedicated to him and one which will sacrifice the WCC for his WDC attempts by hiring weak team mates and developing the car in a direction which suits his driving style.
No other top team would promise him this so there’s not a chance he leaves. Until he does I like many others will respect his speed, but fail to see him as an all time great. For me that adaptability and proving yourself against the very best is always a sign of a true great.
Hamilton for example has gone against 3 world champions as team mates. Moved teams and won races in a range of different cars. I mean the 07/08 cars are a different category to what we race today.
Verstappen has had one of the most dominant cars in history against Perez, Albon, Gasly & Lawson!
I’d like to see him move teams as I strongly suspect he’d struggle show the same pace advantage over a team mate in equal machinery which hasn’t been designed specifically for him.
S Arkazam
19th March 2025, 15:02
Strong argument referencing car dominance against a team-mate :P
Patrick (@anunaki)
19th March 2025, 16:16
I don’t understand why you call the Redbull cars “the most dominant in history”. The margins used to be much bigger in the past. Current F1 is closer than it ever was.
Alonslow
19th March 2025, 16:41
Ferrari, in fact I expect it someday just another way of emulating Schumacher, I don’t know if Charles will stay at Ferrari forever and Max would be a good fit.
SteveP
19th March 2025, 16:58
I’m surprised the Max fans haven’t leapt on this already.
Hamilton has raced for three teams in F1.
McLaren: Teammate Alonso 2x WDC
Mercedes: Teammate Rosberg wasn’t a WDC when he was racing against Lewis
Ferrari: Teammate Leclerc – not a WDC.
Still, he has raced against a WDC teammate, and beaten him.
Tommy Scragend
19th March 2025, 17:16
Hamilton was also teammate of Button at McLaren.
But he has only raced against two teammates who had already been champions at the time they were his teammates.
Alonslow
19th March 2025, 17:25
You forgot Jenson, that would be two WDC, still I wouldn’t say Lewis beat Alonso, for the standings yes he was ahead but c’mon same points, they tied.
And he beat Jenson twice, but lost one and interesting fact is that if you sum all the points in those 3 season together Jenson ‘beat’ him with 672 points to Lewis’s 657, overall while I say Lewis did beat Jenson it was actually pretty close, Lewis was better on 2010 but not that much ahead, Jenson was far better than Lewis in 2011 and took a big lead in overall points and they almost tied in 2012 with only two points of difference, they were way closer than most people probably remember.
stefano (@alfa145)
19th March 2025, 15:25
doesn’t make much sense. Replacing Alonso at Aston at the end of 2026 is the most likely scenario IF Verstappen wanted to leave Red Bull, which I doubt he does. He will want to try the new regulation Red Bull before making a decision.
The Dolphins
19th March 2025, 19:37
This is how I see it as well. Max is RB though and though, if they can’t get it in ’26 then he’ll be interested in the fastest car for ’27 or call it quits as he’s often threatened. Undoubtedly a lemon of a car in ’26 gives him an exit clause much like Vettel had in ’14
JMDan (@danmar)
20th March 2025, 13:10
“In the last 10 years, they’ve won the championship seven or eight times.” And that’s why he’s not a Math professor!! :)