Red Bull is going to lose Max Verstappen sooner rather than later

If Red Bull does not have a balanced, predictable and winning car, Max Verstappen will inevitably leave the team.
Red Bull is experiencing a pronounced decline that could, very soon, experience its lowest point when they lose Max Verstappen and it is not nonsense to say that the four-time champion of the F1 He will not fulfill the contract he has signed with the team until 2028.
In the last two years, events have been chained that point to the end of an entire era in the very successful Milton Keynes team, led by Christian Horner.
The flight of key talents such as the designer Adrian Newey and his collaborators Rob Marshall and Dan Fallows; sporting director Jonathan Wheatley and many more, are not isolated or free events and their repercussions are very evident.
Without the most important people in car development, Red Bull saw a precipitous drop in the RB20’s performance, which was pointed out by Verstappen.
The Dutchman’s annoyance was literal and he expressed it clearly when after the 2024 Spanish Grand Prix, 10 races went by in which he only got on the podium four times, without victory.
Due to the performance of the second pilot Sergio PerezRed Bull’s critics stopped seeing that since the team became headless without Dietrich Mateschitzthe internal struggle eroded all fronts of an organization that previously enjoyed harmony.
Horner, previously a unifier of wills, became the target of abuse accusations linked to, none other than, an employee who had a relationship with Max Verstappen’s father, the very controversial Jos.
Those types of scandals do not go with people like Newey, who quickly set foot in the market and set sail into the deep waters (deep in dollars and euros) of Aston Martin.
On Tom Clarkson’s podcast, Beyond The Grid, Horner had said a few months ago that the most important hire in Red Bull’s history had been Adrian Newey. Now, Horner himself, without the designer, assures that he will not be missed.
The one who does miss him is Max, who has been said for months to be looking for the best possible exit from Red Bull, because he knows that without Newey, without Sling (who is also going to Aston Martin) and with the internal conflicts between Horner and Helmut Marko will not be able to compete with McLarenfirst force of the grill, Ferrari half a step back, mercedes that is slowly recovering and the growing potential of others like Alpine.
Verstappen is looking for a suitable destination where he can aim to win more drivers’ titles and 2025 will give him the right measure of this. If Red Bull is the fourth of the four teams to win Grands Prix in 2024, they will see him go.
Media in Europe report that there is an offer of one billion euros from the Canadian magnate Lawrence Stroll to obtain the services of ‘Mad Max’.
Money is a powerful magnet, but Stroll has something more valuable to Verstappen: he has Newey, Honda, a new wind tunnel and a factory full of talent stolen at the expense of other teams.
But how is Max Verstappen going to fit in Aston Martin when there are no less talented Fernando Alonso and the owner’s son Lance Stroll?
Well, they would make room for him anyway. Alonso’s contract expires in 2026, but if Verstappen wants to start the era of the new regulations in a new team he will not wait until 2027, so thinking about a ‘sabbatical’ year for the young Stroll would not be unreasonable.
At Red Bull, at least between 2021 and 2014, Max Verstappen had the support, yes support like all his letters, from his teammate Czech Perezwho far from competing with him (total chimera) was a team player, who provided him with an internal tranquility that did not take away from his achievement of his four championships.
And it’s not that Checo Pérez could have challenged Max for the title, or not, that is the subject of another analysis based on the development of the RB cars, but that he taught him that you could be a professional without having to be an enemy.
Max is capable of destroying the teammate next to him, we’ll see what the New Zealander Liam Lawson has to say about it, so if he had to fight power to power with Alonso, it would be, first, a great spectacle and, second, such time a reissue of what happened at McLaren in 2007, where the Spaniard and Lewis Hamilton They finished each other and left the door open for them. Kimi Raikkonen stole their wallet and title in the last race of the year.
A Verstappen-Alonso duo would be an interesting counterweight to Hamilton.Charles Leclerc, Lando Norris–Oscar Piastriwhile Max with Stroll would give many advantages when it comes to the Constructors’ Championship.
Is Aston Martin the only possible destination for Verstappen’s talent? I don’t believe it. It is not safe to say that the moment Max decides to go to the driver market, any team would question the possibility of attracting him.
Ferrari has a very clear bet with Leclerc and Hamilton, but if one of the two comes out very badly from that fight in Maranello…
Or yes in Mercedes Andrea Kimi Antonelli does not turn out to be the generational talent that is expected or it takes longer than expected to develop the potential that led him to replace Hamilton, perhaps Toto Wolff could, why not if he has already hinted at it before, close Max Verstappen’s eye and put his service all the power of the German brand, in the end the pilot who is a close friend of the Austrian Marko, is a cold character who does not allow himself to be carried away by sentimentality.
McLaren has a duo full of youth and skill, but it is very naive to think that two drivers with aspirations to be champions like Norris and Piastri will be able to withstand being Zak Brown, Andrea Stella and company opt for one to fight for the drivers’ title. Necessarily, one, whether it happens or not in reality, will feel relegated and will seek new horizons. That’s where having Verstappen would be a great answer for the Woking team.
The rest of the grid would have to develop a car and a team that competes for the title to be able to aspire to be considered by Verstappen and at the moment neither Alpine and less Williams, Haas, Sauber-Audi or the rising cadillac you can think about that.
The champions look for the best cars and Red Bull tends strongly not to have it, despite the fact that Pierre Waché and Enrico Balco, technical director and head of aerodynamics, promise that the RB21 will no longer be like him RB20a car without balance, with strong problems in fast and slow corners, and without Newey’s eye in its development, it was a monstrous beast that only Verstappen was capable of leading to win the F1 drivers’ title.
If Red Bull does not have a balanced, predictable and winning car, Max Verstappen will inevitably leave and behind him, surely, the jobs of several will fall, including Christian Horner.